Welcome Back to the Bible Challenge

Welcome back to the Bible Challenge.  This week we are reading the books of Ruth and Esther.  These are the only two books in the Bible that are named after women (there are two books in the Appocrypha, Judith and Susanna, that are also named after women)

Neither book is probably a true story.  But both show important truths.

Ruth was probably written after the return of the people of Israel from exile in Babylon - about 500 years before Christ.  One of the major issues of the returning Israelite was how to deal with the fact that while they were in exile many men had married foreign women.  There was one side that felt the foreign women and their children should be welcomed into the nation.  The other side felt that they should be excluded and sent back where they came from.  The book of Ruth is written in support of the first group.  The importance of the story is in the last sentence, in which Ruth, a woman of Moab, is revealed to be the great grandmother of King David.

The book of Esther is the foundation of the Jewish festival of Purim, which is still celebrated to this day.  The basic point of the book is that we have to do what we can wherever it is that we find ourselves, oh and that good will triumph over evil.  I think Esther would make an excellent Disney princess - but the story is probably a little too violent and sexualized for that.