23 (2015) 541-552 Un-straighteningbiblical Boaz Ininterpretation Ruth Scholarship
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Un-Straightening Boaz in Ruth Scholarship Brett Krutzsch
College of Wooster, USA
[email protected]
Abstract Scholarly interpretations of Boaz’s sexuality in the book of Ruth largely assume that Boaz experiences sexual desires for Ruth specifically and for women generally. This essay will highlight the heterosexual bias that has commonly framed scholarly interpretations of Boaz and that imposes heterosexual attraction into the text. This essay illustrates that Boaz’s sexuality, far from an obvious aspect of the text, is largely produced through interpretive imagination. Although some scholars have questioned Ruth’s sexuality and her relationship with Naomi, Boaz’s sexuality has largely remained underanalyzed, leaving in place the assumption that the text is clear about his desires for women.
Keywords Boaz – Ruth – queer
As scholars have well noted, Boaz, the male protagonist in the book of Ruth, never describes his eventual wife, Ruth, as beautiful, nor does he ever attest his love for her. When readers first encounter Boaz, he appears to be a landowner with some degree of wealth but no known marital or conjugal relationships with women. As opposed to Ruth, readers are unaware if Boaz is a widower, lifelong bachelor, or polygamist. And yet a great majority of scholars analyzing the book of Ruth assume that Boaz desires women. Even those scholars who suggest that a romantic relationship exists between Ruth and Naomi are remiss to acknowledge or analyze the potential lack of sexual interest Boaz could have for women. Generally, an invisibilized hetero-presumptive framework shapes most scholarly interpretations of Boaz in the book of Ruth. By ISSN 0927-2569 (print version) ISSN 1568-5152 (online version) BI 2 biblical interpretation 23 (2015) 541-552 © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/15685152-02345p04 Hegemonic Masculinities in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Traditions
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“hetero-presumptive,” I am referring to readings of the text that are informed by the assumption that men are attracted to women and vice versa. My use of “hetero” is intended to call attention to how the modern category of heterosexuality is read back into an ancient text, often unconsciously, in ways that largely assume sexual attraction between men and women to be natural and universal. Thus, I argue that to read Boaz as a queer figure, in this case as a man who experiences virtually no sexual or romantic attraction to women, is as plausible as readings which suggest that he experiences erotic desires for Ruth specifically or for women generally. To be clear, I am not using the word “queer” as a synonym for “gay.” Identities based on sexual desire are modern constructs with their own cultural histories. Instead, as a queer figure, Boaz complicates the idea that all men are naturally or exclusively sexually attracted to women. To describe Boaz as a queer figure is to underscore that Boaz could be primarily attracted to men, attracted to men and women, largely without sexual desires for anyone, or experience any number of other sexual desires and possibilities. In taking this approach to reading the book of Ruth, I am emphatically not “queering” Boaz, as if to suggest that I am imposing a methodological tool onto the text whereby I somehow mold Boaz into something not currently present or available to all readers. Rather, I am offering an interpretation of the text that illuminates questions about Boaz’s sexuality while concurrently intervening into scholarly conversations about the book of Ruth that habituate hetero-assumptions. My primary intervention here is to expose the ways in which many scholars have operated from an unnamed heterosexual presupposition, largely assuming that Boaz, because he is a male character, must be attracted to women.1 While I certainly admit that a valid way to understand Boaz is to read the language of the text in ways that construct him as a man who sexually desires women, I also maintain that Boaz’s sexuality, based on what is provided in the text, is not self-evident and to suggest otherwise is to deny the ways in which Boaz’s sexuality is produced by readers through imaginative interpretations.
1 I should note that the hetero-presumptions that I analyze in this project are largely by-products of unnamed hetero-assumptions. In other words, no scholar, to my knowledge, has engaged in a project to prove Boaz’s heterosexuality. Rather, scholars have simply assumed that Boaz is attracted to women and, often, to Ruth. It is that assumption that this project interrogates.
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Same-Sex Possibilities in Ruth Although analyses of Boaz are often missing from discussions of same-sex romantic relationships within Ruth, the book has provided scholars and biblical interpreters with opportunities to argue for the presence of same-sex love and commitment in the Bible. For example, in commenting on Ruth’s vow of loyalty to Naomi in the first chapter of the text, Rebecca Alpert admonishes, “Had the speakers been of opposite sexes, Ruth 1:16–17 would certainly have been read as a poetic statement of love.”2 In other words, if Ruth had declared such unwavering loyalty to Boaz, which she never does, the language of those verses could easily be used as evidence of love and devotion between the male and female protagonists. Therefore, from this perspective, Alpert suggests that the declaration in 1:16–17 can be read as an admission of a deep romantic connection between the two female characters, or at least of a love that Ruth feels for Naomi even if it is not reciprocated. Alpert continues: “The fact that Ruth was married does not detract from the plausibility of this suggestion [that Ruth and Naomi are lovers]. The only references to lesbianism in Jewish legal texts are those prohibiting married women from engaging in this practice, so one would assume that it was married women who engaged in it.”3 As I will highlight, marriage does not ipso facto expose anything about sexuality. That Ruth was married to Naomi’s son and then to Boaz is not necessarily evidence of sexual attraction to men. Rather, as various commentators on Ruth have observed, marriage to a man was the only viable option available in ancient Israel for women to secure some modicum of financial security.4 Thus, within this context, a husband seems necessary for an adult woman’s livelihood once she 2 R. Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 49. The text of Ruth that Alpert is referencing in 1:16–17 reads, “But Ruth replied [to Naomi], ‘Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may the Lord do to me if anything but death parts me from you.’” All biblical quotations in this essay follow the JPS translation of Ruth. 3 Ibid., p. 50. 4 This argument has been well noted by various scholars. See, for example, P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1986); M. West, “Ruth,” in D. Guest, R. Goss, M. West, and T. Bohache (eds.), The Queer Bible Commentary (London: SCM Press, 2006), pp. 190–194; R. Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate, p. 50; J. Hirsh, “In Search of Role Models,” in C. Balka and A. Rose (eds.), Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish (Boston: Beacon, 1989), pp. 83–91; L. Donaldson, “The Sign of Orpah: Reading Ruth through Native
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leaves her father’s home. Being a single woman does not appear to offer security, nor does a same-sex relationship that exists to the exclusion of a mixedsex marriage. While one could suggest through imaginative readings that Ruth marries out of love or desire to be with men, the marriages that take place in the book of Ruth largely expose a male-dominated patriarchal society and do not necessarily reveal anything about sexuality or romantic investments.5 As further evidence of same-sex commitment within the Book of Ruth, some scholars have turned to the Hebrew in 1:14 where Ruth “clung” ()דבקח בה to Naomi. Since the Hebrew is the same as in Gen. 2:24 when a man leaves his parents and “clings” to a wife, some scholars suggest the verse underscores the bond, potentially romantic, that is forged between Ruth and Naomi.6 While the use of this Hebrew word does not deny the possibility that Ruth would want to cling to or love men, the text does not offer a commensurate description of Ruth’s dedication to or feelings about either her deceased husband or Boaz. In fact, Ruth appears most emotionally overwhelmed when Naomi tries to leave her and not, based on what is provided in the text, when her first husband dies. Indeed, Ruth seems to mourn not her deceased husband but the possibility of losing Naomi. For reasons such as this, Cheryl Exum laments that scholars often “romanticiz[e] the bond between Ruth and Boaz at the expense of the bond between Ruth and Naomi.”7 In other words, a modern heterosexual bias obfuscates the deep devotion and possible romantic love between the two women. Meeting Boaz While the relationship between Ruth and Naomi allows biblical readers to conjecture possibilities about a same-sex romantic commitment, the text Eyes,” in R.S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), The Postcolonial Biblical Reader (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), p. 161. 5 In describing the gendered setting of the book of Ruth, I should note that assessing the historical veracity of Ruth is not part of the present project. In other words, I am not concerned with whether the characters and situations are fictive, real, or both. Rather, I am interested in analyzing the meanings that are produced by scholarly readings of this text and the often unnamed assumptions that color those readings and interpretations. 6 See for example, D. Biale, Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 15; M. West, “Ruth,” p. 191; C. Exum, Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2nd edn, 2012), p. 139. 7 Exum, Plotted, Shot, and Painted, p. 157.
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provides no evidence that Boaz has sexual or loving relationships with men; however, that Boaz eventually marries Ruth and produces progeny with her does not unequivocally reveal anything about his sexuality. I will, therefore, highlight the ambiguities of Boaz’s sexuality that are present in the text. When readers are first introduced to Boaz, they learn in 2:1 that he is “a man of substance,” suggesting that he has some degree of wealth. He possesses land and a workforce, but no mention is made of a wife or children. While one could suggest that Boaz is already married and that Ruth will become one of his wives, or proffer a midrash that Boaz is a widower, these remain interpretive interventions that are not explicitly supported in the text. Therefore, an equally cogent reading of the book of Ruth is to suggest that Boaz is unmarried. Boaz, unlike his female contemporaries, does not need the financial protections provided by marriage. Thus, while Naomi in chapter one experiences being an unmarried woman as a crisis, Boaz could thrive financially as an unmarried man. If one reads the second chapter of Ruth with the idea that Boaz is single, questions may be raised about why he has heretofore avoided lifelong matrimonial commitment to women, and about why he decides to enter into a marital arrangement with Ruth. Most answers to these questions remain unresolved in the text, and attempts to answer them are filled with imaginative assumptions. In her work on Ruth, Jennifer Koosed shares a similar perspective and explains, “In some ways a romance between Ruth and Boaz is less supported in the text itself, more dependent on the imagination of the reader, than a romance between Ruth and Naomi.”8 Here, Koosed is highlighting not only how love stories are read into the text but also how Ruth has been positioned in some scholarly conversations as in love with either Naomi or Boaz. Koosed thus writes, “Both heterosexual and lesbian readings of Ruth privilege one of Ruth’s relationships over the other – Boaz and Ruth’s relationship in one, Naomi and Ruth’s relationship in the other.”9 While Koosed’s description of scholarly work on Ruth is accurate, one problem with her observation is that in “both heterosexual and lesbian readings,” Boaz’s sexuality remains stable and presumptively straight. Only Ruth’s sexuality, and not Boaz’s, has been questioned.10 8 9 10
J. Koosed, Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Woman and Her Afterlives (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2011), p. 55. Ibid., pp. 54–55. As another example of how Ruth’s sexuality is what gets questioned, Celena Duncan has written a “bisexual midrash” where she imagines Ruth as in love with both Naomi and Boaz. Here too, though, Boaz is imagined as in love with and desirous of Ruth even as Ruth transcends a hetero/homo binary. See C. Duncan, “The Book of Ruth: On Boundaries, Love, and Truth,” in R. Goss and M. West (eds.), Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2000), pp. 92–102.
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Based on what is provided in the text, readers are not given the impression that Boaz inquires about or approaches Ruth because he is sexually attracted to her, and yet many scholars have suggested that attraction underlies his motivations. Noting the absence of explicit details concerning physical attraction to Ruth, Tamara Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky say in their commentary on Ruth, “Beauty is often used in the Bible to explain attention granted to a woman (e.g., Gen. 24:16). Significantly, nowhere in the book do we read that Ruth was beautiful.”11 While Boaz does offer explicit praises of Ruth affirming that she is, for instance, virtuous, he never suggests that he finds her physically attractive. Various scholars, however, have found ways to interpret the text to argue that Boaz is, in fact, attracted to Ruth. As Jeremy Schipper points out, “Although completely speculative, it is not unusual for commentators to ask whether Boaz had ‘fallen in love with her [Ruth].’”12 Note that Schipper explicitly highlights that such readings of Boaz are entirely “speculative.” As an example of how a narrative of attraction and romance is read into the text, Ronald Hyman declares, “The contrast between Boaz’s questions to Ruth and Boaz’s commands to his young men [in chapter two] serves to highlight the emerging relationship between Boaz and Ruth: he is attracted to her and uses the question form as a way of sending a positive, emotional message.”13 For Hyman, the initial dialogue between Boaz and Ruth provides subtle clues indicating Boaz’s attraction to and flirtation with Ruth. I contend, however, that these clues are entirely imagined and help establish a hetero courtship when one does not clearly exist. Other scholars similarly try to mine the text for evidence of romantic investment and attraction between Boaz and Ruth. Danna Fewell and David Gunn proffer that the “silences” in the story, or the gaps that invite interpretive midrash, gesture to the idea that Boaz is drawn sexually to Ruth. When they ask rhetorically why Boaz does not verbalize an attraction to Ruth, they answer, “A pillar of society like Boaz cannot afford to pursue his interest in a Moabite woman in terms of marriage, unless under some kind of cloak or compulsion.”14 While Fewell and Gunn could be correct that Boaz is cautious about initiating a marriage with a Moabite woman, they assume that his hesitation is because of Ruth’s foreigner status and not his lack of physical 11 12 13 14
T. Eskenazi and T. Frymer-Kensky, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2011), p. 32. J. Schipper, Ruth: A New Translation with Introduction & Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, forthcoming), p. 96. R. Hyman, “Questions and Changing Identity in the Book of Ruth,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 39 (1984), pp. 189–201 (195). D.N. Fewell and D. Gunn, “A Son is Born to Naomi: Literary Allusions and Interpretations in the Book of Ruth,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 40 (1988), pp. 99–108 (106).
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desire for her. A sexual attraction is presumed even though Boaz never mentions Ruth’s appearance or feelings of arousal, love, or desire for her. Fewell and Gunn thus believe that Boaz is hesitant to pursue Ruth because of concerns over ethnic intermarriage and social propriety. While questions like those posed by Fewell and Gunn are valid, they ignore questions of desire, leaving Boaz presumptively attracted to women even though the textual evidence is inconclusive.15 As a related example, Boaz informs Ruth in 2:9 that he has “ordered the men [working in his fields] not to molest” her. Boaz could have, but does not, tell Ruth that he finds her beautiful and that, because of her obvious beauty, he wants to protect her from unwanted sexual advances. Commenting on this verse, Tod Linafelt proffers that Boaz “has a romantic or sexual interest” in Ruth and, therefore, claims her as his own so that his workers will not approach her.16 Linafelt rightfully admits that this is an interpretive assumption not explicitly present in the text. Indeed, while other men of Bethlehem may have wanted to initiate sex with an unmarried Moabite woman, Boaz makes no such move and gives no indications that he, as opposed to many of the other men, finds Ruth, or women, sexually desirable. On the Threshing Floor The third chapter of Ruth is laden with possibilities for exploring sexuality among the story’s characters, and yet the linguistic and narrative ambiguities within the text reaffirm that declarative statements about the characters’ sexualities are difficult. The chapter opens with Naomi’s instructions for Ruth to convince Boaz, through somewhat covert strategies, to act as a redeemer and provide protection for the two women. Even those scholars who contend that Ruth and Naomi have a romantic relationship admit that, given the historical and cultural setting of the story, Ruth needs to enter a marriage in order to have any hope of financial security. Naomi, therefore, instructs Ruth to go down to the threshing floor at night after Boaz has finished eating and drinking and lie at his feet. Many commentators of Ruth have noted that the threshing floor 15
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Schipper has also observed, “Occasionally scholars note Boaz’s reluctance to marry Ruth, although they usually assume it relates to concerns over Ruth’s ethnicity rather than a lack of sexual interest … . Yet, both explanations are equally speculative as Boaz never expresses opinions about her ethnicity or his sexual preferences” (Schipper, Ruth, pp. 99–100). T. Linafelt, “Ruth,” in D.W. Cotter (ed.), Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999), p. 34.
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evokes a space of sexual possibility. Linafelt, for example, observes that the threshing floor is “associated in Israelite imagination if not in fact with illicit sexual activity. Whether this activity has to do with religious fertility rites or with the simple fact that workingmen away from home for the harvest took the opportunity to have sex with other women (perhaps prostitutes) is a matter of debate.”17 If this is indeed the case, Ruth, who hovers and waits for Boaz to finish his meal and recline in a space of readily-available prostitutes, does not appear to have any other female competition. Boaz, the likely single and successful landowner, is not in the company of another woman. After Ruth lies down at Boaz’s feet, the text in 3:8 reads, “In the middle of the night, the man gave a start and pulled back – there was a woman lying at his feet!” The Hebrew here ( )ויחרדcould also be translated as “trembled,” indicating a moment of not only surprise but also anxiety. As Jeremy Schipper notes, in the Bible this verb “often results from fear (e.g., Exod. 19:16, 18; 1 Sam. 28:5), but may also result from confusion over one’s circumstances (Gen. 27:33), as it seems to in Boaz’s case.”18 Seeing a woman unexpectedly near, Boaz immediately asks for her identity. One could convincingly argue that in this scene Boaz appears more alarmed and flummoxed than aroused and seduced by Ruth’s late-night presence. As innumerable readers of the book of Ruth have noted, however, the language of these verses is replete with possibilities for sexual innuendos and euphemisms. My contribution here is not to weigh in on if “feet” is code for genitals, or determine if there are ways to interpret the text that would unequivocally suggest that Boaz and Ruth have sex on the threshing floor. Rather, I want to emphasize that it remains unclear in the text if any sexual activity takes place and, more importantly, to point out that even if sex acts occur, Ruth is the active sexual agent in the story, not Boaz. For example, Naomi shares with Ruth at the beginning of chapter three that Boaz will tell her what to do once she uncovers his feet. But Ruth breaks from Naomi’s instructions and pleads for Boaz to spread his robe over her. As opposed to what Naomi likely predicts will happen, Boaz does not immediately initiate sex with the available woman. Therefore, if one chooses to read this scene as a nighttime tryst, one should concede that Ruth appears to be performing sexually for Boaz, and not the reverse. Even if one concludes that the verb for “lay” in chapter three means to engage in sexual activity, Ruth is the one who lays at Boaz’s feet and, following their conversation about Boaz serving as a family redeemer, the text in 3:14 affirms that “she lay at his feet until dawn.” If laying is a verb
17 18
Ibid., p. 49. Schipper, Ruth, p. 253.
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about more than just sleep, then Boaz is the passive object of Ruth’s active sexual subject.19 In between awakening to find Ruth near him and inviting her to spend the night, Boaz delivers a brief speech in which he agrees to do whatever Ruth asks of him, including acting as a redeeming kinsman for her and Naomi. Boaz, however, alerts Ruth that another redeeming kinsman exists, and he says in 3:13 that “if he [the other male relative] will act as redeemer, good! Let him redeem.” Boaz, thus, does not appear disappointed at the possibility of someone else marrying Ruth. Rather, he announces his plan without inciting any sort of passion, any sense that he greatly desires to be with Ruth, or any indication that he would be upset if he does not get to spend more time with this woman. Indeed, Edward Greenstein argues that Boaz “understands that Ruth is pursuing him in order to redeem Naomi’s land and produce an heir through him, a relative, in a quasi-levirate procedure. That, it dawns on him in the middle of the night, is why she prefers him to a more appropriate younger man.”20 From this perspective, the night on the threshing floor functions as a type of business agreement and arrangement where land can be procured and an heir ensured, and not as the genesis of a great romance or erotic affair. While one can read a love story or tale of mutual sexual attraction into the text, the scene on the threshing floor still does not unambiguously suggest that Boaz experiences sexual desires for Ruth specifically or women generally. Married with Child The final chapter of the book of Ruth opens amid negotiations between Boaz and the other kinsman to acquire both Naomi’s land and Ruth; in no instance 19
20
In 3:13, Boaz does invite/instruct Ruth to stay for the night, which one could suggest is an indication that Boaz initiates a night-long erotic encounter with Ruth. This position, however, is disputed, and the counterpoint is well summarized by Eskanazi and Frymer-Kensky when they write, “[T]he context favors the prevailing plain-sense interpretation – that is, that Boaz is simply inviting Ruth to lie on the ground. For up until now, Ruth and Boaz have pointedly confined their conversation to matters of redemption. And Boaz’s enthusiastic response has assured the reader, as much as Ruth, that he will act honorably on her behalf” (Eskanazi and Frymer-Kensky, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth, p. 65). Again, my point here is not to determine if one interpretation outweighs all others, which I do not think is possible, but to highlight ambiguities in the text that disrupt prevailing assumptions about Boaz’s often presumed sexual attraction to women. E. Greenstein, “Reading Strategies and the Story of Ruth,” in A. Bach (ed.), Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 213.
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during this transaction does Boaz declare love for or attraction to Ruth as motivating factors for his investment in these proceedings. In fact, the first item discussed in the negotiations is Naomi’s land, not the betrothal of Ruth. Some scholars have managed to read the early verses in chapter four as a suspenseful scene where the purported romantic plot between Boaz and Ruth could be thwarted by the intervention of an unnamed redeemer. Robert Hubbard, for example, describes with these words what he thinks readers must feel when they encounter this part of the text: “If the man [the other redeeming kinsman] took [Naomi’s] field, he might also take Ruth. Only a fool would not! If so, the story would end in hollow happiness: romance would surrender to regulation, love capitulate to legality.”21 From Hubbard’s perspective, the story of Ruth and Boaz is one of romance and love. By the book’s fourth chapter he believes they are ready to sanctify their love, and, therefore, they are terribly afraid that the other male relative could prevent them from wedded bliss. Given that neither Ruth nor Boaz makes any romantic declarations to the other, Hubbard’s argument leaves room to question why eros or love is assumed to be present in their relationship. Indeed, when the negotiations conclude, Boaz says in 4:10, “I am also acquiring Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, as my wife, so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased.” Whereas Hubbard has found evidence of a great love story, I fail to see language that evokes romance or attraction.22 Boaz does, after all, state a reason for his intention to marry Ruth: so an heir “of the deceased” can be produced. He does not say that he is taking Ruth as his wife so that he can be with the person he loves. Susanne Klingenstein similarly asserts that Boaz’s announcement to wed Ruth stands as one of the least passionate declarations of marriage in Western literature.23 Boaz and Ruth do, in fact, marry and have sexual intercourse at least once. In 4:13 the text says, “So Boaz married Ruth; she became his wife, and he cohabitated with her. The Lord let her conceive, and she bore him a son.” That Boaz marries Ruth and has a child with her does not automatically provide insight into Boaz’s sexuality. Marriage and sex are not, in and of themselves, signifiers of sexuality or physical attraction. They can, however, underscore 21 22
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R. Hubbard, The Book of Ruth (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), pp. 242–243. Eskenazi and Frymer-Kensky similarly observe the paucity of passion in Boaz’s acquisition of Ruth and note that to “acquire” frequently carries the valence of property or of slave ownership in the Bible, and not marriage or love; see Eskenazi and Frymer-Kensky, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth, p. 8. S. Klingenstein, “Circle of Kinship: Samuel’s Family Romance,” in J. Kates and G. Twersky (eds.), Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), pp. 199–210.
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cultural expectations, especially in societies where progeny are the main possibilities for inheritance and filial eternal life. In other words, the marriage of Ruth and Boaz is not necessarily the culmination of a love story, nor does it unambiguously suggest that Boaz is attracted to the woman he acquires, much less to women in general.24 The Bible provides no evidence that Ruth and Boaz have any children other than Obed. Indeed, their one child could have been the result of a pro forma act to consummate their marriage. In so doing, a child is produced, as promised, for the deceased husband. And once this is done, the reader is reminded of the deep love Ruth feels not for Boaz, but for Naomi. In 4:15 the townswomen of Bethlehem declare to Naomi that Obed is “born of your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons.” This verse is the only time the word for “love” ( )אהבis used in the book of Ruth. Despite interpretations suggesting a great love between Boaz and Ruth, explicit descriptions of love are only used to describe the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. In contrast, אהבis used in the Bible to describe, for example, Isaac’s love for his wife Rebecca and Jacob’s love for his wife Rachel.25 Although the book of Ruth contains opportunities for Boaz to attest love or desire for Ruth, Boaz never claims to possess such feelings. Where numerous scholars have assumed a romantic or erotic attraction in the Boaz-Ruth relationship, their liaison can also be read as a formality among two people in ancient Bethlehem who needed to fulfill societal expectations to enter marriage and produce progeny. Conclusion I have attempted to show how reading Boaz as a queer figure in the book of Ruth is as plausible as the countless efforts to view him as a man who is attracted to women and, more specifically, as a man who desires Ruth.26 I have additionally aimed to highlight the heterosexual bias that has commonly framed scholarly interpretations of the book of Ruth and that imposes heterosexual attraction back into the text. I maintain that Boaz’s sexuality, far from an 24
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The idea that marriage and procreation are not related to love or desire has biblical precedent. For example, in Gen. 29:30–35, the text records that “Leah was unloved” by Jacob, and yet he marries her and she becomes pregnant several times. See Gen. 24:67 and Gen. 29:20. While not an aspect of this particular paper, the present argument can open space for others to write midrash and imaginative stories of Boaz that imagine his life and sexuality in capacious ways that further develop him as a queer figure.
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obvious aspect of the text, is largely produced through interpretive imagination. A mostly unacknowledged hetero-presumptive framework has veiled many of the assumptions about sexual attraction in Ruth, in turn reifying sexual attraction between men and women as universal and natural. Boaz and Ruth never declare love for each other, and Boaz never describes Ruth as beautiful. Loyalty and love, however, are not absent in the text, but they are primarily explicit motifs in the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. And although Boaz does “acquire” Ruth and produce a child with her, marriage and procreation do not have a naturally evident connection to sexuality. Marriage, during the setting of the book of Ruth, was the primary means for an adult woman to ensure some level of security and safety. Marriage also functioned as a legitimate way to produce offspring. That Boaz marries Ruth and has a child with her “so as to perpetuate the name of the deceased” does not unambiguously assert anything about Boaz’s sexuality or his romantic desires.
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