Pictures of Boaz

Written by Tim Cairns

Monday, 07 June 2010 18:24

In yesterday’s sermon several, what I at least considered to be, throwaway remarks were the very things people commented on after the service! So let me address them!

1. Yes I know Ruth didn’t celebrate Christmas! It was a joke! But actually I did mean it in much more of a spiritual sense than just a throwaway line. Ruth gave birth to Obed. So she gives birth to a son, who gives birth to son and so the generations go forward until Mary gives birth to the Son, on the first Christmas day. In many ways the celebration of Ruth chapter 4 is really a prefiguring of Christmas, so Ruth may not have known it, but the birth of Obed prefigured that first Christmas story.

2. I made a comment about what Boaz looked like! I suggested that were we casting for the part out of Hollywood male leads today, we would cast Danny Devito and not Leonardo Dicaprio! Many people said “I always imagined Boaz as very handsome.” Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn’t! We really don’t know. But I think, from the story and how it unfolds, that Boaz was a bit of a Danny Devito. In chapter 3 we see that Boaz is older:

Verse 10 “The LORD bless you, my daughter," he replied. "This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. In Rabbinic tradition Boaz was thought to be 80 when he married and Ruth very much younger!

I was looking on Google images to see artwork through the ages of Boaz and Ruth. I am not sure of the legal position of posting pictures so I simply post the links.

Most pictures of Boaz and Ruth depict Boaz as a young, dashing fellow, almost Jane Austen male lead in appearance!

This picture is a fair representation!

http://freechristimages.org/images_oldtestament/Ruth_And_Naomi_Field_Boaz_AfterJanVanScorel.jpg

This one, of an old Boaz and young Ruth, is perhaps more accurate in terms of age but not of dress!

http://www.lessing-photo.com/p2/400303/40030363.jpg

The best pictures I could find of the Ruth and Boaz story are by Thomas Matthews Rooke in 1876

http://freechristimages.org/images_oldtestament/Story_Of_Ruth_Thomas_Matthews_Rooke.jpg

The story is told from right left (mirroring the Hebrew language). But interestingly the middle picture paints a young Boaz, but it is not Boaz that Ruth looks up to see – it is Christ. Ultimately Ruth’s redeemer is Christ! Rooke knew what we at Crestwicke know, Ruth may not have known it, but she did indeed celebrate Christmas! Perhaps we need to get that throwaway line back!