How was Ruth gleaning? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Today, we are going to look at some various passages. The first two are related and are from the Pentateuch. In Exodus 22:26-27 we read:
26 If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, 27 because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
and in Deuteronomy 24:13 we read:
Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbor may sleep in it. Then they will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God.
In both of these cases, a person has their cloak taken from them as a pledge that they will do X for the person they are giving it to and the borrower is told to make sure they can at least sleep in it at night. What can we get from this? If we go and say this person had nothing else, then this is a poor person and all they have is a garment.
This would mean that if anything, a poor person would at least have clothing as his last possession, hardly what we would expect from a heavily nudist Israelite culture. Second, this is not at all saying that this is ideal. Frost is still on a hangup that Christians would consider this immoral. No. If you don’t have a garment and you are poor and in need, that is not immoral. Now if you do have a garment and yet you go gallivanting down the street, especially in the sight of children, that is something different.
Then we get to Ruth. Frost tells us that in Ruth 3:3, the word for best describing clothes is not there. Many translations do have it. I don’t have Hebrew qualifications and I don’t think Frost does either as he gives me no reason to think he’s an authority and has cited no biblical scholars. If many translators are putting the word best in there and Frost thinks they shouldn’t, it is up to him to make the case why they shouldn’t. That being said, in verse 15, he asks her to bring him the shawl she is wearing and it is a different Hebrew word.
He also says that Ruth would have been gleaning in the nude as was the norm. The problem is that nowhere does Frost demonstrate this. He just says it. There aren’t any Bible scholars cited or any archeologists cited. No evidence is given. Also, if Frost wants to convince us that these nudist societies were safe places in the past, then why did the men need to be instructed to not touch Ruth?
So Frost says this and then says the translators shoehorn the word best into the text in 3:3 because of our sensibilities. Really? Since when did Frost gain the ability of mindreading? He could be right, naturally, but he needs to show that. Could it be that maybe Hebrew translators know something he doesn’t?
What about in 1 Cor. 12 where Paul talks about our unpresentable parts? Frost says this refers to things like scars and warts and means “Less beautiful.” However, Ben Witherington says:
Verses 21ff. stress that no particular body member can devalue another or declare it to be of no worth. This then applies to people with gifts differing from one’s own. In vv. 22–24 Paul speaks of the weaker, less honorable, and even indecent body parts, referring at least in the latter case to the genitals, while the weaker organs may be the tender inner organs. His point in v. 23 is that these seemingly less honorable parts get more attention, being protected with more clothing. The “presentable” parts by contrast would be those that are not clothed. God composed the body by giving the parts that were lacking in appearance even more honor, bestowing on them the most crucial of functions, that is, reproduction. With this Paul is alluding to weaker and perhaps less apparently gifted Christians. His point in any case in v. 25 is that differences or divisions (schisma again) in the body are avoided by making the body of multiple interdependent parts.
Ben Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 259.
It’s also difficult to see how scars and warts would make sense. Neither of those are essential parts of the body. The genitals and other parts are. I see no basis for less beautiful and again, Frost cites NO biblical scholars on these points.
Frost also says that in Luke 17, the servant coming in is told to clothe himself. The word there is actually the word gird. It could indeed mean as many translators seem to say, to dress properly. It would be saying to get out of your work clothes and be fitting for the table. Frost says that the workers worked in the nude, but again, no citations. He starts off with his assumption and then goes from there.
He also says that in John 20 at the resurrection, Jesus would have been naked seeing as the linen cloths were still in the tomb. Actually, the Jewish Virtual Library says that Jews were buried clothed. The linen cloths were burial cloth and not clothing. Clothing would be used to preserve purity, even of a corpse.
He also says that in John 13, Jesus went naked to wash the feet of His disciples. Okay. And? He also immediately when done put his clothes back on before rejoining them. Why didn’t He just stay that way if this was the ideal? What was seen as worthy of emulation in Jesus was not nudity, but servanthood. It is even questionable if the word means He was completely naked or just removed outer garments, but I am going with the worst-case scenario for my side. For some reason, the early church never seemed to embrace nudity as normative.
Next time, we’ll look at how Frost concludes this part of his book.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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