Bible Review

The Acts of Paul is available in several English translations, including J. Keith Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 350ff (this is a total reworking of M.R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963]); and Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), pp. 213ff.

See Susan Niditch, “The Wronged Woman Righted,” Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979), pp. 143–149.

See Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 7.131.

The rabbinic writings are far more concerned with the fact that she is a foreigner—and a Moabite at that. According to Deuteronomy 22:3, “No Ammorite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of Yahweh, even to the tenth generation.” The law could apply to David through Ruth.

Baruch A. Levine, “In Praise of the Israelite Mišpāḥâ: Legal Themes in the Book of Ruth,” in The Quest for the Kingdom of God, ed. Harry B. Huffmon et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), p. 106.

Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), p. 166.

T. Drorah Setel, “Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea,” Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty Russell (Phildelphia: Westminster/John Knox, 1985), pp. 89–90.

Raymond E. Brown, “Rachab in Mt 1, 5 Probably Is Rahab of Jericho,” Biblica 63 (1982), pp. 79–80. Cf. Y. Zakowitch, “Rahab als Mutter des Boas in der Jesus-Genealogie (Matth. 1.5),” Novus Testamentum 17 (1975), pp. 1–5.

Origen, In Matt. 1:5.

Philo, De congressu eruditionis gratia 124; cf. De fuga et inventione 149–156; De virtutibus 220–222.