Haman: A Biography

by Adam J. Silverstein

The first book-length study of the biblical villain Haman, examining his depiction across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Haman, infamous as the antagonist in the book of Esther, appears as a villainous figure in virtually all varieties of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this “biography” of Haman, Adam Silverstein traces the evolution of this villainous character from the ancient Near East to modern times, drawing on sources in a variety of languages and from diverse genres. Silverstein considers the evidence for a historical Haman and analyzes the abundance of material that documents what those who read the Bible and the Qur’ān have thought about him over the past two millennia.

With this book, Silverstein offers an essential and original account of the rich diversity and openness of Abrahamic civilizations throughout history. Taking Haman as a case study, Silverstein guides the reader through diverse intellectual terrains, covering ancient Near Eastern cultures, pre-Islamic Iranian literature, Abrahamic scriptures and their interpretation, late antiquity, Islamic history, and interfaith relations. He shows how the figure of Haman has both united and divided Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities, who collaborated fruitfully in their efforts to grasp the meaning and significance of their holy books, but who also deployed the “Haman” label polemically against each other. Silverstein also considers Haman’s prebiblical origins, raising the possibility that the book of Esther was receiving and reconfiguring Haman no less than later works were, with Esther’s villain taking his place in a long line of reimagined Hamans.

A Biography is the first book-length study to contextualize an Abrahamic character not only within Jewish and Christian traditions but also with reference to the character’s prebiblical background and reception in Islamic cultures.

344 pages, Hardcover

Published September 23, 2025

About the author

Dr Silverstein did his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees at the University of Cambridge (PhD 2002), followed by a 3-year British Academy post-doctoral fellowship there. He then moved to the University of Oxford, where he was first a lecturer in Islamic History (2005-7) and then a University lecturer in Jewish-Muslim Relations and Fellow of Queen's College (2007-2010). He joined KCL in 2011 as Senior Lecturer in Jewish Studies and the Abrahamic Religions. He is now part of the faculty of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Department at Shalem College, Jerusalem.

Reviews

[Rachel]

Anyone who has attended a Purim service knows that Haman is a villain whose name must be blotted out by means of booing, hissing, stamping your feet or using a noisemaker when the biblical book of Esther is read. What becomes clear in Adam J. Silverstein’s 239-page exploration – that number doesn’t include the more than 100 pages of footnotes, bibliography and index – of Haman is that no one admires him, at least in Jewish, Christian and Muslim cultures. How Haman is portrayed and what that portrayal means to individual religious communities are just two things explored in his work “Haman: A Biography” (Princeton University Press). The author’s wide-ranging discussions – that include everything from the origin of the character to the differing methods used to denigrate Haman – can feel overwhelming at times, but the depth of his research is amazing.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/book...