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Unceasing Kindness: A Biblical Theology of Ruth is unavailable, but you can change that!

The Old Testament book of Ruth is understandably a firm favorite in the church for small-group study and preaching: a heart-warming story of loyalty and love, a satisfying tale of a journey from famine to fullness. In the academy, the book has been a testing ground for a variety of hermeneutical approaches, and many different ways of interpreting it have been put forward. However, the single...

Nehemiah was deploying a hermeneutic in which the law was applied in accordance with its intentions rather than its specifics, and proper behaviour was marked by right motivation.34 The book of Ruth would reinforce such an approach wherein behaviour moves beyond the limits of strict legal responsibility, for it presents an ethic of generosity (ḥesed) as the behavioural norm in Israelite society. More briefly, there are three other areas where the book of Ruth
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