Explores different traditions and usage of Esther in Judaism and Christianity, without neglecting the fundamental questions in scholarship.

This book situates the book of Esther in the intellectual history of Ancient Judaism and provides a new understanding of its purpose.

The book of Esther is one of the most challenging books in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, not only because of the difficulty of understanding the book itself in its time, place, and literary contexts, but also for the long and tortuous history of interpretation it has generated in both Jewish and Christian traditions. In this volume, Isaac Kalimi addresses both issues. He situates 'traditional' literary, textual, theological, and historical-critical discussion of Esther alongside comparative Jewish and Christian interpretive histories, showing how the former serves the latter. Kalimi also demonstrates how the various interpretations of the Book of Esther have had an impact on its reception history, as well as on Jewish-Christian relations. Based on meticulous and comprehensive analysis of all available sources, Kalimi's volume fills a gap in biblical, Jewish, and Christian studies and also shows how and why the Book of Esther became one of the central books of Judaism and one of the most neglected books in Christianity.

What if the way the book of Esther has been taught to us in church and retold to us in films, cartoons, and romance novels has missed the original point of the story? Far from being models of piety and devotion, Esther and Mordecai seem indifferent to the faith of their ancestors. How then did this story become part of the Bible and gain the broad acceptance that it has? If the church should not neglect the story, how should it be read? Esther and Her Elusive God calls Christians to avoid the common attempts to make Esther more palatable and theological, and to reclaim this secular story as Scripture. Readers will be encouraged to see in Esther a profound message of God's grace and faithfulness to his wayward people.

The biblical book of Esther records an account of Jewish resistance to attempted genocide in the setting of the Persian Empire. According to the text, Jews were targeted for annihilation simply because of their Jewish identity. However, the story also reports that they were allowed to defend themselves against anyone who sought to kill them. In the context of attempted genocide, the message of Esther addresses a timeless and universal issue of justice - that humans have the right and responsibility to defend themselves against those who intend to murder. 'Jews and Anti-Judaism in Esther and the Church' shows how the anti-Judaism that is a central feature of Esther relates to the contemporary issue of the contested legitimacy of the State of Israel as part of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. In her outstanding book, Dr. Tricia Miller uses an academic approach to demonstrate the relationship of historic theology to current events concerning Israel for the purpose of encouraging Christians to support Israel's right to exist and defend itself against those who seek its destruction.

The proceedings of a symposium entitled Esther 2000 held in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska in April 2000, the book contains a collection of essays that engages all aspects of the biblical book of Esther. From questions of textual criticism to the history of rabbinic interpretation to speculation on the modern form of commentary, this collection is sure to contain something for everyone interested in the book of Esther. Contributors include such well-known Esther scholars as Michael Fox, David Clines, and Carey Moore.

Among the books of the Old Testament, the book of Esther presents significant interpretive problems. The book has been preserved in Greek and Hebrew texts that diverge greatly from each other. As a result, Jews and Protestants usually read a version of the book of Esther that is several chapters shorter than the one in most Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. Jon D. Levenson capably guides the reader through both the longer Greek version and the shorter Hebrew one, demonstrating their coherence and their differences. This commentary listens to the voices of modern scholarship as well as rabbinic interpretation, providing a wealth of interpretive results

This collection of essays considers the Book of Esther from a literary and sociological perspective. In part one, Else Holt outlines the main questions of historical-critical research in the Book of Esther. She also discusses the theological meaning of a biblical book without God, and examines how the book was transmitted through the last centuries BCE. She also explores how the Hebrew and Greek variants of the Book of Esther picture its main character, Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia. In part two, Holt offers deconstructive reading of themes hidden under the surface-levels of the book. Chapters include discussions of Esther's initiation into her role as Persian queen; the inter-textual conversation with two much later texts, The Arabian Nights and The Story of O; and the relationship between Mordecai, the Jew, and his opponent Haman, the Agagite, as a matter of mimetic doublings. The last part of the book introduces the sociological concept of ethnicity-construction as the backdrop for perceiving the instigation of the Jewish festival Purim and the violence connected to it, and looks at the Book of Esther as an example of trauma literature. The concluding chapter analyses the moral quality of the book of Esther, asking the question: Is it a bedtime story?

Themes explored include: biblical authority, texts ofviolence, tradition, identity and the other, common hope. Contributors include: David Novak, Barbara Rossing, StevenWeitzman, Hindy Naiman, Ralph Klein, Barbara Bowe, LarryEdwards, Sarah Tanzer, Walter Brueggemann, Susan BrooksThistlethwaite, and David Sandmel.