Because of the absence of religious values and the presence of sensuality and brutality, the book of Esther has posed a problem for interpreters throughout its history. For the first seven centuries of the Christian church, not one commentary was produced on this book. As far as we know, John Calvin never preached from Esther nor did he include it among his commentaries. Martin Luther denounced this book together with the apocryphal 2 Maccabees, saying of them, “I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities.”

Jobes, K. H. (1999). Esther (p. 21). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.