Esther

As I understand it, this book of history, the last one in the OT, is also the only book in the Bible that doesn't mention God. It mentions court intrigues and politics under a Persian Satrap, and a plot to exterminate the Jews. Why is it that when you hear about Jews, you always hear about extermination, whether it's them doing it or someone else trying to do it to them?

Est 1:16,17 - Then Memucan said in the presence of the king and the officials, "Not only has Queen Vashti done wrong to the king, but also to all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For this deed of the queen will be made known to all women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, since they will say, 'King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.' "
This is known as a "slippery slope" fallacy. The assumption is that some action will inevitably lead to some horrible end result far out of proportion to the original offense. So the Queen didn't hop when the King said "hop." How would this lead all women to look with contempt on their husbands? As if that wasn't the natural state of things, anyway. {;-)

Est 4:3 - In every province, wherever the king's command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.
Here's an odd response to a threat! The King decrees the extermination of all the Jews, making sure everyone knows what the plan is. The Jewish response? Everyone gets dressed up in sackcloth (making sack makers rich, I suppose) and they lie down in the fire place! Myself, I'd beat feet getting into the next country!

Est 4:15,16 - Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, "Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish."
Esther, the Jewish girl picked to replace the recently "fired" Queen Vashti, was certainly brave. However, I wonder exactly what she hoped to accomplish by just fasting. Practically speaking, I'd think it would weaken those who were fasting so that when the executioners came, they'd be weaker than normal, unable to run away, even.

Est 9:5-10 - So the Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering, and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them. In the citadel of Susa the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred people. They killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, Poratha. Adalia, Aridatha, Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, Vaizatha, the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews; but they did not touch the plunder.
So this is what the holy, chosen people of God do when they get the upper hand. They act just like everybody else. It's interesting to see that they had some standards - killing enemies and their children, doing as they pleased with their enemies - but they didn't touch the belongings of the people they were executing. This may be related to Deuteronomy, and the old laws concerning the posessions of exterminated people.

Est 9:13-15 - Esther said, "If it pleases the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day's edict, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows." So the king commanded this to be done; a decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged. The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed three hundred persons in Susa; but they did not touch the plunder.
This is odd. It doesn't make much sense, but as I read this passage, just after reading the one above, it certainly appears that it's saying that Esther wants the corpses of the sons of Haman hung for display purposes. It could be that the writer was uncertain as to how these particular people died, but the end result sounds pretty barbaric. Then, there's the issue of a second massacre the day after the first. Five hundred victims the first day weren't quite enough for the Jewish bloodthirst. No, they had to go the following day and wipe out three hundred more!