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The Alpha Text (AT) of Esther has long presented scholars with an interpretive problem: Is it a translation of a hitherto unknown Hebrew Vorlage? Is it a recension of the Septuagint toward a Hebrew text different from the Masoretic Text? Or is it a revision of the Septuagint? In this carefully constructed and closely argued work, Kristin De Troyer opts for the latter solution. De Troyer’s richly nuanced examination is based upon the differences between actually existing texts, not on reconstructed texts such as the so-called Hebrew Vorlage of the AT, and interprets the AT as the result of redactional changes deliberately made by the author to adapt the LXX text of Esther to a new situation. De Troyer has chosen to work on MT and LXX 8, which is parallel to AT 7:14–41, because this chapter contains the original ending of the so-called older text of Esther.

“De Troyer has introduced a fresh and innovative approach to this subject matter.… It is a combination of painstaking text-critical and philological analyses, on the one hand, and hermeneutics, on the other hand.”
—Hebrew Studies

“De Troyer has added a new dimension to Septuagint studies.”
—International Review of Biblical Studies