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.

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.

Although the book of Esther contains no direct references to God, his fingerprints can be found all over it. In God Behind the Scenes, Wayne K. Barkhuizen helps us trace the unseen hand of God throughout the Esther narrative, while pointing out how the book is still relevant today. As we walk through the book, we’ll see how God was indeed active in preserving the people through whom the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would one day come.

Preachers and commentators often focus on Esther as a story of divine providence. Many go so far as to say that the absence of any mention of God in Esther is proof of his presence-a tenuous foundation upon which to build a case! GOD UNSEEN argues that Esther is indeed intended to be read in a religious context and that it does speak to God's providence, but shows this by a careful comparison of the text of Esther with many other Old Testament narratives that it echoes, thus setting it squarely in a canonical context. The result of such a contextual reading will give credence to the belief that God should be seen in those silences. Esther closely parallels life in 21st-century western culture. It tells the story of people who know how to be righteous followers of God, but who are surrounded by a world of paganism and, far too often, find themselves assimilating rather than standing apart. The characters receive no special revelation from God, nor does he seem to be present at all in their lives. Many Christians today live under a similar set of circumstances, so its message is vital. GOD UNSEEN's argument that the book of Esther is religious and that God is present in the narrative will help give practical shape to modern questions of what it means to live during the apparent silence of God.

In this BST volume, David Firth explores the paradoxically important book of Esther and its implications for our own context, where the reality of God's presence is experienced against a backdrop of God's relative anonymity and seeming absence. It calls us to courageously engage society and be at the forefront of standing for justice while trusting in the God that is always at work.

"In a counterfactual world resembling the 1930s, the state of Khazaria, an isolated nation of warriors Jews, is under attack by the Germanii. Esther, the precocious daughter of Khazaria's chief policy advisor, sets out on a quest to ensure the survival of her homeland"--

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