Talk:Ruth

I am removing this incredible claim:

It is generally believed this book was written to protest the ethnic cleansing policies prevalent during the restoration of Judah under the domination of the Persian Empire. During that time, there was a strong movement to expel all peoples who were deemed not to have a sufficiently Jewish ancestry to prevent a reemergence of the perceived pollution of foreign faiths that brought God's wrath on the nation.

Is someone actually saying that this is a mainstrem view among some religions? If so, which religions teach this interpretation? Or is someone saying that this is a mainstream view among historians and biblical scholars? if so, please provide references to some of the scholars and their works. Without said references, this is a totally unsubstantiated claim. If it happens that this is an idosyncratic view held by only one or two people, then it certainly does not belong in an encyclopedia entry. This entry should concentrate on (A) How it is viewed by religions's whose Bible contain this book, and on (B) what modern day scholars and academic bible critics have learned about this book. RK

Sorry, RK. It's not as uncommon a view as you think. I actually made reference to it in some other article. According to the hypothesis, the book was contemporaneous with Ezra, who had ordered the people to divorce their non-Israelite wives. Danny

Isn't that a somewhat different claim? Here you are referring to the theory that this book is a protest against the Ezra-Nehemiah attitude toward foreign women (Ezra 9–10; Neh. 13:23–29). I agree that this theory exists as a legitimate point of view; however, this doesn't seem to be what the original contributor was writing; he seemed to be saying that the Jews were engaged in ethnic cleansing against people that they didn't consider to be chosen. I get the idea that someone took the real literary theory, and subtly twisted it to parallel the claims made about today's Israel-Palestinian dispute. It seemed polemical and not NPOV. I would rather explain this theory about the origin of the Book of Ruth the way you descrive it, and not the way the original person did.

ok. Danny

I don't know why this book was written. Maybe the theory you point out is correct. I do know that many scholars believe that this theory is incorrect. I really don't have a favorite. But to quote from my digi-Rebbe, The Encyclopedia Judaica entry on the Book of Ruth says that this theory "has no basis at all. If the story intended to imply such a tendency this would have come to expression in one way or another in the story itself, for instance, as a reason in the mouth of the kinsman for not marrying Ruth or as an opposition to this reason in the mouth of Boaz. From the literary point of view the story reflects the classical style of Hebrew literature and especially that of the period of United Monarchy, and in contradistinction to the late books like Esther, Ezra Nehemiah, and Chronicles, no post-Exilic linguistic phenomena of real significance can be demonstrated." The EJ goes on to discuss other theories of its purpose, primarilly establishing a geneology for King David. (Encyclopedia Judaica, Book of Ruth, Keter Publishing)