Alice L. Laffey

This volume, using multiple methods, seeks to bring together the best scholarship and insight—Jewish and Christian, past and present—that has contributed to our understanding and appreciation of the biblical book of Ruth. As a feminist commentary, it is particularly sensitive to issues of relationship and inclusion, power and agency. In addition to the voices of the primary co-authors, Alice Laffey and Mahri Leonard-Fleckman, the volume incorporates and integrates important contributing voices from diverse contemporary social contexts and geographical locations. In sum, the commentary seeks to allow Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz to speak again for the first time.

The books of Kings view Israel's history through the theological lens of action. Actions have consequences that are determined by the people's faithfulness or unfaithfulness to their God and the covenant, and the editors' purpose is to demonstrate that the monarchy stands or falls on its faithfulness to its God. The books of Kings, though in real ways foreign to the twenty-first century, contain content that resonates with our contemporary experience. They raise an array of questions: In the relationships between and among individuals and between and among nations, what constitutes loyalty? What behaviors exact justice? What are the demands of being in a covenant relationship with God? What does it mean to be faithful to that relationship? What risks are we willing to take? How do we pray? Where do we look for the power of God? The insights gleaned from engaging these questions can shed a unique light on our contemporary lives.

Alice Laffey's rereading of the major themes of the first five books of the Bible will enable readers to gain a firm grasp of the contents of this major literary corpus. Like other volumes in this series, it will also point the way to a different reading of Scripture, one that raises today's questions-power, liberation, justice, and preeminently connectedness. Laffey highlights neglected resources in the text in order "to approach these texts from the perspective of a respectfully interdependent worldview." In this work we witness a radical expansion and transformation of feminist biblical criticism to incorporate concern for all humans, all animals, all nature in a global, even cosmic way.