1939: ahasuerus and xerxes Apr 6, 2020

A lot of names in the Bible are changed when being Anglicized or even Hellenized (linguistically speaking), but perhaps none so much as Achashverosh, or sometimes spelt Ahasuerus (אחשורוש), who is Xerxes (Ξέρξης) in Greek. This is because these were rendered independently, rather than going off the Hebrew as is common for other names. The Hebrew version used in the Bible comes from the Babylonian Aḥšiyaršu, originally from the Persian personal name Xšaya.āršan meaning 'king of men'; the Greek version comes from the related, Old Iranian Xšaya-ṛšā meaning 'ruler of heroes', and he was known to the Greeks as an imperial threat anyway.

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