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According to my count Ruth is not only the first, but one of only two books in the Bible named after a woman (the other being Esther). I have to say that after all the violence and bloodshed in Joshua and Judges, Ruth is a breath of fresh air.
The book begins just after Ruth’s husband dies. She goes with her mother-in-law back to their hometown, Bethlehem (we’ll hear more about that town when we hit the New Testament). There’s a famine, so Ruth goes out to the fields to “glean.” I’d heard about gleaning before, but wasn’t exactly sure what it was so I did a little research…
Basically, anyone who farms land is required by Jewish law (see Deuteronomy) leave the corners of their field unharvested. Also, after harvesting, farmers are not allowed to go back and get leftovers that may have fallen on the ground. Instead, other people (strangers, widows, orphans or the poor) can go in and glean — harvesting the corners and collecting the leftovers in the field. So basically it was a law that helped ensure that no one goes hungry. It sorta reminds me of the Year of Jubilee from Deuteronomy, in the sense that they are both laws that help ensure that no one is completely forgotten or destitute.
The other cool thing about Ruth is that it introduces the line of Jesus. Ruth is the great grandmother of David (we’ll see more of him over the next 2 books). Jesus is a descendant of David and is even referred to as the “Son of David” in the gospels.
OK, I gotta be honest here, design-wise this is not one of my favorites. Not sure why, but it just feels incomplete or something. Oh well, I’ve got 58 more books to redeem myself, right?
Back at ya next week for 1 Samuel….
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Awesome… even though that’s not what Ruth looked like.
Thanks… and we’ll call it “artistic license.”
I think with this one, you could have centered it around redemption and even love since Ruth’s story is a direct reflection of humanities story with God – however I do like the fact that you focused on Ruth’s gleaning in the fields and connecting it to the teachings in Deuteronomy. I grew up on a farm for approx. 2 years and remember having a huge corn field – acres and acres of corn grew high in the sky and started to reproduce. When harvesting time came, everything was harvested and the land cleared for the next season of planting. Nothing was on the field for the poor to take advantage of. I think that would have been a great thing for the neighborhood. The family I lived with sold most of what they harvested, but they also gave a lot to their church and poorer folks in the neighborhood. I think this act of kindness and even the law of leaving a portions of our harvest for others is a great community act. I know however that this would be a very unpleasing thing to do for some today. Most of us only think of self and never of others. Maybe we’d ask the question today – “Why don’t they get a job?”
That was an interesting lesson on gleaning! I never knew what that was. Any logic behind not harvesting the corners? Same purpose?
@Godserve: Thanks for the feedback! Cool perspective considering you grew up on a farm. Sounds like you lived with a generous family. Someone else had mentioned that a romance novel cover design would have been a good design for this and I agree. I just didn’t have the tools to pull that off.
@Marie: Yeah, I liked learning more about gleaning too. Not sure about the corners. From what I read, there wasn’t a specific explanation for that.
Sweet.
So far every one of your designs would make a really cool T-shirt.
When you are done it is clear these will all need to be printed and bound into something called a “book”.
Thanks, Nathan! Yeah, at some point, I’ll have to figure out a way to reproduce these.
There is another book of the Bible named after a woman, but Martin Luther & Company tossed it in the Sixteenth Century: it’s called Judith. From what you’ve been blogging, I think you’d really like it!
Check it out:
• Judith 1-7
• Judith 8-15
• Judith 16
@Diezba – be careful! When you state “there is another book of the Bible” that was removed/left out. You are stating that God is not able to ensure that his Word is preserved. This states that man has the ability to remove His Word and man has the ability to prevent God from revealing the Truth. I’ll stop here as to not get completely off topic of this great site and design. But please, pray and further investigate the scriptures that are in the Bible to see for yourself that God is perfect and what he wants us to know, he’ll let us know.
Diezba: Thanks for the link. I’ll have to check those out.
Been thinking a lot about Ruth myself lately and it lead my to your design. I couldn’t help but feel the same way as you do about this design in comparison to the dramatic and most striking effect of some of you other remarkable interpretations.
For me, I couldn’t get away from the idea of Boaz taking off his shoe in the town square in order to buy back or redeem Ruth’s inheritance. I loved the symbolic gesture of the very real human action, so it real, that in fact I reckon it must be true (who would make something like that up anyhow?)
Little did Boaz know he was in fact restoring the line of David, a bit like Marty Mcfly had to do in Back to the future! Jesus’ death restores us our inheritance of the kingdom of heaven in the same redeeming way.
Anyway I got quite caught up in all of this, it would be cool if you could illustrate this somehow… anyway in my excitement I wrote the following song in response… check here:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_10116981
regards
gski
Really enjoying the site. Just been told about it by a friend – we talked about doing a similar thing (but never did).
You seemed slightly unhappy with this one. For me it’s the pink dots, they don’t sit easily in my view.
I’m looking forward to looking through the rest.