Risto Santala: The Messiah and His Meal in Midrash Ruth

Chapters V, VII and VIII. (2002). VII + 297 + XVII pages.

Risto Santala is a well-known Finnish writer on the subject of Judaism and the New Testament (NT) in Finland and Israel. He has lived and worked in Israel at various times for over two decades. Today, his Hebrew writings are among the most widely published books in Israel on the subjects of Yeshua the Messiah and the Bible. He also is one of the few non-Jewish writers to have written Christian Hebraica, as Lapide called it¹, or Messianic Hebraica, as I call it, after the French Catholic cleric, Jean-Marie Paulus Bauchet, did in the 1940s². Over a half a century later, Santala, now in his mid-seventies, has managed to produce a very interesting and significant work on the seldom-studied Midrash Ruth (MR) or Ruth Rabbah that I would categorize as his magnum opus.

MR concerns itself with the Messiah out of Moab (Ruth was from Moab) and how proselytes come to be part of the people of Israel by knowing and following Torah. Early in the book, Santala discusses the debate that occurred between Jacob Neusner and Ze’ev Safrai regarding Israeli and American views on how to approach rabbinic texts. This discussion turned rather ugly. Later as the discussion progresses and focuses on MR and its content, Santala’s turns his attention to various topics in MR and their relationship to the Messiah, Isaiah 53, Communion, etc.

Santala gives a plethora of fascinating parallels between the parables and metaphors of MR and the NT. In his discussion, like the Israeli academic establishment, Santala quotes liberally from the Jewish medieval commentators (e.g., Radak, Rashi, ibn Ezra, etc) and at the same time does not ignore more recent developments such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Especially welcome to me was the fact that Santala did not transliterate his citations in Hebrew, but, in fact, printed the actual Hebrew text (especially in the appendix).

All too often potentially excellent studies are ruined from an over reliance on citing literature only published in English at the expense of important research in other languages. Fortunately, Santala is the rare scholar who uses a rather balanced mix of secondary literature in his citations evenly mixed between Israeli, European, and American scholarly traditions from both the 19^th and 20^th century. Moreover, he is not afraid to cite important scholarly works by Jewish believers in Yeshua (e.g., Edersheim), which many contemporary writers ignore. He demonstrates a thorough mastery on topic of MR and its discussion as it developed historically.

Santala as an author, reminds me of the scholars old and new such as Dalman, Billerbeck, Daube, or Flusser and others who have delved into the mutual relationships and influences between Christianity and Judaism. I wholeheartedly recommend Santala’s important new book that should prove to be a good read in general for any one interested in rabbinics and the NT.

For more information about Santala’s new work (as well as how to download it freely as a PDF file) and his other writings visit http://www.kolumbus.fi/hjussila/rsla/messiah.html. Copies of his books in English and other languages may be obtained by contacting his Israeli publisher at keren@kerenahvah.org.

Notes

1. Pinchas Lapide. Hebrew in the Church. Michigan: Eerdmans (1984).

2. Lapide, 100115.