Ruth 1:1-18

Ruth gets a good look this Fall. It's a nice story. It deserves it. This introduction explains the culture pretty well through the dialog of the mother. Her sons and husband have died, leaving her with two daughters in law, from a different region no less. When she wants to return to her own country, she stresses the fact that her part was just to give these women their husbands. That's the role of most women in the Bible, but we're just getting started with this story and Naomi is taking charge, so we seem to have something different. What she describes is Levirate marriage, where if a man dies, his brother takes the wife, but Naomi explains that isn't going to work this time.

The words here are connected to Biblical marriage words. "Cling" is used in Genesis 2 in reference to a wife clinging to her husband, but here it is a daughter to a mother. The speech at the end is sometimes taken out of context and used in weddings. It impresses Naomi, as it should. Ruth is expressing a devotion that rivals speeches made by God to his people.

In the parts that are skipped between now and next week, Naomi changes her name to Mara when she arrives at home. She isn't too happy with the Lord, and wants a symbol of this new person that she has become. Ruth catches the eye of a relative of Naomi, something she didn't mention when talking about that Levirate marriage (other relatives can also stand in). As Biblical courtships go, this one focuses much more on the women and their thoughts.

Hebrews 9:11-14

We've heard quite a bit from Hebrews in the last month or so, and here we get a very clear message that the death of the messiah is how God will protect our salvation. This comes from an earlier Jewish understanding of the messiah. If you've been following along, you'll also see a pretty clear reference to the blood of the messiah being a better sacrifice than the sacrifices being demanded of the Temple at the time. It will obtain an "eternal redemption". You almost might get the impression that the death of Christ is supposed to end all that weekly worshipping and tithing.

Mark 12:28-34

One of the more commonly quoted verses. No doubt because it is intended to be one of those answers that summarizes everything. It begins with a repetition of The Shema, from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. This is claimed to have come from Moses, but actually it was written centuries after the other books of the Torah (and Moses didn't exist anyway, but never mind). It could also be seen as a form of the first 3 of the 10 commandments. The second part, about loving your neighbor, can be found in Leviticus 19:18. I'm not so worried about the accuracy of the quotes, but it shows that whoever wrote Mark had done their Torah homework.

The story also brings to mind the legend of Hillel, a teacher in the last century of what we now call BC. Legend has it he was challenged to teach everything in the Torah while standing on one leg. He said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." If you go back through the Samuel entries this year, or flip through Deuteronomy, you might question this summation. I don't see so much an answer to the question here as I do an opinion of what parts of Jewish teaching are better. Essentially, this is telling you to cherry pick your scripture, to throw out anything that disagrees with these "great commandments".