Purim letters and decree source surface behind Esther 9

This article describes an entity that is not directly attested as an extant recoverable letter collection; it is inferred from source-citation traces and should not be read as ordinary documentation of surviving documents.

Epistemic status

Draft article. Esther 9 reports letters and book-record language, but the underlying documents are not extant here.

Summary

Esther 9 says Mordecai wrote and sent letters about Purim and that Esther's decree was written in the book. Inferpedia treats this as a written festival-institution source surface.

What is being inferred

The inferred entity is the written letter/decree source surface behind the institution of Purim in Esther 9.

What is attested

The text reports Mordecai writing, letters being sent, and the decree being written in the book.

Why infer this entity

The repeated writing and transmission notices make a bounded source surface distinct from Esther's royal chronicles.

Evidence ledger

• E1, Esther 9:20: primary trace for Mordecai writing.
• E2, Esther 9:20: primary trace for sent letters.
• E3, Esther 9:32: primary trace for book-record language.

Counterarguments

The notices may function to authorize Purim rather than cite recoverable documents.

Confidence scores

Direct attestation: 54. Existence warrant: 74. Specificity: 62. Reconstruction dependence: 82. Counterevidence: 22.

What would change the score

Specialist work on Esther 9, Purim institution history, or textual variants would change the score.