Esther exists in two significantly different ancient forms: the Hebrew text used in Jewish tradition and Protestant Bibles, and a longer Greek version, found in the Septuagint, that adds over one hundred additional verses, including explicit prayers by Esther and Mordecai and direct references to God entirely absent from the Hebrew, material Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include as part of the canonical book while Protestant Bibles either omit it or place it separately among the Apocrypha.
Scholars generally read the Greek additions as a later theological supplement, filling precisely the gap modern and ancient readers alike have noticed, the Hebrew original's total silence about God, though the reasons for that original silence remain debated: some scholars read it as a deliberate literary choice emphasizing hidden providence working through ordinary human action, others as evidence the book began as a more purely secular court tale later adopted into the religious canon.
Esther's complete absence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, unique among Hebrew Bible books, has fed further speculation that the Qumran community, with its own distinct religious calendar, may not have observed Purim at all, though the evidence remains circumstantial rather than conclusive. The Talmud itself records extended rabbinic debate over Esther's canonical status, ultimately resolved in favor of inclusion, in terms that echo the uncertainty surrounding several of the Ketuvim's more unusual books.