Chapter 5 - Historical Setting and Historicity

Summary

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 and textual, theological, and historical-critical discussions 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.