The Book of Esther between Judaism and Christianity

Isaac Kalimi is emeritus Research Professor of Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament studies, Ancient Israelite history, and Jewish Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. He is one of the most important and influential scholars in our time. His scholarly output has been prodigious and has encompassed a wide variety of fields. He is an ordinary member of the Academia Europaea and author of numerous books and articles, including The Reshaping of Ancient Israelite History in Chronicles (2005, 2012; R.B.Y. Scott Book Award of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies 2006); An Ancient Israelite Historian (2005); The Retelling of Chronicles in Jewish Tradition and Literature (2009); Fighting Over the Bible (2017); Metathesis in the Hebrew Bible (2018); Untersuchungen zur Jüdischen Schriftauslegung und Theologie (2018; Franz Delitzsch Prize 2019); and Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel (2018).

1. An Introduction; Part I. Esther: Story and History, Literary Features and Theology: 2. Esther's Story: Composition, literary unity, textual development, and noble characters; 3. Virtuosity, literary style and features; 4. The central message of Esther within biblical and ancient near east contexts; 5. Historical setting and historicity; 6. Ancient parallels to Haman's accusations; Part II. 'Oh, How Much They Love the Book Of Esther!' Esther Among the Jews: 7. Esther, Torah's Law, and the dead sea scrolls' community; 8. Esther in Jewish canon, tradition, culture and thought; 9. Identification of Jew-haters with Haman: New 'Hamans,' 'Purims' and 'Megillot'; Part III. Divine or Demon? Esther Among the Christians: 10. Esther in the Christian canon, interpretation, tradition and culture; 11. Esther, the Jews, and Martin Luther; 12. Christian Anti-Esther and Judeophobic interpretation; 13. Christian pro-esther interpretation; 14. Synthesis and conclusion; Bibliography; Indexes.