Ruth in Boaz’ field, by Carolsfeld. Public domain via wikimedia commons.
I have my last major exam coming up, so Ruth/Samuel won’t go up until Saturday. Ruth is a really important book for grasping the concrete Israelite idea of “redemption.” I presented a conference paper last year about redemption and two other Israelite ideas that have all merged in LDS thought (redemption, salvation, and atonement), which will be published in Fall… once I clean it up and submit it, after the MCAT is over.
In the meantime, I strongly suggest you go listen to my Ruth podcast and follow along with the notes, here, until I get the rest up on Saturday.
May 28, 2014 at 11:07 pm
Fascinating info about kinship and redemption. One question – you explained the duties of a kinsman in the covenant relationship. Were there any reciprocal duties of those being redeemed?
May 29, 2014 at 9:23 am
None are explicitly spelled out, to my knowledge. (Of course, if I am *your* kinsman, you are *my* kinsman.)
However, kinship relationships formed the basis of covenants, and those did involve explicit reciprocal duties, depending on the kind of covenant. See here for a summary of that idea, http://cl.ly/3c3p2d223A1e