Grace beyond the Law: An Ethical and Theological Reading of Ruth

Sa-Ya Lee

The period of Judges was the representative period of confusion and unethics in the Old Testament. But The Book of Ruth, which has that period as its historical backgroud, is one of the best-loved works of biblical literature, notable for its literary delicacy and important theological thinkings. It is a treasure house of theological thinking which speaks the change of theological paradigms in the (Post-)Exilic period as well as one of the elaborate literary works in the Old Testament. We can see important themes such as the anti-nationalism, anti-monarchy, invisible sovereign power and grace of hidden God, deference and concern about the social weaks, universalism which permits foreigners as the people of God, international marriage, when we read this book theologically. Those all features are proven through the normal persons’ routine works and dialogues in the shape of diverse skills such as literary chiasmus and contrast. I’m going to try to read the book of Ruth theologically and ethically focusing on grace(דסח hesed) which appears 3 times in the book(1:8; 2:20; 3:10). We can divide the entire book by that word: The story of failure and returning of two widows, The encounter of Boaz and Ruth and the expansion of new hope, legal dialogue between Boaz and a relative of Elimelech. Especially, in the chapters 2-3, we meet Boaz, a responsible relative of Elimelech, Ruth’s deceased father-in-law. Boaz took an interest in her, noting her loyalty to Naomi and Ruth asks Boaz to spread his cloak over her, metaphorically to give her grace and to marry her. During the flowing of the story. We can see the vivid change of the characters and ethical themes as well as significant features of the theological thinking. We can see the grace(דסח) of all characters which are expanded from that of God beyond the laws of Moses and traditional regulations and the stable hope from the emptiness to the fulness. The author shows us the challenge and change of the social weaks beyond the care/protection of the social weaks and tells us the importance of conversion to the religion of YHWH. He highlights theological messages, new cognition of God, change of theological paradigms desiring changing Israel community in the changed world through the encounter of Boaz and Ruth

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* 2021년 이후 발행 논문의 참고문헌은 현재 구축 중입니다.

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