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: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

Post #21

Post by Haven »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 4:13 pm
Suggesting the story is fictional based on the presence of sex, death or descriptive names shows a sad disregard for traditional culture as well as for the fundamentals of the human condition itself and makes for an extremely weak argument.
Such mentions were not common in traditional cultures, at least not as part of everyday life. Their naming practices varied, but usually centered on honoring family members, ancestors, or aspirational concepts. A sex pun would not be used as a name in any normal circumstance.

Do you have any evidence that the events in the Book of Ruth were historical?
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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

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Post by JehovahsWitness »

Haven wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:54 pm A sex pun would not be used as a name in any normal circumstance.
Are you suggesting there is a sex pun in any of the names in the book of Ruth? If so, can you elaborate?



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Last edited by JehovahsWitness on Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

Post #23

Post by Haven »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:06 am
Haven wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:54 pm A sex pun would not be used as a name in any normal circumstance.

Are you suggestjng there is a sex pun in any of the names in the book of Ruth? If so, can you elaborate?
As Difflugia mentioned, chapter 3 is full of them. Translated to English, they are "Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor." (verse 2), " When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.” (verse 4). So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognized; and he said, “No one must know that a woman came to the threshing floor.” (verse 14). "Feet" is a metaphor for the male genitalia, and "winnowing barley on the threshing floor," could be interpreted sexually (especially with "tonight" and the overall romantic theme of what is happening), since "threshing floor" was a euphemism for the bed.
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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

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Post by JehovahsWitness »

Haven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:26 am
JehovahsWitness wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:06 am
Haven wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:54 pm A sex pun would not be used as a name in any normal circumstance.

Are you suggestjng there is a sex pun in any of the names in the book of Ruth? If so, can you elaborate?
As Difflugia mentioned, chapter 3 is full of them. Translated to English, they are "Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor." (verse 2), " When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.” (verse 4). So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognized; and he said, “No one must know that a woman came to the threshing floor.” (verse 14). "Feet" is a metaphor for the male genitalia, and "winnowing barley on the threshing floor," could be interpreted sexually (especially with "tonight" and the overall romantic theme of what is happening), since "threshing floor" was a euphemism for the bed.


What has any of that got to do with a name?

Haven wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:54 pm A sex pun would not be used as a name in any normal circumstance.



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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

Post #25

Post by Haven »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:27 am What has any of that got to do with a name?
The names that imply this (as well as other puns or references) are:

-Naomi (Pleasing)
-Mahlon (Sickness)
-Chilion (Wasting)
-Moab (a common byword for sexual 'immorality')
-Mara (Bitter)
-Boaz (Swiftness) (this one is a bit more debatable)
-Orpah (neck or fawn, used euphemistically)
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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

Post #26

Post by JehovahsWitness »

Haven wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:54 pm A sex pun would not be used as a name in any normal circumstance.
Haven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:32 am
The names that imply this (as well as other puns or references) are:

-Naomi (Pleasing)
-Mahlon (Sickness)
-Chilion (Wasting)
...
-Mara (Bitter)

If you are serious please present your rationale and any peer reviewed material from Hebrew scholars that suggests the above names are a {quote} a sex pun {end quote}?

Haven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:32 am -Moab (a common byword for sexual 'immorality')
-Boaz (Swiftness) (this one is a bit more debatable)
-Orpah (neck or fawn, used euphemistically)

Please provide some evidence - see above - supporting your conclusions (references, rationale, contextual support).






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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

Post #27

Post by Difflugia »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:45 amplease present your rationale and any peer reviewed material from Hebrew scholars
Considering the open disdain you've shown in the past for scholarship, I'd suggest that this is at best a double-standard on your part.

If you have a supportable claim to make, make it. If you want to engage with an argument in a way that doesn't rely on a straw man of your own creation, isn't an insult, and isn't some other attempt to derail the discussion, I warmly invite you to do so.
Haven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:32 am-Boaz (Swiftness) (this one is a bit more debatable)
Boaz probably isn't important to the author in terms of meaning. I suspect that the author of Ruth picked Boaz out of 1 Chronicles 2:11-12. He or she wanted an ancestor of David for the story, but one about which absolutely nothing else was recorded and Boaz fit the bill. Before Ruth was written, the only things we know about Boaz are the details from what is itself probably a fictional genealogy: his father's name was Salma and his son's name was Jesse.
Haven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:32 am-Orpah (neck or fawn, used euphemistically)
The "fawn" or "gazelle" thing is a red herring that is also a sort of confirmation that these names are indeed fictional. "Fawn" would be Oprah (as in Winfrey, who amusingly was named after Orpah, but her name was fortuitously spelled wrong on the birth certificate). The root of Orpah isn't עפּר, fawn as commentators would like it to be, but ערף:

Image

The reason that Hebraists have attempted to tie Orpah to "fawn" can be surmised from a comment by Edward E. Campbell in his (peer reviewed!) Anchor Bible volume on the book of Ruth. Though he tries very hard to argue for some form of historicity, he damningly observes (p. 55):
Orpah. No entirely satisfactory explanation of this name has been proposed. Connecting it to Hebrew 'orep, "back of the neck," implies invention by the story-teller to signal Orpah's decision to go home rather than to stay with Naomi.
Mic drop.
Haven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:32 am-Moab (a common byword for sexual 'immorality')
What's funny about this one is a minor detail that's easy to overlook in 1:8. Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to go back to their mothers' houses. Nowhere else in the Old Testament is an unmarried woman described as living in her mother's house, but always in her father's house. Naomi has read Genesis 19. She knows what will happen if her beloved daughters-in-law go back to their fathers' houses.
Haven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:32 am-Mara (Bitter)
Strictly speaking, this one isn't a name and isn't an indication of fiction as such, but it's part of the narrative to make sure that we as readers know that Naomi is in a dire situation and has no other resources to rely on. We can therefore see the selflessness and charity in Ruth's actions. At the very least, it should be noted that Naomi is never actually called Mara, either by other characters or the narrator. It's just hyperbolic irony.
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Being sexy at the feet.

Post #28

Post by Difflugia »

"Feet" are used as a euphemism for genitals, but the phrasing in Ruth goes beyond that simple observation. In the middle of 3:4, there's a phrase that's usually translated something like, "then you shall go in, uncover his feet, and lie down." The Hebrew for this is:
וּבָ֛את וְגִלִּ֥ית מַרְגְּלֹתָ֖יו וְשָׁכָ֑בְתְּ
With each Hebrew word in brackets, this literally reads:
[And go in][and uncover you][his feet place][and lie down]
Every word here has a sexual connotation.
  • "Go in" is used as a euphemism for sex (Genesis 30:3-4, for example).
  • "Uncover" is the word used in the Leviticus 18 admonitions against "uncovering" anyone's nakedness.
  • "Feet" we've mentioned, but there's more to it that I'll get to below.
  • "Lie" is the same verb used when Lot's daughters rape their drunk father.
"Uncover" and "his feet place" have an interesting relationship in the Hebrew.

First, the word that means "his feet place" is only used one time aside from its use in Ruth (Daniel 10:6, if anyone cares). Every other reference in the Bible to "feet" is just the word "feet." It turns out, though, that there's a similar construction for "the head place" (מְרַאֲשֹׁות) that appears ten times, always having the connotation of "at the head" or "where the head is." An example is in Genesis 28:11, when Jacob takes a stone and puts it "at his head place" as a kind of pillow before going to sleep.

Second, when "uncover" is used with a pronominal suffix as in Ruth, it can be translated reflexively ("he uncovered himself"), as it is in 2 Samuel 6:20.

What this boils down to is that based on Old Testament grammar, the most reasonable translation of that phrase is "go in, uncover yourself at his feet, and lie down." Based on context, I think the author actually intended the phrase to be ambiguous, but unmistakeably so, and wants the reader to read both meanings simultaneously. Ruth three is a story within a story. The top-level narrative is of Ruth and Boaz having a chaste conversation about what they're going to do, but the subtext amounts to a dirty joke.

I can't be sure, but my guess is that the author is highlighting the actions of both Ruth and Boaz as being righteous by offering a sort of Hebrew, frat-boy (He-bro?) story of what would have happened if either character weren't righteous. The moral of the story is in (I think intentional) contrast to the narrative of Ezra-Nehemiah, where impious men are marrying the foreign temptresses. Ruth and Boaz, however, are both as worthy as any to be counted as God's chosen, Boaz for recognizing Ruth's purity of soul and Ruth for being upright despite her nationality and upbringing.
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Re: Being sexy at the feet.

Post #29

Post by 1213 »

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.

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Re: Is the book of Ruth fiction?

Post #30

Post by 1213 »

Haven wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:49 pm
1213 wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:19 pm=
Ok, but what if the meaning for those words came later, after the story and because of the story?

Or what if they are not really meant as their names, but like nicknames?
We know this is false, because they appear elsewhere in the Bible, in passages predating the book of Ruth (such as Genesis 2:5). ...
Sorry, I am not sure what you mean. Genesis 2:5 says: “No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground,”. How is that related to your claims?

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