The Mother of the Messiah in Judaism: The Book of Ruth (The Bible of Judaism Library)

This volume opens the door to the reading of a classic text, Ruth Rabbah. The text represents a compilation of exegeses of the biblical Book of Ruth, augmenting and clarifying its meaning. In addition, this volume: * Enables a direct and immediate encounter between the reader and the ancient reader. * Affords access to a religious experience born in the same scripture that today’s Judaism and Christianity value as God's word. “In the end,” Professor Neusner writes, “Judaism’s Messiah was to be a sage, promising not the eschatological forgiveness of sins but the ultimate and entire sanctification of Israel: eternity now, eternity then, with little change from the one time to the other. In that context, the message of Ruth Rabbah proves both classic and fresh, a reworking of the received Torah and a renewal of that Torah: so great is the grace that inheres in the Torah that even an outsider of an enemy nation, and even a woman, takes up the critical place in the drama of the coming Messiah.” Jacob Neusner is Distinguished Research Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida and the author of ‘Israel’s Love Affair with God’.