The Ruth Scroll

Then the elders and all those at the gate said, "We are witnesses. The sale of land and the marriage are hereby approved." The wedding feast followed within days. The LORD had blessed Boaz with an abundant harvest because of his kindness to Ruth and Naomi. The his guests ate and drank their fill. Boaz kept his head that night and did not join his guests at the wineskins. He did pleasure Ruth many times on their wedding night and Ruth, in turn, employed the Moabite secret to pleasure Boaz mightily. As the elders staggered away from the wedding feast, they pronounced this blessing on the house of Boaz:

"May the LORD make that cute chick who came into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephratah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the LORD gives you by Ruth, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Yehuda. "

Thus did Boaz take Ruth and she became his wife. In the month of Tammuz, nine months to the day after the Feast of Sukkoth, Ruth gave birth to a man child. They named the child Oved because he was the fruit of Ruth's labour in the sukkah as well as the fruit of Boaz' loins. Naomi spent countless hours rocking the child in her lap and caring for him. Because Naomi doted so openly over her grandson, the yentas of Bethlehem wagged their tongues saying "Naomi has a son. The child is Naomi's and not the offspring of her slut Moabite daughter-in-law. For this reason, Boaz was forced to redeem Naomi's lands." They spread the rumour that Naomi was the true mother of Oved out of jealousy because they lost the services of Boaz to a younger woman.

This, then, is the family line of Perez, the firstborn of Yehuda and Tamar: Perez was the father of Chezron, Chezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Ahminadav, Ahminadav the father of Nachshon, Nachshon the father of Salman. Salman was the father of Boaz and Boaz was the father of Oved. The lands of Boaz and Naomi passed to their first-born Oved. Oved's first-born was Yeshai and it was Yeshai who inherited the lands of Naomi and Boaz. Yeshai was the father of David, who is armour-bearer to Shaul, king over all Israel.

David is not the first-born of Yeshai, so he cannot inherit the lands of his great-great grandmother, Naomi. For this reason, David forsook olive pruning and goat herding, seeking a career change as a general in the army of Israel. These words are written because of the scurrilous rumour afoot in the land that David is a landless momser and the family of Yeshai are momserim. It is furthermore untrue that David and his family are worshippers of Chemosh. His great-grandmother Ruth forsook the abomination of Moab upon her marriage and was true to the LORD, the One True God, all the days of her life.

Dr. Lajeunesse discussed her findings with her superior and mentor, Dr. Aviatar Altman, in Dr. Altman's office. Little had changed in Israel after three thousand years. The staff at Hebrew University gossiped about the close relationship between the two scholars the same way the women of Bethlehem speculated about Boaz, Naomi and Ruth. The only difference was that the rumours about Drs. Altman and Lajeunesse were quite true. The two eminent scholars had been getting it on since their co-discovery of the long-lost Tamar Scroll. When they weren't exploring Dead Sea caves for new scrolls, they explored each other's body in detail. Today, the two scholars were all business, focusing their attention on the Ruth Scroll.

Dr. Altman corrected some minor errors in the Hebrew text and added some notations that would form the footnotes when they published the new scroll. Finally, he looked up and flashed a smile that was half scholarly approval and half "your place or mine tonight?"

"This scroll is of quite ancient origin, despite a few interpolations by later scribes. Given its ancient date of writing, the language in vernacular translations should respect the age in which it was written. I have some reservations about the numerous colloquial terms you've inserted in the English translation. Shouldn't we rethink some of your phraseology such as 'shit-faced'? That's merely one example I could cite."

"I might remind you, Dr. Altman, of the Yiddish words you inserted into the same translation, even though the Yiddish language was unknown until well into the Second Millennium CE. My reasons for using English and French colloquialisms is that I found a number of obscure Hebrew words and terms that I couldn't readily translate into English. From the context I tried to determine their closest equivalents in modern languages. If I may quote your textbook on Classical Hebrew, 'Hebrew has been the property of prophets, rabbis and assorted holy men for thousands of years with the result that the modern Hebrew language is almost sanitary with its limited vocabulary of earthy curses.' My preference is to leave in the blue language in order to alert the English reader to the scroll's authentic origins. The obscure phrases I have translated as cuss words are a philological method of dating this scroll.

"I don't dispute your point at all, Dr. Lajeunesse, but there is more precise evidence than ancient foul-mouthery to date the scroll. The last two paragraphs date this scroll after the end of the rule of the Shoftim and during the monarchy of Shaul. There is no mention of David's later careers as a bandit in the environs of Ein Gedi and then as a Philistine protégé, nor is there a hint of that later unpleasantness with Bathsheva and Uriah the Hittite. This is one of the most ancient pieces of writing that can be dated with such exactitude. I'm as certain that this scroll was written near the beginning of the First Millennium BCE as I'm certain you're a beautiful woman."

Dr. Lajeunesse looked at her superior. "Have you reached any other conclusions, Dr. Altman?"

"Yes. I'm curious about this sexual secret of Moabite women. Can you please come to my apartment this evening and help me with a scientific experiment? With a little bit of effort, I believe that we can recover the secret of Moab. My current theory is that the secret hasn't really been lost but resides in the women of Quebec."