The Book of Ruth

What?  Two posts in one day?  Someone got off work a little early.  (Not to mention that Ruth is a rather short story.)

This might be too long a quote to be legal, but I doubt anyone at the Oxford University Press is reading my blog.  If they are, can I get a job?  According to their preface to the Book of Ruth,

"It is difficult to be certain about a date for this book, yet ascertaining the dating is central to determining the reason for its composition.  A date before the Exile leads to the view that the book intended to establish David's ancestry, to affirm the practice of levirate marriage (see Deut 25.5-10), or to commend the virtues of the book's protagonists to ancient Israel.  A date after the Exile supports the conviction that the author wished to show that a non-Israelite could become a faithful worshiper of the LORD.  This would counter the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, both of which consider intermarriage wrong...Ruth affirms that the concern of the LORD extends beyond the people of Israel to people of every nation."

So there you have it.  I agree.  I guess.

I'm not sure I completely follow what the editors are getting at with the book's proximity to the Exile.  Sure, it would change the tone of the book for its contemporary audience, but for us, I don't think it changes anything.  I think we should read ancient texts with its historical context in mind, but I don't think it ends there.  How the story speaks to us in today's terms seems an equally relevant way to read Scripture.  For me the main theme of this story is what the editors remark at the end of their commentary.  Clearly God has a plan that extends beyond the people of Israel.  The author of this book over and over calls the protagonist "Ruth the Moabite".  The author clearly stresses the fact that Ruth comes from an alien land.  When Ruth's sister-in-law chooses to remain in her home land, Ruth chooses to follow her mother-in-law, and even chooses to take on Naomi's customs, belief, and religion.  That would be akin to me leaving America to go live in Afghanistan to become a Muslim.  (Ok, I'm not marrying a Muslim, but you get the idea.  It's a totally different land and religion.  The unknown.)  Ruth seeks a husband in the story following the Israelite Law.  Boaz, in return, follows the law by letting the closer relation know of Ruth before he takes her for his wife.  This obedience to God's law seems to be key in the story.  Because Ruth is faithful to her new religion and family, God blesses her with a child who begets the greatest of the Kings:  David.

The Book of Judges

The Book of Judges entertained me far more than I thought it would.  So far reading through the Old Testament, there have been lots of rules, and laws, and genealogies, and other equally boring lists.  The Book of Judges, however, reads like one of those old epic movies like Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments.  I can see all the great battles and the stories of lust and war and conquest, and failure playing out in my mind.  Who knew it could be so exciting?

I particularly liked the story of Ehud who ran his sword into the fat King Eglon of Moab so far that even the hilt was hidden in Eglon's fat belly.  What a great image!  It's like the great battle scenes that Homer wrote about in The Iliad.  The poetry of the Old Testament seems more clunky, but I don't know how much is lost in translation.  Perhaps the texts are just so old and corrupted that the poetry doesn't translate.  Maybe it's just not that poetic.  Any way, though, it makes for a fascinating story.

So a midst all this gore and excitement, what are we learning about God and his people?  Quite frankly, I think there are sections where we aren't learning much.  These seem to be histories of God's people, and while much of it deals with God and his relationship with the Israelites, I don't find theological lessons in many of the stories.  We have to remember that these were a people that didn't separate God from any part of their lives.  The idea of a history book separate from a religious book would be foreign.  The entire history of Israel exists in Israel's relationship with God.  It follows, then, that many of their texts deal with what we would see as explicitly human matters.  For example, the story of Abimelech, the son of Gideon, doesn't really contain a reference to God.  It mostly tells a history of a militant king.  Of course, there are supernatural or divine references such as when "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the lords of Shechem" (Judges 9:23), but it's more of an explanation of where the fight originated and not a true encounter with God.

That doesn't mean that the Book of Judges has no lessons or interest for us as Christians.  First of all, I believe that studying history gives us a sense of who we are, where we have been, and where we are going.  To fully understand the Jewish faith that led to Christianity, we need to understand how that faith developed. Judaism was and is a religion of a specific people in a specific place.  I know some may argue that that statement isn't entirely true, but I look at the current conflicts between Israel and Palestine as proof that this is a religion for a specific people in a specific place.  Anyone born of a Jewish mother can have full citizenship in the current state of Israel.  Location, heredity, and politics play key roles in the Jewish faith.  Since the thought of an afterlife is unclear in Judaism, the doings of this world have the utmost importance.

By reading the history of the ancient Hebrews and seeing their view that God was leading them into a specific land under the leadership of rulers both good and corrupt, we see the nature of God's relationship with man.  Free will becomes wildly evident in these stories.  Samson's weakness for women becomes his undoing--something he, not God, brings on himself.  The God of Israel is a personal God who has a hand in the dealings of His people, but allows them to make their own mistakes.  It's an odd sort of dichotomy.  God wants something.  God is all-powerful.  God allows humans by their free will to foil God's plans.  I suppose the message is that if we listen hard enough we can hear God's will.  By studying the mistakes and successes of the past we can learn how God moves among us and draw closer to Him so that His will be done.