The Ruth Scroll

The Message Bible (TMB) claims that Ruth crawled under the sheets with Boaz "to signal her availability for marriage." You can look that up for yourself (Ruth 3:7 TMB). In my opinion, TMB has it all wrong because I believe Ruth had a much shorter term goal in mind, namely getting laid. The Bible contains tales of real people who deal with the same primal urges every day as you and I do. It does a disservice to the humanness of Biblical characters to sanitize their actions. To set the record straight, the fictional Dead Sea Scroll Scholars, who first appeared in The Tamar Scroll, have discovered another unknown scroll among the Dead Sea Scroll Fragments that provides the truth about Ruth.

Dr. Francis Lajeunesse walked alongside the easel examining the assembled fragments of a scroll. It took months to put together the various fragments but now the scroll was complete. The Israel Antiquities Authority obtained the bits and pieces of the scroll through the shady Bedouin antiquities dealer, Bashir ibn Sharmuta. From the completeness of the scroll, Dr. Lajeunesse concluded that ibn Sharmuta's network of antiquity thieves was still intact and functioning. Ibn Sharmuta's ethics might be debatable but the scoundrel's work was world-class quality. Aside from some deterioration at the top and bottom edges of the scroll, Dr. Lajeunesse noted that the text was recoverable in its entirety. Moving to the beginning of the scroll, Dr. Lajeunesse began dictating in Hebrew to her tape recorder. What follows is an English translation of the scroll made by Dr. Lajeunesse and the eminent scholar, Dr. Aviatar Altman.

There was an economic recession in the land of the Israelites during the days of the Judges. Elimelech the Ephratite was a landless hireling in the territory that the LORD had allotted to the half-tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Without land of his own, the recession left Elimelech without employment and completely shekeless. Consequently, he returned south to his home town of Bethlehem of Ephratah in the territory allotted to the tribe of Yehuda. The Ephratites were descendents of Calev, the servant of the LORD who gave a true report of the land.

Elimelech found no more work in Bethlehem than in the territory of Ephraim but he met the spinster Naomi. God gifted Naomi greatly with olive groves and fig orchards but had just as abundantly shorted the woman in beauty. Naomi, like Elimelech was an Ephratite and still single. Unlike Elimelech, Naomi possessed lands. There was no issue from her parents other than Naomi, so her father's lands became her patrimony upon his demise. Without immediate prospects of employment, Elimelech wooed and married the rich spinster Naomi.

Elimelech was astonished to discover upon his wedding night that Naomi's libido was of even greater magnitude than the extent of her properties surrounding Bethlehem. Within nine months of unlocking Naomi's suppressed desires, Naomi provided Elimelech with his first-born son, whom they named Mahlon. Elimelech applied himself to the growing and crushing of olives as faithfully as he applied himself to the growing of his member and the pounding of Naomi's loins. By day, Elimelech dressed the figs in the orchard and, by night, he undressed Naomi in the bedroom. Elimelech's labours produced abundant fig cakes and numerous clay jars of olive oil. Naomi produced another son, whom they named Chilion.

Yea, Elimelech, Naomi and their small family prospered in Bethlehem for a time but their prosperity proved fleeting. The cereal crops in the land of Yehuda failed. Even the coarsest meal disappeared from the Bethlehem market. The people spurned the oil of Elimelech and Naomi crying "Of what use to us is your oil when we have no meal with which to bake bread?" Yet, Elimelech's business head deserted him not. "We will pledge the olive and fig groves and the inventory of oil to Zalman ben Zonah the moneylender. We will move to the land of Moab where there is meal and oil aplenty. Ben Zonah will make an arrangement with his correspondent moneylender in Beit Baal-Peor and we will start our lives anew there."

So, Naomi and their two sons followed Elimelech to Moab and the chief city of Beit-Baal-Peor. Landless again, Elimelech employed the skills he honed in Bethlehem to purchase the choicest olives on the Moab Commodities Exchange. He then processed the olives in the factory he constructed with the funds from Naomi's pledged lands. He became the richest oil merchant in Moab and the lands surrounding the Great Sea. Elimelech Brand Olive Oil sold in the upscale marketplaces of Egypt and in Phoenicia as far North as Tyre.

For twenty years, Elimelech, Naomi and their sons prospered in the land of Moab. Their sons adopted the customs but not the religion of Moab, ultimately marrying Moabite women. Mahlon married Ruth, a woman twenty-something years old. Despite her maturity, Ruth was unworldly, naïve and sexually innocent at the time of her marriage. Her red hair and freckles served to accentuate Ruth's childishness. Chilion married Orpah whilst she was yet a teenager. Orpah was a sultry brunette, well experienced in intimate matters and wise beyond her years in the ways of the world. She was like unto her sister-in-law only in her great beauty. Mahlon and Chilion, having inherited their parents' sexual genetic makeup, did pleasure their Moabite wives most lustily and most often.

The house of Elimelech and Naomi resonated nightly with the groans and sighs of their sons and daughters-in-law in the throes of passion. Although neither Mahlon nor Chilion had heretofore displayed any trace of monogamy, the two young men behaved unusually attentive to their wives after their marriages. This change in her sons' conduct aroused Naomi's curiosity. Since Orpah was more outgoing than Ruth, Naomi decided to approach her younger daughter-in-law so she could discern the reason for her sons' newfound devotion.

Orpah eagerly provided an answer to Naomi's problem. "The women of Moab possess a secret technique that we practice upon our husbands. My mother passed the secret on to me on my wedding night as, presumably, did Ruth's mother when she wed Mahlon. I needed to employ the secret only once on Chilion and, behold, he is now at my beck and call. My mother learned the secret from her mothers and she learned it from her mother who learned it from, well you get the idea. Suffice it to say that Moabite women have been practicing this technique from antiquity."

"Now I get it. This secret possessed by your women is why the LORD, through our Prophet Moses, forbade the men of Israel to consort with the women of the land when the Children of Israel entered the territory of Moab. Moses was concerned lest the men of Israel become enchanted by the secret held by the women and turn away from the One True God to the abominable gods of Moab. I beg of you, Orpah, to teach me this secret. Elimelech has not come in unto me for many months because he spends so much time on his business."

"I don't see any reason why you shouldn't learn the secret of Moab. You're family, you're married and you're not getting enough. This will truly get Elimelech's attention. The next time he comes to you in the night……."

Armed with the precious secrets of a Moabite woman, Naomi satisfied once more the lusts Elimelech had awakened in her loins twenty-five years earlier. She jumped the bones of the willing Elimelech ever more frequently and energetically. Elimelech was, by this time, well advanced in years. One night during an extremely intricate set of maneuvers, Elimelech's heart failed him. So, Elimelech went to sleep with his fathers.

Naomi was exceedingly sorrowful at the death of her husband and the loss of his services. To add to Naomi's distress, she bore the shame of burying Elimelech in the same pose in which he met his demise. His still-erect weapon of his own destruction required that he be buried in a casket with a prominent codpiece on the lid. To all who mourned at Elimelech's funeral, the distinctive coffin recounted without words the manner of his death.

Dr. Lajeunesse pulled out her Daytimer and made the following note: "Call Habibi tomorrow at the Jordanian Department of Archaeology and enquire whether any anomalous sarcophagi have been discovered on the Jordanian side of the Aravah."

Upon completion of the seven days of mourning for their father, Mahlon and Chilion pored over the books of their father's business. Upon discovering how profitable their father's business was, both young men came to the same conclusion. The business should forthwith be expanded so that the market for their cruses of virgin olive oil would expand to the west as far as the gates of the Great Sea and as far east as the Indus Valley. The abundant olive crops of Moab would be entirely processed in the efficient factory of Elimelech & Sons (1073 BCE) Inc.

Whilst Mahlon busied himself cornering the olive market on the Moab Commodity Exchange, Chilion installed larger olive presses to process the increased volume of olives. He then imported labourers from Cush to operate the new machinery. Upon arrival in Beit-Baal-Peor, the Cushite workers angered the men of Moab. The Cushites enamored themselves to the women of Beit Baal-Peor to such an extent that they utterly dominated Moabite women's favours in the same manner that Mahlon monopolized the Moab Commodity Exchange in olives. So many young women and not merely a few of the more mature women of the city were finding pleasure with the Cushites that the priests and priestesses of Chemosh and Ishtar were only able to recruit quite elderly widows or extremely homely women to perform the annual fertility rites in their respective temples.

The elders of Beit-Baal-Peor learned of their citizens' displeasure with the actions of the sons of Elimelech. The elders had long been jealous of the foreigners' wealth but now their anger burned exceedingly hot upon discovering that the Cushite men had usurped even their own wives' affections. The elders of Beit-Baal-Peor summoned Mahlon and Chilion to a Council in the gates of the City. The elders and the sons of Elimelech did argue heatedly for an hour. Mahlon countered every accusation of monopoly with a detailed explanation of the trickle-down effect. Chilion arose to declare that, forthwith, the working day of the Cushites would be extended by two hours. This would ensure that the Cushites would have no time for pleasure with the women of the city. The Potters' Guild of Moab and Edom supported Mahlon and Chilion as the production and profit of clay cruses had risen simultaneously with the production and profit of olive oil. The elders conferred and seemed inclined to release Mahlon and Chilion until the High Priest of the Temple of Chemosh arose and pointed accusingly at the two men.

"There is one final issue that the eminent elders of the city most resolve before we release these two men of Israel. They have not allowed their women to serve in the Temples of Chemosh and Ishtar. We did not require their mother, the wife of the late Elimelech, to so serve because she was a foreigner and, I speak frankly concerning this matter, not particularly comely of appearance. However, your wives are women of Moab and, yea, gifted with the great beauty of our women of this country. We intend to enforce the laws of Moab regarding the unfulfilled duties of Ruth and Orpah to the temple."

Mahlon rose and answered the priest. "It is true that we are not men of Moab but these two women have joined themselves unto us and unto the One True God. In order to marry us under our Law and tradition, they converted to the religion of our forefathers. Thus, they are excused from service to Chemosh and Ishtar because our God is a jealous God who requires that those who follow Him to worship Him alone. This is because our ancestor Abraham was a wandering Aramean who encountered the One True God on his journeys. His descendants took refuge in Egypt during a famine even worse than the one that drove our father and mother to leave their home and take up residence in this city. They were enslaved by their Egyptian hosts but the LORD smote the Egyptians with seven plagues for their sins towards our people. He set a pillar of fire before us to guide us on our journey to Canaan. The route chosen by the pillar of fire just happened to take us through Moab.

When our forefathers passed through this land of Moab, it is true your king Balak hired the prophet Balaam to curse our forefathers but he was powerless as the LORD was on our side. Well, that was then and this is now so let's let bygones be bygones. After all, isn't our prophet Moshe rumoured to be buried in this very valley? Today, we again sojourn in Moab but this time in peace and to our mutual advantage. Our father brought prosperity and prestige to the Moabite olive industry and we have continued his good works. All we ask in exchange for the economic prosperity we have brought to this city and the surrounding countryside is that our families be allowed to worship in peace the One True God of our ancestors."

As Mahlon took his seat among the city elders, he became uneasy upon noticing that the crowd visibly yawned after his overly long speech. Mahlon never learned how to talk to a pagan without the pagan getting bored. The High Priest of Chemosh walked to the podium and shouted to the elders and the rabble who had gathered to hear the debate.

"Hear me, oh men of Beit-Baal-Peor! See how these miserable Israelites blaspheme Chemosh by asserting that their god is the True God and that, furthermore, this invisible god is the only one in the god business. Can a god that can't be seen have any authority upon those who possess vision? You may go to our temple to gaze upon the awesome statue of Chemosh and ponder at length his awesome power.

Consider next what an inferior god must this God of Israel be who has no female deity to attend to his physical needs and desires? If a god does not shtumpf his goddess in the spring, then crops will surely fail. I point to the famine that drove these Israelites to our city as proof that that this invisible god is impotent and inferior to Chemosh of the Moabites.

Every Moabite knows that, within a city, the gods of that city are supreme and outside the city the gods live and let live. This invisible god may rule Bethlehem in whatever manner he wishes but he has no authority upon these women whilst they dwell in Beit-Baal-Peor. It is perfectly clear that Ruth and Orpah are required to serve in our temples. I furthermore conclude that the religious objections of these men of Israel are pure theological rubbish. I say, 'Great is Chemosh of the Moabites above all other gods!'"

The elders and the men standing idly by in the gates of the city took up the slogan of the high priest and shouted, "Great is Chemosh, god of the Moabites and great is he above all other gods!" Upon hearing the high priest's compelling logic for a female deity, the priestesses of Ishtar and the women amongst the rabble started chanting in return, "And great is his consort, the goddess Ishtar, above all other goddesses!"

Seeing the direction that the priests of Chemosh and the priestesses of Ishtar were taking, Chilion nudged his manservant, saying "None of this feels right to me. Leave quietly and go by the side streets to our house. Tell the womenfolk in our house to flee to the hills across the valley where we will meet them later."

The manservant did as he was told, running at full speed to the house of Mahlon and Chilion. Breathlessly, he related the events taking place in the gates of the city and Chilion's advice to flee forthwith. Only Ruth resisted flight. "Our men are being silly again. If all the high priest is asking is for me to serve in the temple, I'm quite humble enough to scrub floors and clean the candle holders for a couple of hours if that will get my Mahlon out of trouble." Orpah took her older sister-in-law aside, describing in whispers exactly what service in the pagan temples required.

Naomi gathered together whatever silver was kept in the house with one hand and took Ruth's arm by the other hand. "We must make haste out of this city. It is unfortunately the lot of the children of Israel from time to time to flee in the night from their oppressors."

The three women escaped over the city wall, aided by the man servant. As they crossed the valley to hide in the olive groves opposite the city, the men of the city could be heard shouting, "Great is Chemosh the god of Moab above all other gods," and the women of the city answering in return, "And great is his consort, the goddess Ishtar above all other goddesses." Then the unmistakable odour of burning olive oil wafted over the women. From their vantage point across the valley, the three women watched the flames of their factory burn all night. The flames of the factory illuminated a long line of black men driven from the city in anger by Moabite men bearing whips.

On the morrow, an exhausted and exceedingly sorrowful servant came bearing a few baskets of food. "This is all that I could salvage from your home after the mob looted the house. Your olive oil factory lies in ashes and all the foreign workers have been banished to their homes in Cush."

Naomi rocked back and forth for ten minutes at the news of her economic loss. Finally she posed the dreaded question: "You have not spoken of my sons Mahlon and Chilion. What of them? Are they safe and when will they join us?"

"Nay, my mistress. They will not join you. They did not survive the wrath of the priests, priestesses, elders and assorted rabble. They now rest with their fathers. Furthermore, I caution my mistress against returning to Beit-Baal-Peor or you may meet the same fate as your sons. I strongly recommend that you return to your former home in Bethlehem. I have heard that your invisible God has smiled upon His people and your land flows once more with milk and honey."

Naomi and her two daughters-in-law mourned Mahlon and Chilion for seven days. At the end of seven days, Naomi put off her sackcloth and washed her head of ashes. She picked up the last basket of food and the pouch of silver and said "I'm returning to my ancestral home in the land of Yehuda. You should likewise return to your families' homes. May the God of our father Abraham show kindness to you in the same measure as you have shown to your husbands. May the LORD grant that each of you will find comfort and pleasures in the home of another husband."

Then she kissed them but they wailed aloud and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people." But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? I am old and I am ugly. I'll never find another husband, especially one who could make love to me in the manner of Elimelech. If you stay with me, I'll just be a drag on your lives. Neither of you will find a husband with me around. No, the LORD has dealt us all a bitter blow but it is better that I bear this alone than burden you with it. Go back to the city and to your homes."

After an appropriate interlude of weeping, Orpah said, "I'm going back to Beit-Baal-Peor and do my service in the Temple of Ishtar, as the priestesses wish. Right now, three square meals a day in exchange for getting poked in the name of Ishtar sounds good to me. I hope you're not disappointed in me, mother Naomi but I always thought that believing in an invisible God was as childish as having an invisible friend. Give me a real statue of a god anytime. When my service to Ishtar is over, I'll still be young enough to find a husband for myself."

Orpah kissed Naomi good-bye, waved ta-ta to Ruth and walked away. Ruth remained behind, clutching her mother-in-law's hand. Naomi turned to Ruth and said "Follow Orpah. Rejoin your family, worship your people's gods and leave me to my weep over the loss of my husband and now my sons."