Genocide in Esther? My Response in JSOT to a Recent Attempt to Defend Haman (and my first ever tier-1 article!)

This post modified on 8/11/2026, and shortened somewhat.

**Note that I have personally corresponded via email with the author of the original article and do not believe that he meant to be antisemitic or cause grief to any particular people group. All of us, myself included, have written stuff that we could have phrased differently, and we can all learn and improve from that.**

The Lord has a sense of humor, or at least irony. I am a New Testament specialist, with multiple academic publications on 1 Peter, yet I have striven in vain to get published in a tier-1 journal! And now, suddenly, I have an article in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament on Esther, which until a few years ago was my least favorite book of the Bible, if having a "least favorite book" is not heretical for somebody committed to the inerrancy of all 66 books! (Click here to see the article and abstract on JSOT's website; email me personally at phimes@gmail.com if you would like a copy).

Here is the abstract:

"A 2021 article in HTS Teologiese Studies advances the thesis that in the book of Esther ‘lawlessness by the Jewish diaspora community triggered genocide in the Persian Empire’ and that ‘Jews provoked the Persian authorities by disobeying the laws of the land’. Much of that article is devoted to a defense of Haman in responding to what the author portrays as the ‘lawlessness’ of the Jewish diaspora community. This article offers a three-fold response: (1) a critical analysis of both Haman and his accusation of ‘lawlessness’ against the Jewish diaspora minority, along with that article’s affirmation of that lawlessness; (2) a critique of that article’s accusation of ‘genocide’ against the Jewish diaspora community along with a discussion of the alleged violent vengeance of that same community vis-à-vis Esther 8–9; (3) a warning that the attempted vindication of Haman is nothing new, but possesses a disturbing Wirkungsgeschichte."

For the record, one of the anonymous peer-reviewers of my article for JSOT spoke of "the almost explicit antisemitism" in the HTS article. It is indeed extremely troubling.

The journey to this, my first and so far only tier-1 publication, is bizarre. In 2021, and article was published about the book of Esther in HTS Teologiese Studies. (click here to read this open access article). I was aware of this article by 2022, and was "stirred up," so to speak, but did not at first commit to a course of action until a guest speaker at our college spoke on the plight throughout history of the Jewish people. I wrote the article and initially sent it to a different journal, which was not interested in it (no peer review), and after their response sent it in to JSOT. I received a "heavy revision" decision. Both initial peer-reviewers were overall favorable (though one of them wondered if the article really needed to be written), but both had some good recommendations for revision, which I almost completely implemented. The third reviewer, after revision, was also favorable, and had just a few more suggestions, which I implemented. The process only took 2 months from submission of the paper to the decision to "heavily revise," and then it took 9 months for revision and publication (most of that was the time I needed to revise).

A closing thought: JSOT, of course, does not charge its authors for publication. Almost no respectable journal does this in biblical studies (I can't speak for journals in other disciplines)! I cannot help but wonder if the extremely high price HTS charges its authors (click here to see their "Article Processing Charge"), combined with the fact that they are putting out an extremely high number of digital articles per issue (click here to see the list of 100+ articles they published in vol. 77 issue 4), might cause some issues. A thought for further discussion.