Esther in rabbinic literature R. Shimon b. Yohai said that it was because, unlike Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they had bowed down to Nebuchadnezzar's idol. However, he explained that since they did not mean to show devotion, but acted only for appearances sake, so God decreed only the apparent destruction of the Jews, but would not permit Haman to carry it out. A second reason draws a distinction between Daniel, who abstained from Nebuchadnezzar's table and the Jews (with the exception of Mordecai), who attended Ahasuerus' banquet in Chapter 1. Mordecai called upon her to pray for her people and then intercede with the
Development of the Old Testament canon the New Testament when it quotes the Old Testament. Other, older versions of the texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, have since been discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls and the Cairo Geniza. The traditional explanation of the development of the Old Testament canon describes two sets of Old Testament books, the protocanonical and the deuterocanonical books. According to this, some Church Fathers accepted the inclusion of the deuterocanonical books based on their inclusion in the Septuagint (most notably Augustine), while others disputed their status based on their exclusion from the Hebrew Bible (most notably Jerome). Michael Barber argues that