Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives. By Jennifer Koosed

Abstract

Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives is an extraordinary book with a misleading subtitle. The subtitle suggests that Jennifer Koosed has written a history of interpretation of the book and character of Ruth, but readers expecting to learn of Ruth's reception history will be disappointed—that is, unless they are first captivated by the exuberant and learned eclecticism of the book. In reflecting on Ruth, or perhaps, in preparing the reader to reflect on Ruth, Koosed has gleaned among “the Hebrew and Greek texts, the traditional commentaries, the modern monographs, the literary allusions, the peer-reviewed articles, . . . employing such criticisms as feminist, literary, postcolonial, and queer,” as well as “the full harvests of historical, archaeological, and sociological methods” (10)—a creative and industrious foraging. The book does not follow a timeline of interpretive history, nor does it present a reading of the book as such. Rather, Koosed invites the reader to join her as she reflects on—or perhaps more accurately, refracts—Ruth, considering its text and subtext from every conceivable angle, from parallels between Ruth and Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe to the evolution of grain itself.