An Introduction to the Five Scrolls: Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther is a comprehensive, critical introduction to the Five Megilloth or Five Scrolls, an important but often neglected minor collection of books in the Hebrew Bible. These books—Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther—often arranged in precisely this order in printed Hebrew Bibles, contain the most diverse literature in the Hebrew Bible. Almost every facet of them is in dispute.

An initial chapter introduces the Five Scrolls and their role in the Hebrew canon, the Jewish liturgical tradition, and in Christian interpretation and liturgy. The Five Scrolls in the Hebrew canon belong to the third division of that canon, the Nevi’im or Writings. Individually, they are formally recited at five of the Jewish annual liturgical celebrations, Pesekh/Passover (Song of Solomon), Shavuot/Pentecost (Ruth), Tisha’ b’Av/Ninth of Ab (Lamentations), Sukkot/Booths (Ecclesiastes), and Purim (Esther). Within the Christian tradition, all five of the scrolls appear in the Revised Common Lectionary, the annual schedule of lections for use in study, preaching, and worship in many Christian denominations.

The remaining five chapters of this introduction take up the scrolls individually. Using contemporary critical methods, each scroll undergoes a socio-historical, literary, theological, and liturgical investigation, resulting in a careful analysis of introductory issues: the title, authorship, provenance, place and time of composition, literary development, intended audience, literary structure, form, style and rhetorical artistry, literary and traditional sources, survey of the contents, the theological contribution, canonicity, and in a final section that goes beyond a standard introduction, the liturgical reception of the scrolls in both the Jewish and Christian traditions. For each scroll the journey from inception through transmission to the current or final form in the canon and in the liturgical calendar is carefully explored.

Carefully documented from original and secondary literature, the book discusses the major views and controversies advanced regarding each scroll and the issues connected with them, providing a thorough-going introduction to this literature. An Introduction to the Five Scrolls is the first comprehensive, critical introduction to the Five Scrolls to appear in English in recent scholarship. Almost encyclopedic in scope and scholarship, with an extensive bibliography, it provides the essential reference materials necessary for further in-depth study of the scrolls and their contribution to synagogue and church.