Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Charles David Isbell" <cisbell AT home.com>]

Robert,
Yours is a passionate exposition.  But I think you have failed to address a
very significant point highlighting the difference between Ruth the
Moabitess and the Moabite women in Numbers.  These latter had not only
become involved with Israelite men sexually, but had "invited [them] to the
sacrifices of their gods," leading to a flagrant and open worship of these
gods by the Israelite men, even to the point that "Israel yoked themselves
to Baal of Peor" (Num 25:1-3).
By very sharp contrast, Ruth is willing to leave her own people (much like
Abraham in Gen 12!), and pointedly declares that the God of her
mother-in-law Naomi will now be her God as well (1:16).  Jewish tradition
has always viewed this as a statement of conversion.  So the difference in
the two texts is not that God has changed but that the worshippers of a
false god in one instance not only retain their belief in that false god but
lure Israelites away from the worship of the true [only] God to it.  In the
second instance, Ruth's willing and forceful acceptance of the true God
makes her fully acceptable as a wife for Boaz.
Of course, I am using the biblical view of gods false and true.  But the
contrast is not between YHWH "A" and YHWH "B" but between idolaters and
converts to the true faith.
Do you feel that this concept requires any adjustment of your exposition?
Regards,
Charles David Isbell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Vining" <rvining AT log.on.ca>
To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 7:51 AM

Subject: The Gospel of Ruth


> The novellaist who crafted the Book of Ruth had a liberating message for
> his/her  age, and for all ages.  Alas, the Gospel  of Ruth is not always
> understood-the Good  News that God has changed, a lot.
>
> The canonists were not sure where to put Ruth. The Christians, wanting
> to put the story before the birth of David, opted for placement after
> Judges where it sits awkwardly as if part of the ongoing history,
> Genesis through Kings . Although a welcome intrusion into  the
> hell-hole- world of  Judges 19-21, one has to blink upon emerging into
> the sunlight of Ruth's peaceable kingdom.. The world of Judges, and the
> world of Ruth are worlds  apart.    Everything is so different,
> especially God. The Jewish canonizers,  although also wanting to put it
> before beloved David,  knew it didn't belong there, for a number of
> reasons,  especially because of it's theology. So, they, more
> appropriately,  relegated it to the Writings, where it sits much more
> comfortably amongst such god-critiquing , conventional-wisdom-
> challenging books as Job and Ecclesiaites, and the godless books, Esther
> and Song of Songs.
>
> On second thought, let's leave it where Christians prefer it. Doing
> this,  we do not lose the shock value which may have been the
> Renaissance author's intention.  Observing the "read-the- context"
> rule, let's regard Judges 19 through Ruth as one book consisting of two
> chapters- a nice hour read. Chapter I: Judges 19-21; Chapter II: Book of
> Ruth. Each chapter starts off with practically identical
> once-upon-a-time like words- "in those days".. "long ago"- Judges 19:1
> and Ruth 1:1.  (A suggestion-before reading Chapter I, read Genesis 19;
> before reading Chapter II, read the final chapter of Ezra,  and
> Nehemiah).
>
> Chapter I  is a trip into hell. This is mankind at  his most morally
> depraved, brutally inhumane.  A device the author uses to drive this
> home is to take the  Sodom story, paraphrase it in a way so as to make
> it's horrors even more horrific. The Sodomites had become the
> touchstone-byword for the epitome of evil, so that for the Gibeahites to
> be more evil  than them was saying a lot.*   Where in all of literature
> is there a more appalling, ghastly, denigrating portrayal of the
> demeaning  of a woman? In the Sodom story,  the wondrous power of the
> angel-men apparently saved the  two virgin daughters,  that their
> father, righteous Lot had turned over to the sex-crazed mob. Here, there
> is no such miracle.  Tersely we are told, she was raped and abused all
> night long, and they did not stop until morning. At morning light, the
> narrator poignantly pictures her lying on the ground with her hand
> reaching out to the door of the house behind which are two men , one of
> whom is her husband, who had put her outside.  The narrator does not
> tell us whether he slept well that night, but the next morning he seems
> to be in a hurry as he opens the door "to go on his way". Not to check
> on his wife, who more than anything seems to be in the  way of the one
> who is on his way.. He speaks brusquely to her, and receives no answer.
> We don't know whether she is dead or alive.** But, because of what is
> about to happen to her,  both Jerome (Vulgate) and the  LXX translators
> make a point of  assuring us that she was dead. Her husband puts her
> body on his donkey, and takes her home. At home, her Levite husband
> takes a knife, and cuts her body into 12 pieces, and sends one piece
> each to the 12 tribes of Israel.  Every Israelite who saw their portion
> of the dismembered body, and heard the story of the sexually- perverted
> Gibeahites treatment of the woman, said, "We have to do something about
> this!  What will it be?
>
> What will it  be?  First, it will be the deity-directed annihilation of
> all men, women and children, in Gibeah,  as well as animals. And, for
> good measure they burned every town in the area, as in  the Sodom story.
> Total destruction of every living thing, and structure. Then, because
> the draft- dodging Jabeshites had not answered  the mustering roll call
> at Mizpah, there fate was sealed. Meeting in solemn assembly, sitting
> long in the presence of their god; then building an altar and offering
> up burnt offerings  (some whole), and fellowship offerings, they reached
> their decision. "Go and kill everyone in Jabesh, including women and
> children. Kill all the males, and also every women who is not a
> virgin."  Here, the extermination is not total, because  the Rimmon Rock
> Remnant men  need women.  Since there were 600  RRR men, the 400 not-
> killed- virgins of Jabesh, that were turned over to the men,  we are
> told,  were not enough. The quota will be filled  by 200 dancing girls
> who were seized by force while  dancing at the Feast of the Lord at
> Shiloh.
>
> In the literature these events are called the Outrage at Gibeah, and the
> Massacre at Jabesh-gilead Salient is the emphasis on- how religious were
> the perpetrators of these atrocities; how they waited in god's presence
> for direction; how he talked to them; how he directed them and gave them
> the "victory". Three times they consult their oracular god before
> proceeding. Each  time, he tells them exactly what to do. The 3rd time,
> he orders them to "Fight!  Tomorrow I will give you the victory over
> them". The warrior-god is true to his word, and he gives them the
> victory. He was especially present at Bethel. The sacred Ark of the
> Covenant is there, and in charge is the ominous, phamous  Phinehas.  Not
> some run-of-the mill priest, but the one who so pleased god, by his
> decisive  action that the deity stopped his epidemic that had already
> killed 24,000 people, and entered into a covenant with him and his
> descendants to be established permanently as priests for all time to
> come.  The god-pleasing action was   thrusting a spear through the
> bodies of a copulating couple, an Israelite man and a Midianite woman.
>
> But, enough already of this nightmare.  Let's move on to-
>
> Chapter II, and, "Welcome to my world", in the words of an Eddie Arnold
> oldie.  Thanks, but what a shock!  All is so different!  The people are
> so different. Here,  "chesed" lovingkindness seems to prevail. But, most
> stunningly, god has changed, and what a world of difference that makes.
> The most conservative Radio Bible Class TV Show is touting a video
> entitled, "The Changing Face of God". Yes, in Ruth, God has a new face.
> The fiercely angry, jealous,  deuteronomic god who would kill instantly
> without mercy any inter-marriers,*** now smiles His blessing on them. We
> don't really know for sure if Boaz and Ruth do it before marriage, but
> we do know that in this story there will be no covenant-honored Phinehas
> to thrust a spear through mingled bodies. No Nehemiah will reprimand;
> call a curse down upon; beat,  and pull the hair out of a Boaz,  wicked
> for having married a foreign women. Boaz will not have to endure a
> Nehemiahan lecture reminding him how guileful, foreign  women made weak
> Solomon sin.  (The two most famous biblical inter-marriers are darling
> David, and the wisest of all men, Solomon).  No Ezra,  who thought he
> was doing the will of his god when he wrecked family and home, by
> purging women and children. In Ruth,  God blesses intermarriage, and in
> a special way the child of this union.
>
> In Numbers 25, we read about the Israelite men who began to have sexual
> intercourse with Moabite women, and worshiped their god, Baal-Peor. The
> angry god of Moses said to him, "Take all the leaders of Israel,  and in
> obedience to me, execute them in broad daylight, and then I will no
> longer be angry with the people." Obediently Moses orders the officials,
> "Each of you is to kill every man in your tribe who has become a
> worshiper of Baal-Peor."  Apparently, there was not much religious
> tolerance in those days-in contrast to the popularity of this idea in
> our day. Today, everybody believes in religious tolerance.  Preachers
> love to preach it;  politicians universally proclaim it. But, what about
> back then, in biblical times?  Did the idea of a lethal, merciless,
> Mosaic-Deuteronomic god of absolute religious intolerance****  reign
> supreme? It appears, not!  The benign, benevolent God of Ruth appears as
> tolerant of other religions as He was accepting of the intermarriage
> abomination. Naomi says to Ruth, "Go back with her  (Orpah) to her home,
> and to her god"-whether Baal-Peor, or Chemosh, or both, the author does
> not tell us.  This God seems as tolerant and accepting of other
> religions as our modern God.
> Was the author of Ruth a lone Renaissance writer-a Voice crying in a
> wilderness of general religious bigotry in that  Dark Age?  For how many
> did our skillful author speak, when he/she expressed acceptance of
> intermarriage,  and religious tolerance?  Perhaps that Dark Age was not
> as dark as commonly thought.
>
> It sure seems dark in Chapter I.  Lest, we be overwhelmed by it's
> unspeakable inhumanity, let's consider what might be going on by taking
> a close look at the drama's darkest character, the dismembering Levite.
> Six times the author reminds us he is from the priestly Levite clan. As
> we read the drama over a few times it begins to dawn us that there might
> be a bit of polemicism going on here.  Not only in regard to the
> internecine strife between the Benjaminites and the other confederation
> tribes, but also amongst the competing priestly classes. This sordid
> tale surely justifies the lowering  of the Levites to a subordinate,
> servile status;  a demotion that  we read about in Numbers 18 and II
> Kings 23. All is fair in love and war, and in polemics.  It is the
> polemicists prerogative to paint his target, black, black, black. All of
> this is quite tolerable if the story is taken with a grain of salt,
> especially if it is the author himself who provides the salt. How come
> originally the vastly undermanned Benjaminites gained the victory over
> the much superior, massive army of the confederation? It was not just
> that the god had not made his move yet, it was those bloomin'
> slingshoters; an elite corps, all left-handed, and all so fantastically
> skillful that everyone of them could split a single strand of hair with
> one shot. Really now. Why does the author introduce them,  if not to
> signal?  Why does the narrator of David's  (another superbly accurate
> slingshoter) life tell us that the stalwart lad killed lion and bears
> with his own hands, and that after decapitating the SuperGiant, he
> carries Goliath's head around for awhile so as to later impress King
> Saul with his trophy? Why does the Estherian author have the petard on
> which Haman hoisted himself to be 85 feet high? Or that, the dumb but
> lucky  Xerxes/Ahauserus  entertains night after night  the 400
> (Josephus,  who is given to grandiosity) most beautiful virgins in the
> entire 127 provinces, and this after a full year preparatory,
> differential beauty treatment, making the most beautiful into
> what...super- gorgeous?  Surely, these consummate craftsmen  had the
> right to hyperbolize, and invent; to alert the reader as to what they
> were up to. Did the early readers pick up signals, that later
> orthodoxy-blinded readers miss?
>
> Ruth 1:16 is justifiably well-known, well-loved, oft-quoted,
> overshadowing a powerfully enlightening verse that comes before, 1:8.
> Perhaps the Renaissance writer has gone too far here? Naomi prays, that
> God should be so good.  So good,  as what. That He should be as good as
> the two pagan Moabitess women have been to her, and the dead! The author
> never let's us forget they are Moabites, and they are women.  One of
> these good/kind Moabite women is on her way back to paganism, to her
> gods.   God should be like her?
>
> The brilliant artist that created the Esther story, for the purposes of
> his/her agenda, leaves God out altogether. Not so in Ruth . Although, He
> neither speaks or acts, (cp. Chap. I)  His presence is palpable. More
> than benign, He is benevolent.  He is gentle, accepting  and kindly
> (JPS), like Naomi, Ruth and Orpah.  This is the Good News of the Gospel
> of Ruth. God has changed, a lot.
>
>
> * Similarly, Ezekiel 16:44-58 says the Jerusalemites are more atrocious
> sinners than the Sodomites.
>
> **Re: the miscreants in Numbers 15,   we are twice  told that they were
> swallowed up alive.
>
> *** Deuteronomy 7:2-5
>
> ****Paul called those whose religious practices differed from his,
> "dogs" and "evil men", and twice prays  that those who differ from him
> be, "condemned to hell". Galatians 1:8,9 and Philippians 3:2   Paul
> liked to cite selected  scripture.   One wonders if he read the Book of
> Ruth.
> -----
>
> Robert Vining, Owen Sound, Ontario     rvining AT log.on.ca
>
>
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