The book of Esther was cited in our New Testament - for as long and wherever 1 Clement was copied. Jesus, Paul, and the Evangelists didn't use it (although maybe a narrative trope or two got into that Herod and John story). The Jews of Judaea didn't use it either. But Esther was wildly popular out east and, well, the orientals did the Talmud. So a local Jewish story in Susa became the basis of Purim, in Esther 9: bringing into Judaism the Achaemenid Bonfire-Night, Herodotus' Magiphonia.
Esther took on many accoutrements to become worthy of the pious west of Babylon. As far as I know, 1 Clement was the first to cite the story. if he had it in Greek, he had an expanded version as notes her entreaty to God, still in force among the Orthodox [UPDATE 4/1 now I've reread it]. Josephus, later and more-proudly Jewish, also accepted it.
David Frankel thinks Esther was already being expanded in Hebrew. Esther was not intended to support Achaemenid brutality against rebels - at first. But as a rule throughout any empire, the saecular court could expect the "exile" population to support him over the natives and his own priesthood. So in Susa, Jews supported the shah against Elamites and the magoi. In Esther's text, was how they did it. Outright Achaemenid proclamations made it out to Elephantine up the Nile and even, at home, into Ezra's book. [Clement has nothing of these calendrical details.]
Later on at home, one imagines that most western Jews should have soured on Empire, in its Italian form. But, well... Josephi gotta Joseph.
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