Biblical Allusions in Turtledove's Work

The Bible is one of the most widely read and studied books in Western Civilization. As the vast majority of Harry Turtledove's works are set in a world where the Bible exists, dozens if not hundreds of his characters refer to passages from it. The references are rarely significant to the plot, but sometimes give brief insight to a particular character or culture.

Gideon
Gideon is an Israelite military commander from the Book of Judges.

Haman
Haman the Agagite המן האגגי, or Haman the evil המן הרשע is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther. In the story, he is prime minister in the Persian empire under King Xerxes the Great. When he thinks he has been insulted by Mordecai, a leader of Susa's Jewish community, Haman plans the complete genocide of Jewry. In the process, he builds a proudly ostentatious gallows on which he plans to hang Mordecai specifically. Unknown to Haman, Xerxes' consort Queen Esther, a secret Jewess and the niece of Mordecai, has learned of the plan. Mordecai and Esther concoct a plan which entraps Haman into perjuring himself before the King, leading to his being hanged on the very same gallows he built for Mordecai, who succeeds him as prime minister.

Haman's defeat is celebrated in the popular Jewish holiday of Purim (named after the "lots" Haman used to calculate strategy). This holiday is celebrated each March, and often involves pageants and puppet shows portraying Haman as an exaggerated comic villain.

Secular historians doubt the veracity of the Purim story, as the surviving accounts of Xerxes' inner circle do not mention any figures resembling Mordecai, Esther or Haman. The story may have originated as a myth about the Babylonian deities Marduk and Ishtar, and the Zoroastrian Devil-like figure Ahriman.

Haman's story is referred to in proverbial shorthand by characters in various Harry Turtledove works, who declare that certain traitors and other malefactors will be "hanged higher than Haman." Such proclamations can be found in The Guns of the South, "Must and Shall", The Two Georges, The Man With the Iron Heart, "Lee at the Alamo", and several volumes of the Southern Victory series. The phrase was used in famous OTL speeches by Stephen Douglas and Woodrow Wilson, either of which may have inspired Turtledove's use of the catchphrase.