RUTH, BOOK OF. One of the books of the Old Testa ment. The events with which it deals are said to have belonged to the period of the Judges. The book might therefore be expected to follow the Book of Judges (q.v.). This is the place assigned to it by the Septua gint, Josephus, and the English Bible. In the Hebrew Canon, however, it appears among the Hagiographa as one of the five " Rolls " or Megilloth (q.v.). Conserva tive scholars explain that it was classed with the Megil loth because, like them, it was set apart for special use in the Synagogue. Higher critics find in its separation from the historical books support for the view that the origin of the book belongs " to a period when the col lection of the historical books had already been closed " (C. Cornill). Cornill describes the story as " a charming idyll." The story is this. In the days of the judges. Elimelech, a man of Bethlehem, goes with Naomi, his wife, and their two sons, to sojourn in the land of Moab. Here the two sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Naomi soon loses her husband and both her sons. Sbe decides to return to Bethlehem, and her daughter-in law clings lovingly to her and refuses to leave her. When they have settled in Bethlehem. Ruth goes to glean in the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Elimelech. She finds favour In his eyes, and is treated with exceptional kind ness. Naomi, having noted this, thinks of a means of suggesting to Boaz that he should marry Ruth. Boaz is willing to do so, but he knows of a nearer kinsman who has a better claim. When the other kinsman re fuses to press his claim, Boaz marries Ruth. She
becomes the ancestress of David. Conservative scholars maintain that thy events of the book occurred about n hundred years before the time of David. The marriage of an Israelite with a Moabite, it is argued, would have seemed offensive to a pious Israelite of post-exilic times. The higher critic, on the other hand, thinks that the time-indication (ch. 1. 1) " presupposes the rigidly fixed chronological system of the Deuteronomic Exilic History of Israel " (Coruill). The conservative scholar explains peculiarities of language as " instances of the spoken patois "; the higher critic finds in them post-exilic Aramaisms. The conservative scholar finds no reference to the levirate law of Deuteronomy (xxv. 7-9) in Ruth iv. 7; the higher critic finds that in Ruth " a custom which was current in the times of Deuteronomy is expressly explained as if it were an antiquarian curiosity " (Cornill). If the book is post-exilic. it may be regarded as a protest against the strict view regardina intermarriage with foreign wives, the view enforced by Ezra and Nehemiah (see Ezra ix., x.: Neh. xiii. 23-29). Perhaps Prof. Whitehouse is right in thinking that " the present book may have arisen from a pre-exilian docu mentary basis, and have owed its present form to a writer who, like the author of the Book of Jonah. was opposed to the narrower traditions of the time of Ezra and Nehemiah." See C. H. H. Wright, Intr. to the O.T., 1890; C. Cornill, Intr.; G. H. Box; O. C. Whitehouse.