As I am working on my new book on Targum Ruth I am also editing my doctoral thesis to get it into eBook form (well, truth be told, an undergrad is doing the editing). One matter that I laid out in the thesis and my book that I think is […]
Bible
353 posts
I had originally planned two articles on the character of Boaz and subsequently presented two separate papers. The first was on the figure of Boaz strictly within the biblical book of Ruth. The other was on how the Targumist had transformed the figure of Boaz in Targum Ruth. This progression […]
I am now working on moving two papers I have presented on Boaz into (likely) a single article for submission to a journal to be named later. In re-reading my paper “Boaz Centrally Marginalized” it occurred to me that men as a whole are very deliberately moved to the edges […]
It is well known to those who give the Book of Ruth even a cursory reading that Boaz is older than Ruth and, in fact, is closer to Naomi in age. In the comments of a paper on Boaz that I posted here over a year ago, Robert Holmstedt, who […]
I am very (very) pleased to post my translation of Targum Ruth. It can be found here and the opening comments and first verse are below. This is a first draft and the English needs smoothing, but I thought I would do a bit of “crowd sourcing.” Feel free to […]
I know, I know. This is an old and hackneyed debate and there are far better/worse modern translations to go after. But as I am finishing up my translation of Targum Ruth (huzzah!) I see that the NRSV has made some lame choices, presumably to be “gender inclusive.” In this […]
Non Sequitur had this comic today. Non Sequitur by Wiley There are, of course, so many things that could be said here. We could discuss the need for good relevant translations, the pitfalls of any translations, or simply the depravity of humanity. But I will leave that up to each […]
I make no bones about it, I am no linguist. I do not derive great joy (and usually, no joy at all) from hours spent trying to decipher and understand grammar. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when I have developed language skills and believe it is vital to […]
Yesterday, as simply a means of illustrating the announcement about the new book on Lamentations I quickly created two word clouds of the Book of Lamentations and the Targum of Lamentations. As with Ruth there are some interesting observations one can make from this simple graphic. For those not familiar, […]
A year ago, almost to the day, I shared with you all that a new book was forthcoming on the topic of Lamentations and its interpretation in Christianity and Judaism. Yesterday I received the proofs and Great Is Thy Faithfulness: Reading Lamentations as Sacred Scripture should be ready for purchase […]