All Comments on 'The Ruth Scroll'

As someone who loves reading the Bible in the original and is also very aware of the very flesh-and-blood characters who populate it (not like the idealised fantasies of the New Testament), I thought this was a great yarn, like the authot's previous Biblical stories, and probably not far from the truth. My Biblical ancestors were definitely randy sods, men and women both, and were much more similar to modern-day Israelis than one might imagine from reading the Bible in translation. But Bashir ibn Sharmuta and Zalman ben Zonah? Puleeez! I think the author was trying too hard to be funny at the expense of the vast majority of readers who don't know any Arabic or Hebrew (ibn Sharmuta in Arabic and beb Zonah in Hebrew both mean 'son of a whore'). Still, I'm looking forward to the next thrilling episodes, especially the real story of what happened between King David and Avishag.

I make no apologies for using names that describe the person's function in a story. However, the anonymous commentator seems to have ignored the worst puns with peoples' names in this story. For example, Zevel ben Calvah would translate a Garbage Son of a Bitch. The young Dr. Lajeunesse's surname means Youth in French. Dr' Altman, who is getting on in years, has a surname that means Old Man in Yiddish and German. As for the comment of the anonymous individual from Israel concerning fantasies of the New Testament, I might remind him/her that all the writers of the new Testament, with the sole exception of Luke, were Jews - sort of like Jesus Himself.

The Bible, as we have it, is a translation. If the translated scripture is used to educate the populace then I vote for your translation. There is nothing wrong with LMAO while learning behavioral lessons from history. Well done Sir.

Or shall I rather say probable fellow descendant of Tamar,

I must say that your reading of the scroll of Ruth is a great improvement upon the dry language of the original

Thank you for sharing it with us

You made a believer out of me! I didn't get the puns either- I'm no bible scholar and I sure as hell don't know any Hebrew. But this rendition of Bible history beats hell out of the arid scholarly depictions. I enjoyed it immensely. We tend to see our ancestors as somehow less, or more, than human. Come to think of it, we don't always see ourselves very clearly either. Thanks for casting light on some fascinating characters of legend.

Your story is a rare gem. I'm still a bit stunned that I dug it up here.