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
Old Testament theology Gabler made a distinction between dogmatic and biblical theology. Until then the OT was viewed in a systematic sense and only in relationship to New Testament (NT) understanding. Gabler began to study the OT in a critical sense looking at how the theology of ancient Israel would have been reflected in the OT books. This was a new way to look at the OT, as Robyn Routledge wrote in Old Testament Theology, “The OT was not written as a theological document, and a systematic approach necessarily involves imposing an alien order and structure on it.” Walther Eichrodt wrote his two