Is the book of Ruth fiction?

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Difflugia
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Is the book of Ruth fiction?

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Post by Difflugia »

I was looking through some old posts to find topics that would make good debate topics, but were never fully explored. One of them is if the biblical book of Ruth is fiction in the sense that the author wrote it as such, perhaps as an extended parable, with the expectation that readers would know and understand it to be fictional?
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Re: Being sexy at the feet.

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Post by Difflugia »

1213 wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:29 am
Difflugia wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:57 am …Every word here has a sexual connotation…
Similarly, as every dream for Freudians is a sex dream. I don’t think there is enough support for your claims, sorry.
If that's really what's going on, then you should be able to take pretty much any sentence in the Bible and find each word being used as some sort of sexual euphemism. I gave you context and verse numbers to back up my statement, so if your analogy is as apt as you claim, you should be able to do the same thing with a majority of verses chosen at random. Can you do that?
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Re: Being sexy at the feet.

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Post by 1213 »

Difflugia wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:40 am
1213 wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:29 am
Difflugia wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:57 am …Every word here has a sexual connotation…
Similarly, as every dream for Freudians is a sex dream. I don’t think there is enough support for your claims, sorry.
If that's really what's going on, then you should be able to take pretty much any sentence in the Bible and find each word being used as some sort of sexual euphemism. I gave you context and verse numbers to back up my statement, so if your analogy is as apt as you claim, you should be able to do the same thing with a majority of verses chosen at random. Can you do that?
I can’t, because I don’t see it even in the scriptures you claim have it.

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Re: Being sexy at the feet.

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Post by Difflugia »

1213 wrote: Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:05 amI can’t, because I don’t see it even in the scriptures you claim have it.
I guess I can't see it for you ("horse to water" and all that), but if you have some good faith questions or would like more help with the Hebrew, I'll see what I can do.

If you're not interested enough to actually look, though, it's not really fair to call that a weakness of the argument.
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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

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Post by JehovahsWitness »

Difflugia wrote: Fri Feb 12, 2021 3:52 pm
Overcomer wrote: Fri Feb 12, 2021 2:10 pmNote that Matthew, in the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of his gospel, lists Ruth and Boaz as his ancestors.
That's one of the reasons that I think the author of Matthew was intentionally writing fiction.
How is the the mention of the characters in a genealogical listing evidence that Matthew was intentionally writing fiction? Would this not rather have discredited Jesus claims to Messiahship?
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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

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Post by Difflugia »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Fri Feb 19, 2021 3:45 pmHow is the the mention of the characters in a genealogical listing evidence that Matthew was intentionally writing fiction?
Matthew could almost certainly read Hebrew. For the reasons I've given, it seems obvious to me that a reader of Hebrew would recognize Ruth as fiction. Intentionally including fictional characters in a genealogical listing means that the listing is intentional fiction, at least in part.
JehovahsWitness wrote: Fri Feb 19, 2021 3:45 pmWould this not rather have discredited Jesus claims to Messiahship?
If Matthew was writing fiction, then it wouldn't discredit the Messiahship of Jesus anymore than being born on a fictional Krypton would discredit Superman's alien birth.

If, on the other hand, Matthew wasn't writing fiction and actually believed that Ruth is historical, then the important part is the lineage from Jesus to David. Even if his knowledge of David's ancestry was based on an inaccurate tradition, that says nothing about whether he was right or wrong about Jesus being descended from David. It would affect inerrancy, perhaps, but not that specific claim about Jesus.
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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

Post #36

Post by Difflugia »

I just ran across a copy of the newer (2016) Anchor Yale Bible volume on Ruth by Jeremy Schipper. Before this, I'd only seen the 1975 edition by Campbell.

I was excited to read that Schipper's translation and commentary support the reading "uncover yourself/uncovered herself at his feet" in 3:4 and 3:7:

Ruth 3:1-8 (AYB)
Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, shouldn’t I seek a place of rest for you where it would go well for you? Now isn’t Boaz our relative, whose female servants you were with? Look, he is winnowing near the threshing floor of the barley tonight. You should wash up, apply perfume, and put on your garments. Go down to the threshing floor. Do not make yourself known to the man until he finishes eating and drinking. When he lies down, you shall know the place where he lies. You shall enter, undress at his feet and lie down. He will tell you what you should do.” She said to her, “All that you say to me I will do.”

So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law had instructed. When Boaz ate and drank and his heart was merry, he entered to lie down at the edge of the pile [of barley]. Then, she entered secretly, undressed at his feet and lay down. In the middle of the night, the man was troubled and turned himself about and Look! A woman lying at his feet!
From the commentary following the above translation:
The object of the verb “uncover” (wěgillît) is unstated or implied (cf. “the place” as the gapped object of the previous verb “enter” in the previous clause). Elsewhere, other piel verb forms of the root glh (“to uncover”) frequently refer to the uncovering of one’s body (Lev 18:6-9; 20:11, 17-21; Deut 23:1 [Eng. 22:30]; 27:20; Ezek 16:37; 22:10; 23:10, 18; Nah 3:5; cf. Hos 2:12; as niphal forms, 2 Sam 6:20; Exod 20:26; Isa 47:3; Jer 13:22; Ezek 16:36; 23:29). In the majority of these references, the body that is uncovered is a female body (Nielsen, 69-70). Thus, Naomi is probably instructing Ruth to undress and lie down at Boaz’s feet, as Ruth does in the following verses (3:7, 8, 14).
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