Ruth: A Continental Commentary (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Ruth: A Continental Commentary Gerald West Ruth: A Continental Commentary, by André LaCocque. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. 187 pp. $28.00. I have long been a fan of André LaCocque's work, and this commentary is no exception. Originally written in French for the CAT series, this English version (translated by K.C. Hanson, with the assistance of LaCocque) takes its place in the Continental Commentary series. What is immediately striking about LaCocque's commentary on Ruth is its overt advocacy for a particular orientation to and reading of Ruth. Most commentaries are more restrained, allowing the commentary form to constrain the author's preferred interpretation. LaCocque's commentary, then, is more than a survey of the existing state of scholarship, though it does provide a detailed and comprehensive account of current scholarship. What I particularly appreciated is the inclusion by LaCocque of many of the more marginal readings of Ruth, though he did miss some African ones. The particular orientation LaCocque advocates is that Ruth is to be read as subversive literature. He repeats this point again and again in his excellent "Introduction," where he catalogues the many and varied ways in which the book of Ruth is subversive. For example, he argues that "[a] book such as Ruth is subversive by definition: it insists on the role of women in the Israelite community; on the Moabite origin of its central heroine and of her illustrious descendant, David; as well as on a liberal interpretation of the Torah" (p. 26). While the first of these subversions is important to LaCocque's particular reading of Ruth, it is the remaining three subversions that are central. LaCocque argues that Ruth is a hermeneutical contribution to the power struggle of the Second Temple community within which the dominant religio-political position was that of the ethno-orthodox scribes, who legitimated their authority through a conservative and controlling exegesis of the Torah. Ruth enters this polarized and contested social site with a novella which subverts this dominant position by demonstrating a counter-exegesis of the Torah, in which the Torah is characterised by a hesed that redeems rather than a power that controls. [End Page 153] LaCocque's advocacy of a particular reading, however, does not prevent him from engaging with the many other readings the remarkable book of Ruth has evoked. LaCocque locates himself carefully within the existing scholarly literature, both within and beyond biblical scholarship, and dialogues with it in detail. Indeed, I found I appreciated other readings more fully precisely because LaCocque engaged with them so carefully in order to make his own position clear. The "Introduction," though a little disorienting in its reiterative construction, does provide an excellent overview of Ruth scholarship, not in the form of a catalogue of accomplishments, but in the form of an extended engagement with a particular interpretive position. This was refreshing and partially redeemed the commentary form for me. One of the fruits of the death of the author, albeit as LaCocque says a "greatly exaggerated" "death" (p. 14), is that it has given a new generation of biblical scholars the opportunity to actually read the biblical text. The socio-historical questions which gave birth to our discipline were shaped by close and careful readings of the text. But for most of its existence as a modern discipline, socio-historical reconstruction has determined our reading of the text. Postmodern literary critics have, at the very least, returned the text to us, and while some may go no further than close and careful readings of the text, others do move from literary engagement to socio-historical engagement, but this time with their own questions alongside those they have inherited from the discipline. LaCocque's commentary likewise begins with his own attempt to make sense of Ruth as text, a quest which leads him, as it has led others, behind the text to the world that may have produced it, the post-Nehemiah Second Temple setting. Another significant feature of LaCocque's commentary is his sensitivity to contemporary society and the issues it confronts. Throughout the commentary LaCocque is profoundly aware of "the other," both within the book of Ruth and within our world...