Naomi and Ruth: A Tale of Two Wives?
Ruth - Rhiannon Graybill
William Krisel [+]
Institut Catholique de Paris
Description
It is always tempting to imagine that a single author sat down one day with quill, ink, and scroll in hand to compose the wonderful story that has been transmitted to posterity in the form of the Book of Ruth. However, it is far more likely that Ruth began like other biblical narratives as a very short text, possibly based on an oral tradition, that was then expanded and developed and reworked by later generations of scribes. This chapter will examine the textual and contextual traces that point to the existence of a sexier and less pious original version of the story in which Naomi goes down with Ruth to the threshing floor to surprise Boaz after he has fallen into a drunken sleep. Naomi tricks Boaz into sleeping with both women and then marrying them and fathering their sons. This older version of the narrative was significantly rewritten and overwritten by redactors to erase all references to Boaz’s relationship with Naomi and to transform the story into a bucolic idyll about the pious, generous, and monogamous Boaz, the contented widow Naomi happy to live out her days as a surrogate grandmother, and the proverbial woman of excellence and ancestress of David, Ruth.