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It's not obscure at all. If you want to do brutal and animalistic, you have to go to the ancient world. I don't see any reason why Mordecai would lie. True, Moses probably never existed, but by the time the Jews became Persian subjects literacy was widespread. Esther has all the earmarks of a contemporary account. I suppose you want to deny the Roman conquest of Carthage ever happened? That was a juicy one too. The thing about religions is that they love to weasel. They will slap a coat of paint on any atrocity committed in the name of their god and call him spotless.
I didn't mention the German holocaust of the Jews, Stalin's Russian purges or the Turkish holocaust of the Armenians because they were not battles, but processes that took years. That's entirely different from whacking 75,000 people in one day with swords and spears.
Most of the bloody battles in history came when a siege was successful. The multiple sacks of Rome come to mind, which reduced the population of the city from a million to a few hundred. The sack by the Vandals under Alaric stands out, but there are no records of how many died. The Assyrians were pretty brutal when they conquered a city, and were the ones who invented hauling conquered people into distant lands for slavery, while giving their army and allies land in conquered territory. Lots of empires adopted the practice, which was the milieu your buddies the Jews were living in. They just adopted the morals of their masters, and were conscientious enough to count the bodies afterward.
Today's Purim! How fitting!
The way I learned it is that only the people who actively went after the Jews were actually killed; nobody randomly went from town to town to kill off an obscure "enemy" of all the Jews. Now, is the whole thing pretty brutal? Sure. But, if people were coming for me and my family, I probably would kill them, too, and be quite happy to be able to defend myself. Rest assured a lot of Jews are actually quite uncomfortable with all the people killed in the story as long as they have never read the entire story attentively. When they do, a lot are then appeased, especially upon hearing how Mordecai then went on to help out ALL people of the empire, Jews and non-Jews alike.
The siege of Stalin Grad, which is probably the deadliest modern battle in human history. and the Siege of the Baghdad by the Mongols vs the Abbasid Caliphate. The Mongols devastated Baghdad for years to come such as drying up its water wells with salt. Mongols threw books into the Euphrates river which turned black due to the ink. Baghdad was the center of the world but the siege destroyed Islamic world. Mongols were pretty brutal when it comes to war.
It's not obscure at all. If you want to do brutal and animalistic, you have to go to the ancient world. I don't see any reason why Mordecai would lie. True, Moses probably never existed, but by the time the Jews became Persian subjects literacy was widespread. Esther has all the earmarks of a contemporary account. I suppose you want to deny the Roman conquest of Carthage ever happened? That was a juicy one too. The thing about religions is that they love to weasel. They will slap a coat of paint on any atrocity committed in the name of their god and call him spotless.
Most historians will conclude that the Book of Esther is historical fiction. Some elements are true - such as the persecution of jews in ancient Persia. Otherwise none of the names or dates match up historically, there is no other contemporary account, and really it makes no sense - why would the Perisan king give an order for the slaughter of his own people? Basically, what Purim was is a biblical "Game of Thrones" fiction for children. Although I am sure you can scour the internet and find biblical scholars who will swear it's all true, as you can find some swearing that the tales of Adam and Eve are true.
Your 2nd and 3rd paragraph are relevant to this thread but not to the point of contention - a.) why are you specifically mentioning a dubious old testament passage in a factual discussion of battles, and b.) why are you calling out the Festival of Purim as a Jewish "celebration of the slaughter of 75,000". Once again, the focus on the Jewish Celebration of Purim is the avoidance of the extinction of the jews, not the revenge side. It indicates your real motive and agenda is something other than history.
To de-stress myself just a little, forget everyday problems...
What is in your opinion the most brutal battle ever fought? I am not asking neccesarily to be the one with most fatalities. Could be any era: paleolithic, ancient, medieval, 18th century, 19th century, modern, ...
I am now reading about russo-turkish war 1877-78. I was shocked about Shipka pass, animalistic as it could get. Just look at this realistic painting:
Russian soldiers ran out of ammunition, then, they throw stones to turkish soldiers and these fall 3820 ft.
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