Customer Reviews

Jps Commentary on Esther (JPS Bible Commentary)

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Fully half of this book is devoted to a discussion of the background of the work and its interpretations. It is quite helpful in understanding and interpreting the text. There is a ten page bibliography that makes it clear the work was exhaustively researched and many points of view were considered.

This commentary fills a large gap between the usual superficial Bible commentaries and very advanced works like the International Critical Commentary. (The volume on Esther in that series is anyway hopelessly out of date.) It provides a lot of solid information in a large solid volume but without overwhelming technicalities. Its attitude is that Esther is a comic novel, presumably with no historical basis for its plot although the background details are confirmed by modern archaeology. Don't expect light reading, but after you have read this you will have learnt a lot.

The author's presentation is not so complex to loose the lay scholar, but is detailed enough to provide an excellent resource for study. This book is well suited to the lay person studying on their own or preparing for congregational bible studies.