<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Book of Esther, also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll" (Megillah), is a book in the third section (Ketuvim, "Writings") of the Jewish Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and in the Christian Old Testament . It is one of the five Scrolls (Megillot) in the Hebrew Bible . It relates the story of a Hebrew woman in Persia, born as Hadassah but known as Esther, who becomes queen of Persia and thwarts a genocide of her people . The story forms the core of the Jewish festival of Purim, during which it is read aloud twice: once in the evening and again the following morning . The books of Esther and Song of Songs are the only books in the Hebrew Bible that do not explicitly mention God . </P> <P> The biblical Book of Esther is set in the Persian capital of Susa (Shushan) in the third year of the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus . The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes (both deriving from the Persian Khshayārsha), and Ahasuerus is usually identified in modern sources as Xerxes I, who ruled between 486 and 465 BC, as it is to this monarch that the events described in Esther are thought to fit the most closely . </P>

Where did the story of esther take place