Negative results
A plus with no rabbinic witness is a finding. Here are the 14 of 80 units the bench does not carry, and the limits of the bench that bound the claim.
Units with no rabbinic witness
No verbatim or motif parallel outside the medieval retranslations. "Retranslation only" means the unit survives in Hebrew solely through the Additions' medieval return from Latin.
- A 1The date, and Mordecai's genealogy and tribe.nowhere
- A 2Mordecai introduced: a Jew in Susa, serving at court.nowhere
- A 3Mordecai among Nebuchadnezzar's Jerusalem captives.nowhere
- A 4The dream begins: cosmic tumult.retranslation only
- A 6At their voice, every nation musters for war against a righteous nation.retranslation only
- A 7A day of darkness and affliction.retranslation only
- A 8The righteous nation, in fear, prepares to perish.nowhere
- A 12Mordecai rests at court with the two eunuchs, Gabatha and Tharra.retranslation only
- A 14The eunuchs are examined, confess, and are led away.retranslation only
- A 17Haman, honored by the king, seeks revenge on Mordecai for the eunuchs' downfall.retranslation only
- B 6The decree: destroy them all, with wives and children, on 14 Adar.retranslation only
- D 2Radiant, calling on God, she takes her two maids to lean on.retranslation only
- D 9While speaking she faints again; the king and his household comfort her.nowhere
- E 6One sees this not from old histories but from recent impious deeds.retranslation only
The pattern: the opening images of Mordecai's dream survive only in the Yosippon family; the Greek's introduction of Mordecai says nothing the rabbis did not take from Esther 2:5–6; Addition A's version of the eunuchs' plot is a doublet of Esther 2:21–23; and the Hellenistic rhetoric of the second letter left no trace. Fourteen units cannot carry a stronger claim than that.
Works that returned nothing, as expected
Some works sat on the bench as controls, to test that the search does not find Esther where Esther is not. After verification none of them carries Esther reception: the Otzar Midrashim "Story of Daniel" (the study's negative benchmark), Genesis Rabbah 68, and b. Sanhedrin. The Targum to Job 42 and b. Bava Batra were never Esther candidates.
What the bench does not contain
- Esther Rabbah parashah 9 is present only at 9:7, the audience scene, through an anthology's verbatim copy. The rest of the chapter has no openly licensed Hebrew text.
- Lekach Tov on Esther (Tobiah ben Eliezer, c. 1100) and Aggadat Esther are not on the bench.
- Sefer Yosippon itself is not on the bench; its family is identified through the scholarship, through its descendants that are, and through one transcribed page.
- Yalkut Shimoni is searched but, lacking a stated licence, not reproduced.
- Christian reception is out of scope by design.
Model silence is never evidence. Only a verified search of a named text is.