Trauma and Survival in the Hebrew Bible: A Womanist Reading of Esther

This book integrates womanist biblical interpretation with trauma theory while closely examining survival and the language of survival in the Hebrew Bible.

While survival is often a theme lifted when exploring Esther, the focus is typically on Jewish survival. This books centers the experiences of non-Jewish women and girls, specifically the virgin girls taken with Esther and Zeresh, the wife of Haman, amplifying their presence and reading their narratives alongside the autobiographies of Maya Angelou and Lezley McFadden to create a survival narrative that allows the reader to reimagine these often-overlooked girls and women.

Kamilah Hall Sharp is Director of the Doctor of Ministry in Public Ministry Program and Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and Public Ministry at Chicago Theological Seminary.