Escape From El-Ashaq

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Esther, with a titular female character . The rare similarities encourage the comparison to Job, a non-Israelite, finding favor in God, and the parallel with Esther marrying a Gentile husband, suggesting Gentiles were to only be blessed through Abraham’s seed. However, the extent to which God actually provided for Ruth is questionable; the text gives nothing of God’s thoughts on Ruth. Ruth’s desire to worship Naomi’s god seems to only affirm her love for Naomi, not God (Ruth 1.16). Nor is Ruth’s marriage to Boaz necessarily a blessing. Ruth enters into marriage for Naomi’s sake; Boaz is reluctant and wants to make sure, by law, no one else has a right to marry her (3.1-5; 4.1-5). Aligning Ruth with other stories of conversion and blessings propagates faith in religion, and may preclude one from viewing this faith as facilitating their troubles.
The author of Ruth is unknown, as is the book’s exact date of origin, but the stories of Ruth are believed to have existed orally ...

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