Abstract

The context which produced the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), that is, Yehud, differs from the context of the speakers of Northern Sotho in South Africa. Although the two contexts are separated from each other by time and geography among others, several African biblical scholars have attested to the apparent points of resemblance between the African worldview and the ancient Israelite one. Based on the preceding observations, the main question investigated in this study is: If the text of Ruth1:1-18 is read through the lens of selected Northern Sotho proverbs, which light may it throw on images of ‘woman’ in both the Israelite and Northern Sotho contexts? May the resultant reading contribute to the affirmation of African women in present day South Africa?

Keywords: Images; manhood; mosadi; Northern Sotho proverbs; Ruth1:1-18; woman; womanhood Introduction

When I first ‘encountered’ Professor Emeritus Maje Serudu as one of the news announcers for the then Tirelo ya Sesotho sa Leboa Radio Station, little did I know that at some point in my scholarly journey, he would play a critical role as one of the examiners for my master's dissertation. In the dissertation, I had brought together proverbs from two different cultures to bear on each other in the quest to do a contextual reading of the theme of parent–child relationships in a family context. Selected proverbs from the Northern Sotho language and the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) on parent–child relationships in a family context were brought together under the title ‘In the School of Wisdom: An Interpretation of Some Old Testament Proverbs in a Northern Sotho Context’ (Masenya 1989).