Book of Ruth

This essay explores the intersecting histories of personal grief and scholarly synthesis, centred on Dr. Neville Buch’s experience of losing his wife, Ruth, to glioblastoma. The recent news of Professor Richard Scolyer’s death from the same aggressive, incurable stage 4 brain cancer serves as a catalyst for reflecting on a decade of “missing Ruth” and the “crucible of care” that redefined Dr. Buch's life. Utilizing the Management Institute for Contributory Economy (MICE) framework, the essay argues that personal loss is not a static event but a dynamic site for “Philosophy in Practice”. By examining the dialectic between the “currents of death” and the pursuit of Aristotelian flourishing, the analysis demonstrates how concepts like “Thinking as Caring” (panser) function as an intellectual immune system, allowing the individual to remain the proactive author of their narrative even when trapped in the “half-life” of mourning.


https://drnevillebuch.com/projects/personal-history/the-history-of-ruth/

https://drnevillebuch.com/blog/history-of-ruth/history-of-ruth-the-crucible-of-care-grief-as-philosophy-in-practice-the-disease/

This study examines the functionalist approach to translation, placing emphasis on Nord's refinement of skopostheorie through the principle of loyalty. Functionalism originated in Germany in the late 1970s; it ushered in a paradigm shift from equivalence-based linguistic models toward purposedriven translation strategies that prioritise communicative function and cultural context. This article traces the historical development of functionalism, critiques the limitations of traditional equivalence theories, and examines how Nord's ethical framework redefines translator responsibility within intercultural communication. In the discussions, Gen 18.1-19 is employed as a case study to demonstrate the practical application of Nord's approach in Bible translation for a multicultural ecclesial context. The translation brief, source-text analysis, and target-text configuration illustrate how functionalist principles-skopos, intratextual coherence, and loyalty-inform decisions such as explicitation, cultural bridging, and lexical simplification. By integrating theoretical insights with pastoral considerations, this study argues that functionalist translation fosters inclusivity, clarity, and theological integrity, enabling Scripture to function effectively within diverse liturgical contexts.

The global environmental crisis has renewed interest in religious resources for ecological ethics. While biblical eco-theology has largely focused on Genesis, Psalms, and the Prophets, the Book of Proverbs (despite its rich agrarian imagery and creation-centered wisdom) has received limited scholarly attention. This study addresses that gap by examining the ecological wisdom embedded in Proverbs, with particular focus on land ethics, animal care, and the moral order of creation. Drawing on selected texts such as Proverbs 6:6-8; 12:10; 27:23-27; and 8:22-31, the research explores how Hebrew wisdom literature envisions human-nature relationships. Methodologically, the study employs literary and theological exegesis informed by ecological hermeneutics and agrarian ethics, while engaging contemporary ecological theology in dialogue with African indigenous wisdom traditions. The findings reveal that Proverbs presents creation as pedagogical and morally instructive rather than as a passive resource for human exploitation. Nature functions as a teacher of wisdom, shaping ethical conduct and communal responsibility. Theologically, Proverbs portrays human beings as stewards situated within a divinely ordered cosmos, accountable to the rhythms and limits of creation. By reclaiming Proverbs as a significant yet underutilized eco-theological | 185 resource, this study contributes to biblical environmental ethics and offers practical implications for church education, environmental advocacy, and public theology, particularly in African contexts. It further recommends expanded ecological readings of other wisdom texts, such as Job and Ecclesiastes, alongside African oral traditions.

Genesis 1:26-28 has been read in two opposing directions. One reading takes the creation of the man before the woman, and the granting of dominion, as a charter for male authority over women and human mastery over the earth. The other, drawing on African women's theology and on ecological hermeneutics, reads the same passage as the commissioning of women and men together to bear God's image and to exercise a shared and responsible care of creation. This article argues for the second reading and develops it in dialogue with the African philosophy of Ubuntu. It contends that the image of God is relational and inclusive, reaching across colour, gender, and creed, and that the dominion it confers is the responsible stewardship of a gardener rather than the exploitation of a tyrant. Read through Ubuntu, with its conviction that a person is a person through other persons, the passage grounds both the equal dignity of women and an ethic of kinship with the wider community of creation. Set against the gender inequality and ecological degradation of contemporary Zambia and the wider continent, this re-reading offers a contextual theology in which the care of women, of the neighbour, and of the earth belong together as facets of a single human vocation under God.

Genesis 1:26-28 has been read in two opposing directions. One reading takes the creation of the man before the woman and the granting of dominion as a charter for male authority over women and human mastery over the earth. The other, drawing on African women's theology and on ecological hermeneutics, reads the same passage as the commissioning of women and men together to bear God's image and to exercise a shared and responsible care of creation. This article argues for the second reading and develops it in dialogue with the African philosophy of Ubuntu. It contends that the image of God is relational and inclusive, reaching across colour, gender, and creed, and that the dominion it confers is the responsible stewardship of a gardener rather than the exploitation of a tyrant. Read through Ubuntu, with its conviction that a person is a person through other persons; the passage grounds both the equal dignity of women and an ethic of kinship with the wider community of creation. Set against the gender inequality and ecological degradation of contemporary Zambia and the wider continent, this re-reading offers a contextual theology in which the care of women, of the neighbour, and of the earth belong together as facets of a single human vocation under God.

Genesis 1:26-28 has been read in two opposing directions. One reading takes the creation of the man before the woman, and the granting of dominion, as a charter for male authority over women and human mastery over the earth. The other, drawing on African women's theology and on ecological hermeneutics, reads the same passage as the commissioning of women and men together to bear God's image and to exercise a shared and responsible care of creation. This article argues for the second reading and develops it in dialogue with the African philosophy of Ubuntu. It contends that the image of God is relational and inclusive, reaching across colour, gender, and creed, and that the dominion it confers is the responsible stewardship of a gardener rather than the exploitation of a tyrant. Read through Ubuntu, with its conviction that a person is a person through other persons, the passage grounds both the equal dignity of women and an ethic of kinship with the wider community of creation. Set against the gender inequality and ecological degradation of contemporary Zambia and the wider continent, this re-reading offers a contextual theology in which the care of women, of the neighbour, and of the earth belong together as facets of a single human vocation under God.

ארכיטקטורה של חושך: המנגנון התלת-שכבתי של הלילה הקוסמי במגילת אסתר
מאמר זה מנתח את מגילת אסתר כצומת מטאפיזי רב-שכבתי, הממזג שלושה מודלים קוסמיים: המודל הבבלי-נטורליסטי, המודל הלוריאני-קבלי, והמודל הגנוסטי הרדיקלי. בעוד המיתוס הבבלי מציב את מרדכי ואסתר (מורדוך ואסתהר) במעגל טבעי של שמש ולבנה, המגילה מעתיקה את הדרמה אל תוך לילה מתמשך של גלות קוסמית, שבו האור הגלוי מושבת. דרך הפריזמה הלוריאנית, פורים ממוקם בחציו השני של הלילה – פאזת "איילת השחר" – שבו אסתר פועלת כרחם הבינה (פרצוף לאה), המשביתה את הלוגוס השמשי והמוגבל של מרדכי באמצעות צום ושתיקה, ומעבדת את הדינים בנסתר. תהליך ההתכנסות החקלאי-מטאפיזי של החורף מתברר לא ככיליון, אלא כעיכול אקטיבי וכנקודת האפס האנרגטית, המקבילה לחוק התחייה מתוך האפר של עוף החול. אל מול מבוי סתום זה של המערכת המכנית, אסתר מחדירה "זעזוע חיצוני" בסגנון אוקטבות ההתפתחות של גורדייף, המפרק את ברית אחשוורוש והמן ומניע מחדש את גלגלי היקום. מן העבר השני, המודל הגנוסטי מציע היפוך מוחלט: אחשוורוש מגלם את הדמיורגוס הכובל, ואילו אסתר היא ניצוץ הנשמה הטהור המבקש לחמוק מכלא החומר, מה שהופך את חג הפסח שאחריו מראשית הגאולה לתחילתו של שעבוד חקלאי מחודש. בסנכרון השכבות, פורים מתגלה כנקודת האפס של השנה הקוסמית, שבה הלבנה אינה רק מכינה את התשתית ליום, אלא מעצבת ומולידה אותו מתוך החשכה.

This brief study examines a thematic connection between the sandal imagery in Book of Ruth and the statement of John the Baptist in Gospel of John 1:27 concerning the sandal strap of Jesus. While the passage is commonly interpreted as an expression of humility and servanthood, the legal and redemptive symbolism associated with the sandal in Ruth 4 suggests a deeper covenant context. In Ruth, the removal of the sandal signifies the transfer of the right of redemption to Boaz, the kinsman-redeemer and bridegroom figure. Against that background, John’s declaration may imply not merely personal unworthiness, but recognition that Jesus alone possesses the rightful authority to redeem and claim the bride. The study explores how this imagery contributes to the broader messianic and redemptive themes of the Fourth Gospel.

Your people will be my people and your God my God." Ruth 1:16-21 NIV This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 3:6 NIV In the forty days between His Resurrection and Ascension, Jesus walked with two of his disciples on the Road to Emmaus, explaining the Scriptures and breaking ordinary bread with them. He helped them understand His grace and its meaning as He prepared them for Pentecost: to live as witnesses in a hostile world. Perhaps they read the Book of Ruth together on that road. For it is Ruth's grace towards Naomi, her mother-in-law, which teaches us the power of love and faithfulness that Jesus was teaching the disciples. It is Boaz's grace toward Ruth that reveals the ember of faith still flickering in a war-torn land. Their grace towards one another helps us to understand why Jesus celebrated at weddings and used barley loaves to teach about His kingdom: there is something better, just beyond our sight, if we stand firm in our faith and grow in our knowledge of the Lord.

Genesis 37:13-24 is a poignant passage with Biblical Hebrew grammatical issues. The need for a sacrifice of the son (in the case of Genesis 37, Joseph, the beloved son of Israel, and in the case of Genesis 22, Isaac, the promised and obedient son of Abraham) is further developed. The sacrificial system will receive further elaboration during the sons of Israel’s initiation of the Passover sacrifice, their wandering in the wilderness in Exodus and Leviticus, and receives its culmination in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross in the New Testament.

The aggadah about Elisha ben Abuyah and R. Meir in Y. Ḥagigah 2:1 (77b–c) includes a striking interpretation and enactment of a verse from the book of Ruth. In the climactic scene, R. Meir spreads his garment over his master’s burning grave, performing the deed that Ruth requests of Boaz on the threshing floor, and offers a bold interpretation of Ruth 3:13, Boaz’s reply to that request. The combined interpretation and enactment of this dramatic scene in the Ruth story at the climactic moment of the aggadah suggests that one might look for a more extensive engagement of the rabbinic narrative with the biblical story. This article explores ways in which the aggadah might be read in relation to the book of Ruth and argues that such a reading highlights core themes of the aggadah and helps disclose the theological and moral stance of this rabbinic narrative.

Our violence is based on an idolatrous identity. True identity, true self-knowledge, is disruptive, unsettling, and strongly opposed. In our time, the idea of women (as in Iran) and a physicalistic view of nature are two particularly powerful idols.

The figure of Joseph son of Jacob has long occupied an ambiguous position in biblical theology-acknowledged as morally exemplary and providentially significant, yet rarely granted the full weight of its typological function within the canonical architecture of Scripture. This paper argues that Joseph constitutes one of the most architecturally fundamental messianic types in the Hebrew Bible, operating not merely as an anticipatory analogy to Jesus of Nazareth but as the textual origin of a distinct and substantive Jewish messianic trajectory: the Messiah ben Joseph tradition. Drawing on the Torah's blessing texts, the eschatological program of the Psalter, Second Temple literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Targums, the Talmud, and the New Testament's own intertextual patterns, this paper demonstrates that a suffering, dying, atoning, and rising Messiah figure rooted in the tribe of Joseph was not a late Christian imposition on the Hebrew Bible, nor a post-Christian rabbinic invention, but an ancient Jewish theological inheritance deliberately embedded in the canonical structure of Scripture from the Pentateuch forward. The convergence of this tradition with the New Testament's portrayal of Jesusincluding the Fourth Gospel's explicit citation of Zechariah 12:10 at the crucifixion, the Pauline identification of the rock in the wilderness with the pre-existent Christ, the Eucharistic resonance of Joseph's provision of bread, the astral imagery of Revelation 12 drawn from Joseph's own dreams, and the identification of the Josephite Messiah with the divine Angel of the Presencereveals a messianic typology of extraordinary depth, coherence, and canonical intentionality. Understanding Joseph as type requires recovering this suppressed tradition in its full textual, historical, and hermeneutical complexity, and doing so transforms not only how the Joseph narrative is read but how the entire biblical metanarrative is understood.

Abstract: JT-94-01-Alpha Primary Source Report
Abstract:
This report documents the primary archaeological and forensic record of the JT-94-01-Alpha assembly, a significant discovery of seven Sn10 Alpha Bronze scrolls recovered in 1994 from Tell el-Kharrar (Elijah’s Hill). The find contains 111 distinct Statements recorded in a singular 1st-century Galilean Aramaic dialect.

Methods:
The assembly underwent a multi-phasic authentication process to verify its antiquity and historical stasis. Geophysical analysis confirmed the scrolls were housed in a bitumen-sealed vacuum within a Class 1 Lodestone casing, exhibiting a stable 156.00 mT LIRM charge. Chronological integrity was established through AMS radiocarbon dating of trapped Anemone coronaria and Olea pollen, yielding a high-probability date range of 28–42 CE. Forensic isotopic testing revealed a total absence of Cesium-137 (0.00 Bq/kg), confirming the assembly has remained in hermetic stasis since before 1945.

Results:
Philological analysis identifies a "Guttural Collapse" phonology consistent with Early Herodian regionalisms of the Northern Galilee. The 111 Statements (The Proclamations) provide an unmediated linguistic record of the "Alpha Period," offering unique insights into the idiomatic and non-dualistic expressions of the 1st-century Yeshuan tradition.

Significance:
This report transitions the JT-94-01-Alpha find from private custody to a permanent, open-access scholarly record. It serves as a foundational resource for linguists, archaeometrists, and historians investigating the intersection of forensic archaeology and the origins of the Galilean tradition.

In the few texts of the Hebrew Bible containing genealogical data on the tribal ancestor Judah and his descendants, one recognizes the prominent role of Judah's son Perets.1 In some texts, the latter's importance even seems to be at the expense of Judah himself. It is striking that in their blessing at the end of the book of Ruth the elders of Bethlehem compare the expected posterity of Boas with the house of Israel (Jacob), on the one hand, and with the house of Perets, on the other. As for the second comparison one might expect "the house of Judah" rather than the "the house of Perets". Ruth 4:11-12 May YHWH make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel; and may you achieve wealth in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem. And may your house be like the house of Perets whom Tamar bore to Judah-through the offspring which YHWH will give you by this young woman.

Job's confident cry stating that he knows that his redeemer lives (Job 19:25) are perhaps the most well-known words of Job. While many commentators, scholars, and readers believe Job to be referring to God or even to Jesus, these simply do not make sense in the story of Job. Here I take another look at Job's redeemer and argue that Job is most likely referring to his kinsman-redeemer, a close relative who would act as executor of his estate when he dies. JOB 19:25-27 CONTAINS WHAT ARE PERHAPS THE MOST FAMOUS WORDS TO BE found in the book of Job. 6ey are included in Handel's Messiah and are found in other Christian music. 1 For many, these words by Job are understood to be an indication that Job's faith continues despite all that has happened to him: Job's redeemer is God and Job, fundamentally, maintains a profound faith in God. For some these verses are understood even to reflect Job's hope in life after death. 2 6is is what we hear, in traditional translations, from Job:

Ruth a type of the church a woman who was outside the promises of God who became part of the family line of the Messiah by her kinsman-redeemer Boaz a type of Jesus in the Old Testament. Who is the author and when was this book written remains a mystery. Some say Samuel which I do doubt, for he did not live to see David as king athough he predicted it should happen, others say in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah by some unknown writer who wanted to defend those who took wives among the Moabites. Nehemiah 13:23 While others in the time of the reign of David or Solomon or even after the kingdom of Israel was divided to two kingdoms one which ruled the family line of David which was Judah in the South while the other did not Which was Israel in the North. In this theory in writing this book the author shows the kingship belongs to David the writing of the book of Ruth. All these theories remain a theory and not a fact. All I know that God inspired this book and in it I find Christ and his bride the church. Ancient sources are used as a commentary to this book including some church Fathers and Jewish legends and translation notes. Host of the Mr Kakoulides and the Bible

This essay argues that a canonical reading of Scripture that is attentive to the experiences it portrays must notice the centrality of the migrant experience throughout both the Old and New Testaments. We begin by tracing patterns of displacement, forced migration, and exile that define the lives of biblical figures such as Adam and Eve, Abraham, Ruth, Jesus, Paul, and the Early Christians. We also explore contemporary uses of the Bible that justify anti-immigrant policies and the dehumanization of immigrants, arguing that such interpretations contradict the text's narrative. By reading Scripture through the lens of migration, Christians can better identify how the migration experience is both a theological and hermeneutical key to understanding God's redemptive work in history.

1306: השנה הסוערת ששינתה את פני עולם הקבלה
דמותו של רבי משה די ליאון (הרמד"ל) ניצבת בלב אחת התעלומות הגדולות בהיסטוריה היהודית: האם היה הוא רק הצינור שדרכו נחשפו כתבי רשב"י, או שמא היה היוצר המקורי שרקח את ספר הזוהר מתוך עולמו הפנימי? עבור הקהל האינטלקטואלי, המפתח לפתרון החידה אינו טמון רק בהגות מיסטית מופשטת, אלא דווקא בבלשות היסטורית המצליבה בין ניתוח פליאוגרפי מדוקדק לבין המציאות המדממת של תחילת המאה ה-14.
שנת 1306 (ה'ס"ו) לא הייתה עוד תאריך כרונולוגי יבש; היא הייתה צומת דרכים דרמטי שבו נפגשו קריסה מוניטרית, אכזבה משיחית עמוקה ופרץ של יצירה רוחנית אלמותית. כיצד קשורה תעשיית זיוף המטבעות בקסטיליה לכתיבת ה"תיקונים"? ואיך טעות קריאה של אות בודדת בכתב יד עתיק שינתה את תפיסתנו על מות המחבר? אנו יוצאים למסע בעקבות "ממונא דשקרא", עול המיסים הכבד והטרגדיה האישית של אדם שראה בעצמו גלגול של משה רבינו המנסה למתק את הדין.

Biblical narratives often move from an initial difficulty to a resolution, yet the relationship between this narrative movement and the Masoretic accent system has rarely been tested. This article examines whether the placement of the mid-level disjunctive accent ṭipḥāh corresponds with points of narrative tension, and whether subsequent major disjunctives such as ʾatnāḥ or silluq align with the resolution. A controlled sample of six passages already identified by literary critics as exemplifying problem-solution patterns was selected for analysis. Each passage is presented with Masoretic accent system, a word-byword gloss, an idiomatic translation, and a discussion of how the accentual hierarchy marks tension and relief. The results show that ṭipḥāh frequently occurs at the moment a problem is articulated, while a stronger disjunctive often coincides with the answer or disclosure. The study advances no universal rule; it reports a recurrent alignment in a controlled set of passages. By bringing together accentual and narrative scholarship, the article contributes a modest philological component to a broader theory of the "Epiphanic Arc.

"The Septuagint of Ruth. Translation Technique, Textual History, and Theological Issues" by Beatrice Bonanno, published in autumn 2024, is the fifth book of the edition "The Septuagint in its Ancient Context. Philological, Historical and Theological Approaches" from the Belgian Brepols Publishers.

This article argues that the Book of Ruth presents a narrative theology of post-traumatic covenantal repair, in which ḥesed-steadfast, embodied loyalty enacted through vulnerability, boundary-crossing migration, and daily labour-reconfigures kinship and belonging after profound loss. The question is pastorally urgent: trauma-informed pastoral theology has increasingly engaged psychology and grief theory, yet the quieter scriptural resources that communities instinctively reach for in ordinary grief remain under-explored. Situating Ruth within its literary and theological context and engaging it through interdisciplinary dialogue between trauma psychology, feminist and womanist hermeneutics, migration theory, and pastoral phenomenology, the study demonstrates how Ruth's narrative arc-from famine, bereavement, and displacement to fullness, belonging, and generativity-models relational resilience for communities metabolising loss. The article introduces ḥesed as anti-spectacular pastoral practice: covenantal repair achieved not through symbolic vision or cosmic intervention but through grounded, daily fidelity enacted in fields, households, and ordinary human encounter. By centering the Moabite outsider as agent of covenantal continuity, Ruth offers implications for migration theology, refugee ecclesiology, and faith-integrated care with communities navigating collective rupture. The book functions as scriptural ground for the kind of quiet, vulnerability-based, relational repair that pastoral caregivers most urgently need to model and sustain.

These notes From Jan 17, 2026, are leading to my parts 3 back to 1 of recent uploaded papers. I am doing this (showing the chats) backwards due to the importance of the final analysis that the AI's and I linked in our chats from Jan 16-21,22, 2026.

Petrus Comestor's Historia Scholastica is a broad biblical rewriting composed ca. 1160 in the milieu of the cathedral school of Paris and the abbey of St. Victor. Also known as the 'popular Bible', it was considered a pivotal biblical manual until the mid-16th century, as the over 800 extant manuscripts show. For his wideraging work, Comestor uses a variegated pool of sources, among which one of the most important is Flavius Josephus, known to Comestor through its Latin translation. The use of Josephus in the Historia is unique in its extent and has received some scholarly attention, but further research ought to be made. This article highlights how Comestor not only uses the Jewish Antiquities to fill in the gaps in the biblical narrative, for example integrating the account of the Binding of Isaac with indirect speech between father and son extrapolated from the Antiquities, but also compares them with the Vulgate and the Septuagint, granting them the same authority to establish the historical truth of biblical history. Passages from the Historia Genesis and Exodi are analyzed to show how Comestor goes out of his way to reconcile Josephus' account and the Vulgate, showing the remarkable authority which the Jewish historian has in his eyes. first decades of the Common Era. Both authors adapt scriptural text and traditional ma terial, according to their own narrative pattern, also adding excursus on GraecoRoman history and mythology. Though each has a different readership in mind, both Comestor and Josephus combine text and commentary in a narrative format, pursuing the veri tas historiae.³ Both of them even divide their works into twenty books, although they choose to organize the material by different criteria.⁴ By merging biblical paraphrase with historiography and legends, Comestor's Historia became a "Medieval bestseller", copied and translated all over Europe, and read as a basic manual for theological studies until the 16th century.⁵ Today there are more than 800 extant manuscripts of the Historia, ranging in date from the 12th to the 16th century,⁶ that attest to the book's prodigious success. As Geiger noted,⁷ the Historia is like a Christian version of the Antiquitates. Josephus is, in fact, a significant source of material for Comestor: he provides official and reliable Jewish exegesis,⁸ he recognizes the importance of Jesus,⁹ and most of all he fills important gaps in the biblical narrative. The pivotal role of Josephus as a source is evident from the astounding number of times Josephus' name appears in the Historia: Schreckenberg counted 393 instances,¹⁰ though there are passages where Comestor uses Josephan ma terial anonymously which probably escaped the count. Comestor's debt to Josephus is profound, especially to the Antiquitates, although not exclusively, since some chapters of Since Clark argues that V in particular has a text very close to the one Langton and his students were using in the 1170s, I rely upon it for Comestor's text. See Clark, The Making of the Historia Scholastica, 157-162. Translations from Greek and Latin are my own. ² Clark's studies on Comestor and Langton demonstrate that Peter started working on the Historia very early in the 1160s, perhaps even earlier, but also that he continued working on his opus with the help of his students, especially Stephen Langton. See Clark, The Making of the Historia Scholastica, 162-183. ³ "Pro veritate historiae consequenda" are Comestor's words in his epistolary prologue (V, fol. 7ra). In this programmatic preface the author mirrors Hugh of St. Victor's discussion on history and embraces Hugh's conception of history as narrative and as expression of the literal sense of the Scriptures. See Clark, The Making of the Historia Scholastica, 24-29. ⁴ Comestor organizes the material according to the division of the biblical books, whereas Josephus uses other principles. For example, Josephus ends the first book of the Antiquitates not with the death of Joseph, as does the biblical book of Genesis, but with the death of Isaac. Comestor points out the difference in the division of the two books in Hist. Gen. 81 (V, fol. 32ra). Moreover, also in Hist. Ex. 31 (V, fol. 46ra) Comestor mentions that Josephus' second book ends after the account of the crossing of the Red Sea, shortly after the middle of the biblical book of Exodus. ⁵ For an overview of the popularity of the Historia, see Morey,

Ancient biblical commentaries by rabbinic sages and church fathers are often perceived as enigmatic and arbitrary in contrast with modern interpretative methodology, particularly the historical-critical method. However, while ancient and modern hermeneutical approaches are distinct and largely irreconcilable, modern exegetes can benefit from the rabbinic and patristic works. Using the narrative of Sarah's death and burial found in Genesis 23, I present the fundamental principles of historical criticism and then contrast them with the assumptions of ancient masters such as the anonymous contributors to Genesis Rabbah and John Chrysostom. Modern exegetes can gain valuable insights from these ancient commentaries. Not only do these works prompt critical examination of contemporary assumptions and exegetical techniques, but they also reveal ways of reviving the great traditions of the ancient synagogue and church.

The characterization of Isaac in the Rebekah cycle is meagre. He rarely speaks for himself but only repeats the words and actions of Abraham or Jacob. Not even how the people of YHWH came to call their divine patron the Fear of Isaac (Gen 31:42, 53) is explained. In contrast, the cycle characterizes Rebekah as a prominent female protagonist. The cycle includes a genealogy and an obituary as well as ancestor stories depicting her role as a host, a wife in a cross-cousin marriage, her resolution of a mid-term pregnancy complication, as an outstanding mother of a household recognized by outsiders, and for assisting Isaac in selecting an heir. The Abraham and Sarah cycle traditionally describes their household as sheep and goat herders. The Rebekah cycle, however, describes them as camel herders, a revolutionary technology in the world of the Bible which they not only appropriate, but at which they excel.

עבודת הדוקטורט של רמי שקלים עוסקת בדמותו של רבי משה זכות (רמ"ז), מקובל ומשורר מרכזי באיטליה של המאה ה-17, ובגישתו הייחודית לשמות הקודש. המחקר בוחן את הפער בין תפיסתו ה"היפרנומית" (המחויבת להלכה) בפירושיו לזוהר, לבין גישתו ה"אנטינומיסטית" והמאגית המשתקפת בספרו "שרשי השמות". העבודה חושפת כי רמ"ז שילב בהגותו יסודות מהקבלה השבתאית, תוך שהוא מושפע מהתרבות הרנסנסית באיטליה שהעניקה לגיטימציה לעיסוק במאגיה ותיאורגיה. ממצא מרכזי במחקר מראה כי ספר "שרשי השמות" המצוי בידינו אינו רק פרי עטו של רמ"ז, אלא אסופה אקלקטית שנוספו לה מאות מקורות לאורך המאות ה-18 וה-19. בכך מבקש המחקר למלא חסר משמעותי בספרות המחקרית, שהתמקדה עד כה ביצירתו הספרותית של רמ"ז והזניחה את תרומתו לקבלה העיונית והמעשית.

In aansluiting by die huidige klem op resepsiegeskiedenis in die Bybelwetenskappe word in hierdie artikel gekyk hoe ’n Bybelse simbool – die strydwa in Esegiel, en die visioen waarvoor dit staan – in ’n moderne literere werk, Patrick White se Riders in the chariot, gebruik word. As aanloop tot die bespreking van hoe die strydwa in die roman funksioneer, word eers kortliks gewys op die algemene bydrae wat die bestudering van die resepsie van Bybelse verhale, figure en simbole tot die vakgebied kan lewer. Wat spesifiek die strydwa betref, word gefokus op moontlike geerfde konnotasies waardeur Patrick White se roman beinvloed is – veral soos dit voorkom by Esegiel en in die merkabah-mistiek. Om White se eie gebruik van die strydwa-simbool te verstaan, word eerstens gelet op die wereldbeeld wat in sy werk funksioneer. Dit sluit die religieuse inslag daarvan in – “religieus” in ’n niedogmatiese, nie-eksklusivistiese sin. Omdat die strydwa in die roman in “hierdie lewe” ingetrek word, wor...

This paper analyses the Glagolitic text of the Book of Ruth, found in the Breviary of Vid Omišljanin from 1396, written for churches in Roč, a small town in Istria, Croatia, and now kept in the Austrian National Library. It is the oldest, albeit incomplete, known translation of the Book of Ruth into Church Slavonic. The paper is divided into four parts, with an introduction and a conclusion. The first part provides basic information about the Book of Ruth and its place in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the second part, the liturgical use of this biblical book in the Roman Rite is discussed, noting its marginality and almost imperceptibility, which further raises the question of its presence in the BrVO. The third part is dedicated to several current topics in the Book of Ruth, including economic migration, mixed marriages, male infertility, relationships among women within the family, marriage across significant age and economic differences, and the expectations of women in a patriarchal society. The author believes that these topics may have motivated the inclusion of the Book of Ruth in BrVO. The fourth part analyses some significant textual versions in the BrVO that differ to some extent from the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts, revealing different understandings of the text and allowing for new interpretations.