5 Minute Bible » Ruth

Humour in the Bible: 8 Ruth: Ruth is from Moab, Boaz is from Bethlehem

tim — Fri, 13 May 2011 22:14:16 +0000

Who is that girl? Gustave Doré (1832-1883) from Wikimedia

Ruth is a lovely story, it’s humour is¹ gentle and subtle. Part of the subtlety is that most (though not all) of the signs of humour are missing. However, I think we are intended to smile in at least two ways in the portrayal of the characters.

For this entry in the humour series I am repeating my podcast on chapter 2, where I think several of the signs are present, if subtly:

incongruity: found I’ll claim in the disparity of cultures between peasant farming Bethlehem and semi-nomadic herding Moab
lighthearted mood – it’s harvest time and there’s a meal
surprise – Ruth “happens” on the field of a suitable husband
ingenuity (cleverness is often a mark of humour think of puns) – if it’s present it is in Ruth’s possible playing with words for servanthood, but that’s too technical for this post
inferiority – Ruth is a foreign, young, woman; Boaz is a wealthy, older, man
“inelasticity” (following Bergson) – does Boaz’ slight pomposity count?
human pretension revealed in all its lack of glory! – not at all present
hyperbole – not present, except perhaps in the quantity of grain Ruth gleans

The other candidate is the use of direct speech to characterise, and since it is even less overt I’ll just point to the file for those who want to listen: Anyway here’s my candidate for humour in Ruth: Direct speech in biblical narratives

So, here’s the link to the audio: Ruth is from Moab, Boaz is from Bethlehem

Chapter three is a possible exception – and the humour there, if there is humour, is disguised and sexual, so very difficult to spot with confidence across cultures!

E100-30: Ruth 1:1 – 4:22: At last a nice story!

tim — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:56:41 +0000

Well, Judges was thoroughly censored for E100, as it is for most church use, the bits we got were the rare good bits, cf. my Twisted tales: or should the book of Judges be censored? (which got me into trouble with a fundamentalist who could not be bothered to actually listen to what I was saying before condemning me to hell – so it may be worth listening to

Ruth is about “redemption”, the need for husband for Ruth and so a baby to continue the “house of Elimelek” and to provide for the two widows, and so it’s about the primary virtue of the OT (and of redeemers) “hesed” faithfulness/love/kindness in covenant relationships.

So Ruth (in the Christian Bible placed between Judges and Samuel) redeems:

it echoes and redeems the ancestral stories of failure: Judah and Tamar
it announces and prefigures David (remember David & foreign woman, Bathsheba?) and redeems him
it stands between the terror and chaos of Judges and presents a world where God’s virtue is revealed in his creatures lives!

An everyday tale of country folk – but crammed with theology and incidentally a crackingly well-told tale with no violence, death or hatred, but which keeps our interest all through

I have a few other podcasts on this lovely book.

E100: Week six: Is Ruth also among the Judges?

tim — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:19:45 +0000

The book of Judges starts badly and gets worse. The end gets completely censored, never read in church, even the Sunday School stories get their naughty bits covered up!

The book ends with a slogan in 21:25 “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” Which neatly prepares for the books of Samuel except by the time we reach the end of 2 Kings (even if we are slow learners) we realise that kings are not much better.

And that’s how Scripture develops in the Hebrew Bible, in the Christian Old Testament Ruth stands between a beautifully told and thoroughly nice story between two ugly collections of humans behaving badly. A reminder of God’s redemption of human wrong, and of the part we humans can play in revealing that redemption.

Ruth is from Moab, but Boaz is from Bethlehem

tim — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:22:00 +0000

After looking at Direct speech in biblical narratives and especially how the manner of speaking characterises Boaz and Naomi in the book of Ruth and a side glance at the question of whether Ruth’s very arrival at Boaz’ field was chance or not (in Chance or Providence?) I’d like now to suggestthat thinking more deeply about how Ruth is portrayed in chapter 2 can add a sharpness and richness to the story. There is little of direct theological significance to this exercise, but in terms of the sort of reading Scripture as a way of exploring ourselves and our world (that Julia and I have been extoling in Reading Novels, Reading the Bible and Hard Times for Bible Readers respectively) this sort of nuance can be highly significant!

The work referred to in the podcast is: Crapon de Caprona, Pierre. Ruth la Moabite : essai. Genève: Labor et Fides, 1982.

Direct speech in biblical narratives

tim — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:38:00 +0000

There are many ways in which the story-tellers of the Bible ensure that their tellings are lively and engaging. One is through the way they report speech. There is usually more “direct speech” (where the words of a character are “quoted”) then “indirect speech” (where the teller tells us the gist of what the character said). This direct speech is often skillfully crafted to give a lively and rich portrayal of the person. The podcast begins with cases where a group of people speak (we already heard one of these in the post Humour in the Bible: Part 2: Still Introducing Saul). Another example of this is found in Jonah 1:8 though here different emotions are expressed. The book of Ruth uses skillfully differentiated speech to help portray the characters. In this podcast we’ll look at Boaz’ two speeches to Ruth from chapter 2 (Ruth 2:11-12; 8-9).

Chance or Providence?

tim — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:47:00 +0000

Often in biblical narrative things “just seem to happen”, rather like they do in our lives But are such “happenings” chance or divine providence at work? We’ll try to decide, using Gen 37:12ff. (read with Gen 39) and Ruth 2 as examples.

Typescenes and the book of Ruth

tim — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Typescene sounds like a typical technical term scholars use make Bible stories dull In this podcast I hope to show you it’s exactly the opposite and that by spending 5 minutes learning about typescenes you can discover a livelyness you may have missed, even in a well-loved story like Ruth. (Other passage you should have ready, or look at before listening are: Genesis 24; 29 & Exodus 2:15ff..)

Working with what the Bible doesn’t say

tim — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:29:00 +0000

In this post I’ll start looking at how we respond to the Bible’s silences, often there are questions we want to ask the Bible, which the Bible does not answer. What do we do then? Some of these questions, like the one I start with produce classic biblical puzzlers…

By the way, if the sound quality is not as good as usual, or if you hear building work or children playing in the background, that’s because I recorded this post in the middle of a refugee camp! See another blog for more information.