The Graphic Interpretation of the Story of Ruth and Naomi in M. Finch’s The Book of Ruth

Abstract

In recent years, many academics have addressed the issue of the intersection of the fields of Biblical studies and Cultural studies. Many academic works have emphasized the importance of the Bible in the building of cultural narratives and the need to reflect on those narratives through interpretation, placing biblical texts within originating cultural contexts. This article attempts to situate itself in that stream of work, exploring the graphic interpretation of the story of Ruth and Naomi in the graphic novel The Book of Ruth by Meredith Finch and Colin Dyer. It begins with an introduction to the characteristics of the graphic novel genre, highlighting how this medium has addressed religion and the Bible, including characters, narratives, and traditions. Subsequently, a comparative methodology is applied to examine the treatment of the biblical text in the graphic novel, contrasting the textual and graphic study conducted by Finch and Dyer. The aim is to demonstrate how the graphic novel serves as a contemporary mode of biblical text reception, creating a dialogue between the Bible and the current culture in which its texts are read.

1. Introduction

The presence of religion and its images, stories, and characters in popular culture, understood as mass culture, is common and multidimensional. We have seen this in the religious thriller literature that surrounded the phenomenon of the publication of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (Guevara Llaguno 2012), in the themes and characters present in Pop Art (Guevara Llaguno 2017), or in the success of superheroes/heroines.

The world of comics and their alternative developments has also revisited and reinterpreted religious characters, beliefs, and stories, mainly Christian, and has performed this since comic strips were inserted into the daily press in the United States and up to the present day.

Against this background, and in a Special Issue devoted to “The Hebrew Bible: A Journey Through History and Literature”, our paper will study the graphic novel (hereafter GN) The Book of Ruth, in which Meredith Finch, a well-known scriptwriter of comic books about heroines, and illustrator C. Dyer, offer a graphic reinterpretation of the biblical story of Ruth in the context of the Depression of 1929 in the United States.

We will examine the dialogue that both authors establish with the biblical narrative and how it is enriched, illuminated, or reinterpreted, seeking to identify points of view and approaches that may reveal new readings and messages, meanings of the text that the secular canonical reading may have obscured or ignored, or even may have included questionable interpretative biases.

Thus, the article will begin by briefly presenting the expressive format “graphic novel” (GN), which, as we shall see, arose from the desire to deal with adult themes in illustrated format and is today considered the “ninth art”. In this context, we will point out the role played by religion and, particularly, by biblical themes, stories, and characters in their plots. We will then present a study of the reinterpretation of the story of Ruth and Naomi in Finch and Dyer’s GN, but not before interpreting it in the context of the authors’ work as a whole. Finally, an attempt will be made to extract the range of meanings with which the biblical story has been enriched, or the biases that the authors’ reading has been able to imprint on the biblical story, in order to ponder the way in which the new graphic expressive forms help to establish a dialogue between the sacred text and this new expressive form of the GN, a dialogue more necessary than ever in a time colonized by the empire of the visual.

2. The Expressive Format of the “Graphic Novel”

2.1. A Few Historical Notes

The origin of this expressive format we call “graphic novel” is a much-debated topic (Petersen 2010, pp. 201–12). Some scholars (Critchley 2017) consider it to be nothing more than a development or evolution of comics towards a new expressive form capable of connecting with the concerns and tastes of adult audiences; others, on the contrary, consider the GN as a genre, which, by allowing more complex narrative developments and more expensive editions, has generated a more elitist cultural product, more typical of “high culture” (Critchley 2017). Finally, there are also authors who believe that the GN is nothing more than a tool that acts as a kind of springboard to prose reading, and therefore its sole purpose is to encourage people to read.

As we may note, the matter is too complex to be dealt with in this paper, but it is worth bearing in mind that both Petersen and Tabachnick, acknowledging the value of Frans Masreel’s work in the late nineteenth century (Tabachnick 2017, pp. 38–39), usually attribute the origin of the GN in the United States to the publication of Mad magazine, born in 1952 as a satirical and nonsensical look at the media of other American institutions. Its editor, W. Gaina, to distance it from comics and to address an adult audience, called it a “magazine”, thus managing to keep his work out of the view of the Comics Code Authority, which monitored the suitability of the contents of these publications aimed at children’s audiences. Mad can thus be considered one of the main instigators of the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s that brought about the counterculture of “comix”, a term that incorporated the “x” as a symbol of rebellion against social conventions (Hatfield 2009, pp. 16–20). R. Crumb was probably the great representative of this new expressive format, and his work Zap Comix is often considered the inaugural act of underground comics, because “it was not until Crumb’s innovation that the idea of creating a sustainable underground comic series took hold” (Hatfield 2009, p. 8).

The popularization of the term “graphic novel” came in the late 1970s from veteran cartoonist Will Eisner who, to attract a new audience to his book projects, titled his trilogy “Contract with God”. In fact, A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories (1978) has been called the ‘first graphic novel’ and has been hailed as a central text in the emergence of the ‘graphic novel’ as a cultural phenomenon (Lund 2021).

What really helped the term “graphic novel” to become common and the genre to become popular was the arrival in the late 1980s of several volumes in novel format that had originally been serialized: the first volume of Spiegelman’s Maus (1986), the first GN to win a Pulitzer in 2006; Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986); and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen (1987).

2.2. The Characteristics of This “Ninth Art”

The term “ninth art” is primarily used in France to refer to the art form of graphic novels (bandes dessinées), a widely popular and highly regarded form of storytelling. It seems that the identification as the “ninth art” is due to Claude Beylie, who used the expression for the first time in a 1964 article in the literary supplement of Lettres et Médicins, “Is cartooning an art?” (Ory 2021).

The GN is an expressive hybrid or transmedia format that fuses the formats of the classic comic with the traditional novel, taking elements from both genres. In this way, the story to be told is developed in a combination of visual and written language, in such a way that the strength of the script is consolidated in the sequencing of the scenes, the design of the pages, the drawing of the vignettes, the strokes, the color, and the textures. In most cases, the GN is in book format, with a standard size of 26 cm × 19 cm and around 120 pages. These pages contain either text, images or a combination of both; the vignette, which may or may not be framed, is the space in which both text and images are inserted, and the so-called “speech balloons” are the spaces usually reserved for the text. The distribution of the vignettes on the pages normally aligns them in rows, although a single vignette can occupy an entire page or even two, and the rhythm at which the story unfolds depends on their configuration.

As can be seen in the work that is the object of this study, it is increasingly common for the authorship of an GN to be choral, precisely because of the complexity of the work. Nowadays, it is common to recognize the joint work of a scriptwriter who shapes the story, an illustrator who conveys it in images, and a letterer, who labels the whole text. In this combination, they all make their own interpretation of the story and enrich it, precisely due to the singularity of their contributions. And, thus, the plot resorts to the use of any kind of literary resource, linguistic polyphony (words, phrases, onomatopoeias…) and the development of characters with a certain complexity based on the conflict that the plot poses; the visual work combines color, form, and design; and the lettering interprets the meaning that the sum of text and multisensory work is intended to provide.

Although nowadays illustrators and scriptwriters are transferring all kinds of content to this format, the GN emerged, as we have already seen, to deal in illustrated format with adult themes that demanded a more in-depth treatment and which, for this reason, resisted serialization.

2.3. The Dialogue Between Religion and Art in Graphic Novels

Since its beginnings, the world of comics and the GN has been lavishly populated by stories, characters, and plots of a religious nature. Although there are some—few and relatively high quality-production of a confessional nature—most graphic literature products work beyond institutionalized religious traditions.

The comic strips that appeared in the American press at the end of the 19th century, and which are at the origin of the popularization of comics, soon created superhero characters (Superman; Batman; Spider-Man; The Fantastic Four; Captain America, etc.) who became characters of enormous appeal among readers because they fought to save lives against those who endangered it, and all thanks to their knowledge and/or extraordinary salvific powers, always from gratuity and total abnegation. In fact, there are authors who claim that “the Marvel Universe is virtually a pantheon” (Rushkoff 2010, p. ix). Probably all these figures were inspired by the great protagonists of the biblical tradition, since the magnates of the 19th century American press (Hearts and Pulitzer), and the great cartoonists of the Golden Age (J. Siegel; J. Schuster; J. Kirby…), were all Jewish.

Many Churches are taking advantage of the expressive nature of the comic and are using these new and alternative forms either to educate young people in the most important elements of their tradition or with an apologetic pretension (Jones 2019). Some of the works we can highlight are: Megillat Esther by J. T. Waldman (Waldman 2005), a high-quality graphic interpretation of the scroll read in the synagogue; two works by S. Ross, Marked (Ross 2009), a reinterpretation of Mark’s gospel in a sort of militaristic dystopia, and Blinded (Ross 2008), a re-reading of the story of Paul of Tarsus in a context of oppressive social and political violence.

Beyond this “confessional” or critical production, from the origins of comics to the present day, both the characters and stories of the Bible, as well as different questions related to spirituality or religion, have formed the core plot of numerous graphic stories for aesthetic, thematic, literary, or value-related reasons. Thus, a rabbi’s cat has profound theological discussions with its master (The Rabbi’s Cat, Joann Sfar); the text of Genesis, in the hands of the illustrator Richard Crumb (Genesis), displays all its narrative power; Chester Brown concentrates on reinterpreting the biblical stories of women (Mary Wept at the Feet of Jesus); and Ralf Köning embarks on a trilogy in which books, stories, and characters from the Bible are revised from a critical and even “irreverent” perspective.

The story of Ruth has also been the subject of works in which the graphic narrative has gradually taken on a higher profile, offering new keys to interpretation through images. Among the authors of the last century, we can highlight the high-quality-illustrated editions of Jewish painters such as Arthur Szyk (1894–1951) and Zvi Adler Miklos (1909–1965); in our times, the story of Ruth has only been the subject of graphic works of a purely confessional nature, and of little-known scriptwriters and illustrators (Frang et al. 2019; Hsu 2016). It is worth mentioning the work of Adam J. Howell, who published a curious graphic volume in which the story of Ruth is used to aid the study of the Hebrew language and its spelling (Howell 2020). Finally, the English graphic illustrator Simon Amadeus Pillario (Pillario 2022) dedicated a GN to Ruth in the Word for Word Bible Comic project.

The success of this dialogue between religion, in the broadest sense of the term, and the graphic cartoon may have a wide range of explanations.

There is a kind of first explanation of a theological matrix, which is that, from the beginning of revelation, it is shown in a double condition: textual “God said” (Gn 1,3.6.9.14.20.24) and iconic, insofar as the human being is constituted as the image of God (Gn 1,26). In the same way, in Christ, God renews this double condition of his revelation, textual and iconographic, of his revelation. If the Bible is the word of God in human language, Christ appears as “the shining light of the Gospel, the living image of God” (2 Cor 4,4).

This postulate of Jewish and Christian faith explains, quite possibly, that it was the Jewish confession of the first magnates and illustrators of the press at the end of 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century that made figures emerge—Superman, for example—with a great capacity to evoke, in difficult socio-economic times (the crash of 1929; Hitler’s expansionist policy…), messianism, salvation, struggle, and commitment (Garrett 2009, p. 42).

In addition, the Bible, a living text transmitted by the community because it is the word of God that challenges it “in its today”, leads to a whole current of tradition throughout time and space. This transmission is dynamized in a process by which “the Bible generates the Bible” (Pérez Fernández 1996, p. 501), which is a way of speaking of intertextuality, the network of references that the Bible weaves within itself (Aichele and Phillips 1995; Guldemond 2011), and which constitutes the nucleus of the canonical imagination and explains the creative potential of biblical texts, their readiness to be reused, explicitly or implicitly, “to provide entertainment for those who read for the sake of reading, ease for those who want to learn by heart, and usefulness for all who read this book” (2 Maccabees 2:25).

Today, it seems necessary to venture some other explanations beyond this initial theological one, especially when the illustrators repeatedly speak of their agnosticism and, at the same time, of their interest in religion and the Bible as sources of inspiration.

First, given that the Bible was forged in the heart of Judaism and reinterpreted via Greek culture, we can understand that it has determined the configuration of Western culture, that it constitutes the “mother tongue of today’s culture”, and that, precisely for this reason, it has become one of the indisputable references of any artistic production. It is possible that this recurrent presence of biblical themes and motifs is related with the fact that, as literature, the Bible authentically captures key moments and elements of human existence: life, death, war, peace, friendship, and betrayal.

Moreover, biblical stories, which are not narratively variegated or complex, have different layers of meanings that, in some way, appeal to our personal or collective conscience, and, in addition, they display a lot of creative potential because they allow us to explore more elaborate developments by not detailing landscapes, clothing, ornaments, faces: “there are usually no details about landscapes, clothing, ornaments; there are hardly any descriptions of the characters, their skin color, gestures or hands are not described and within the collective characters, such as the people or «those who followed Jesus», their characteristics are not detailed” (Yebra 2022, p. 22).

As a visual and textual medium, graphic literature plays a key role in exploring how the sacred appears in image and text. Thus, as Gamzou (Gamzou and Koltun-Fromm 2018) notes, by transforming text into image, the GN—like the comic—defies strict boundaries and principles, time configured as space, and tricks to engage the reader in reading, provoke a certain way of seeing and experiencing the world by appealing directly to the experience of the symbolic, activating the imagination, and enlivening the memory and inviting it to fill the gaps that the genre suggests.

Finally, by pouring the sacred into this kind of hybrid, popular GN genre, the chains of authority, orthodoxy, and dogma are undermined, so that the sacred seems to come to us clean, pure, direct, and unmediated, without legitimizing or narrativizing mediations.

3. Finch and Dyer, the Authors

Meredith Finch is a well-known Canadian comic book writer, nominated for a Joe Shuster Award in 2018; she entered the GN world in 2014 when she worked for Zenescope, first on the Grimm Fairy Tales series, and then on Grimm Tales of Terror. Her best-known works are those she created for the series Wonder Woman (#36–52), Catwoman, The Age of Conan: Valeria the Age of Conan: Valeria (#1–5), and Xena.

After writing scripts for some of the most iconic female heroines in the major comic book imprints (DC Comics, Dynamite, Marvel), Finch decided to turn to much more personal work under the Image Comics imprint. There she published the series Rose (2017–2019), which was inspired by the traumatic experience of seeing one of her best friends injured in a car accident that resulted in her becoming a quadriplegic (Finch 2017). In this work, a fantasy series in which she combined mythology and reflection on the human condition, we can already see some of the hallmarks of her later work: the deeply spiritual character of her stories, the collaboration with graphic artists capable of tuning into the inspiring condition of her work, and the participation of different graphic artists within the same work.

In 2019, she published The Light Princess, a story by G. McDonald, the author who inspired the religious work of C. S. Lewis, and which took her into a universe in which the religious element became more explicit. Given the religious connotation, she had difficulty finding a publisher and she had to explore new platforms where he could publish it, finally arriving at Cave Pictures where The Book of Ruth was also published.

Colin Dyer joined the project when Finch and her husband, David, a famous illustrator of superhero stories (Eisner Award 2017), found out about Dyer’s portfolio through a call for entries on the social network Facebook; in other words, he was by no means a recognized illustrator.

Dyer is passionate about visual storytelling, and on his blog, Slingin’ Ink, we can learn about his work: the illustration of the graphic version of Pucker Factor: Vietnam Memoir for McFarland Publishing, his contribution to Golem of South Florida at Punch Press, as well as numerous illustrations for other types of projects. In addition, his social network account on X (@ColinDyer71) allows us to follow his work and its acceptance among the public.

Dyer normally works on toned paper, usually grey, tan, or black, from high-quality brands such as Strathmore. This type of paper, because it has a different color value to white, helps with reflections and thus allows him to concentrate on the image. In the design, he starts by using pencils for inking, normally Pentel pens. The line is strong, and he dwells considerably on the description of the details of the figures to help the characters to be well-placed in the development of the story. When illustrating stories, he usually works with black and white inks, which brings his style closer to that of Frank Miller’s noir novels.

Finally, Cardinal Rae, the letterer, came into the project at a later stage, due to her having worked with Finch on the Rose. Her work on the texts aligned very well with Dyer’s forceful line and to which she added precision.

4. The Book of Ruth, a Dialogue Between the Graphic Novel and the Biblical Tale

4.1. General Characteristics of the Graphic Novel

The Book of Ruth was published in 2020, amid the COVID-19 confinement, and has been disseminated through social networks (Facebook; X), YouTube channels, and podcasts specializing in the graphic world.

Finch, convinced of the power of biblical stories to connect with the search for meaning and the big questions that people ask themselves, wanted to bring this biblical story to all those who, even without being members of a church, are trying to give meaning to their lives and to contribute to societal values.

The work has several characteristics that make it unique.

First, it is an independent work that has been funded through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Finch considers that the publishing difficulties for an author working on explicitly religious themes are best circumvented by using these platforms, which also helps keep you in contact with potential readers throughout the creative process, and can thus be developed at a slower and more careful pace that, in the end, benefits the quality of the work (Tucci and Scala 2019).

It is, also, a story that interprets a biblical tale, that of the struggle for survival of Ruth the Moabitess and her mother-in-law Naomi, whom Finch imagines being shaken in the context of the economic collapse, social chaos, and cultural fracture provoked in the United States by the Depression of 1929.

Finally, the focus of the work is explicitly confessional: both artists are believers. Finch is a member of the Episcopalian church, and, as a believer and scriptwriter, she has wanted to tell a story that is spiritually meaningful to her, the story of Ruth. Since her youth, this biblical story revealed itself to her as a story of strong female characters that allowed her to reflect on faith and a commitment to caring for others (Brooks 2021). Dyer, for his part, acknowledges himself as a man of deep faith (Del Arroz 2019) and has been involved as an illustrator in denominational projects such as Ark encounter (https://arkencounter.com/), a Christian theme park led by Answers in Genesis (a fundamentalist group), and Searching for the Truth: The Illustrated Gospel, by Tim Chaffey (Chaffey 2017). Thus, they both took on the project with the desire to provide a quality graphic product that would help improve the graphic materials that Churches use for the religious formation of their young people (Anderson and Schild 2021).

From a formal point of view, the GN is spread over 112 pages with dimensions of 26 cm × 19 cm, the standard size for this type of work. The structure of each page is supported by three or four rows of vignettes, all inserted into squares or rectangles. On the title page of each of the four chapters and at key moments in the plot, full unframed pages are introduced.

In the version published by Cave Pictures, the cover is by C. Dyer, but for those who participated in the crowdfunding project that helped finance the work, five other covers were designed, illustrated by such important authors as Lee Weeks, Jason Fabok, and Billy Tucci.

Dyer’s illustrations are meticulous and detailed, and both the human figures and the settings have been drawn with great care. Many of them were previously worked on in a sketchbook, some of which have been included in the printed edition. The expressions of the faces are striking—the despair of Eli, the pain of Naomi, the strength of Boaz, and the firmness of Ruth—as are the drawing of New York Central Station, the floor tiles in Eli’s office, and the 1920 Rolls Royce.

Finch’s initial idea was that the work would be progressively colored as the characters moved from material and emotional lack to abundance. However, when she saw the progress of Dyer’s graphic work, she realized that the story flowed much better if illustrated in black and white, because drawing in black and white introduces the reader to a much more relaxed reading rhythm and thus aids the spiritual reading of the story. The only trace of color is a red handkerchief that appears at key moments in the story.

C. Rae has chosen whizbang as the typeface and has included the dialogue within enclosed balloons, although there are subtitles to denote space and time data, which he has placed framed in the upper left-hand corner of the vignettes. There are no graphic resources accompanying the illustration, except in the Dust Bowl vignettes, which are used to better express the terrible extent of the locust plague.

4.2. The Rereading of the Biblical Story in Literary and Graphic Elements

Finch and Dyer’s GN situates the story of Ruth and Naomi, as we have already said, within the framework of the Depression of 1929, and there is no other moment in the history of the United States where there is an emotional, economic, and personal crisis of such a collective magnitude (Tucci and Scala 2019), and, thus, this historical moment is in tune with the decomposition of the ancient world that is so well reflected in the book of Judges, the world in which the biblical story of Ruth is set (Ruth 1:1). In fact, countless cultural products reflect that time. Novels such as John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”, the paintings of Grant Wood or Georgia O’Keefe, and the photography of Dorothea Lange, among others, capture for posterity the misery and pain of those who were most vulnerable to the catastrophe, as well as the unease generated by the intuition that the American dream was coming to an end.

The story is set in Bethlehem, a town in the state of Texas, where Naomi and Ruth return after the unfortunate death of the men in the family, and where they embark on a new life far from the luxuries of New York City. The narrow life of a village, agriculture, and its cycles mark the new life of Ruth and Naomi, who in Bethlehem manage to recover and start a new life together with Boaz, with whom Ruth will form a new family.

The rereading of the biblical story has been carried out, as is typical of a GN, in a hybrid work. Finch’s script contains omissions, additions, and changes that affect the plot, the structure, and the characters and, Dyer, through the design of the vignettes, the work on the faces and hands of the characters, and the detailed treatment of the settings, has managed to reinforce the message that Finch wanted to convey in the writing of her script.

4.2.1. The Formulation of the Argument

The GN tells the story of Ruth and Naomi, two New York socialites whose lives are turned upside down when the economic crisis of 1929 leaves them widowed and without financial resources to survive. Driven by necessity, they return to the small Texas town of Bethlehem, where the family of Naomi and her late husband Eli had their roots. Naomi is bitter about all the disappointments and suffering she has endured; however, her daughter-in-law Ruth, with the strength of her faith in God, decides to fight to prosper and take care of her mother-in-law.

The return will not be easy; the Depression sank the agriculture sector and the countryside is a hostile place for women. Yet, an encounter with Boaz, an old relative of Eli’s, a landowner who does not seem to have suffered the effects of the crisis, will present the two women some hope in their lives. However, evil, represented in the dark character of Haylale, will haunt Naomi and Ruth in Bethlehem as well. Only when Boaz unmasks him will Eli’s family see the current of life restored and made visible in Obed, the son Ruth will have with him.

As in the biblical story, where Naomi and Elimelek left Bethlehem for Moab as a result of the prevailing famine (Ruth 1:1), Naomi and Eli migrated from Bethlehem to New York during the Dust Bowl, a period of severe dust storms that ravaged the agriculture sector in the center of the United States between 1932 and 1939, and made survival in the Texas town impossible. Dyer illustrated the storms and locust plagues in detail, using onomatopoeia, double-page spreads, and shadow play (in spaces, faces, etc.) to draw the reader into the life drama of the moment.

The Bible does not provide us with information about the Israelites’ stay in Moab, but the GN tells us that Naomi and Eli prospered and became active members of New York’s high society and finance. Dyer has managed to recreate the luxury of the “Roaring Twenties”, with the drawing of the mansions, the luxurious facades, the railings, the furniture and the decoration of the offices, the drawing rooms, and the staircases. However, the financial crisis of 1929 strikes the family with all its fury, the men seem to have taken risky decisions, and, finally, ruin arrives, and, for one reason or another, all of the men perish. Dyer has reflected the drama of the moment in the drawing of the patriarch’s death in the office, as well as in the design of the scene of Kylion’s suicide, told in nine vignettes that conclude with a full page where the women can be seen at the grave of the three men.

The women of the family, as in the biblical story (Ruth 1:6–7), are forced to react, and Naomi makes the decision to return to Texas, to the town from which they immigrated fleeing famine to a city of prosperity. As in the biblical story, Ruth accompanies her mother-in-law on the train journey to Bethlehem, but Finch’s script deals superficially with Naomi’s dialogue with her daughters-in-law. On arriving in the town, which Dyer has painted as if it were a Wild West village, and as in the biblical story, we learn of Naomi’s bitterness. The welcome of the group of neighbors that is so decisive in the conclusion of the biblical story (Ruth 1:19–21; 4:17) has been transformed by Finch, turning the neighbors into a mute character, with only Kitty Sands standing out, whom Dyer has placed in several close-ups detailing the marked features of her face. In the last scene of the GN, she reappears, uttering the words that, in the biblical account, re-enact Ruth’s role in Naomi’s life (Ruth 4:14–15).

As in the biblical account, the stay in Bethlehem is marked by the rhythm of work in the fields where Ruth is employed, precisely, on Boaz’s plantations. Finch, in contrast to the biblical text, introduces several characters and themes into the story that cast a shadow over the women’s future: an unknown character harasses Naomi with stories of the past in New York; an employee of Boaz’s fields, Levi, whom Dyer has drawn with a markedly angular face, sexually harasses Ruth; and Boaz himself is suspicious of Ruth’s intentions. Yet, the delivery of a mysterious red cloth, the only colored object in the entire graphic story, as a gift to Naomi at the end of the harvest festival, serves to warn the reader that the story may change.

Finally, thanks to Boaz’s intervention, Naomi and Ruth’s futures in Bethlehem is straightened out and, as in the biblical story, the birth of Boaz and Ruth’s son, which takes up a half of a page in a single vignette, becomes a sign of the promise of a better time because we see him covered by the mysterious red cloth that Boaz gave to Ruth on the night of the harvest festival.

4.2.2. The Treatment of the Structure

The GN maintains the four-chapter structure of the biblical book, and each chapter is preceded by a full-page vignette that points to the content of the chapter. The vignette in the first chapter represents a dark night in a rural setting, where a tiny light shines in the window of a house; the second is a wheat field in which a strong male shakes the ears of corn; the image that prefaces the third chapter is that of Boaz on his horse riding through the night; finally, a train that leaves the vignette and smudges with its black smoke announces the fourth chapter.

Although the division into four chapters remains the same, the contents of the chapters have undergone some changes.

Thus, the arrival at Bethlehem (TX), which in the Bible is in Ruth 1:6, is delayed until the second chapter in the GN, which opens with Ruth’s arrival at Central Station and her journey in train. In this way, we become familiar with the story of the family both in Bethlehem, from where they must emigrate, and in New York, where they settle and prosper.

Ruth’s work in Boaz’s field is the focus of the second chapter, as it is in the biblical text, and is narrated in parallel with the dialogues between the women in the house.

Chapter three places at the center of the story, as in the biblical text (Ruth 3:2), the feast to celebrate the end of the harvest, a feast which takes place, as in the Bible, at night. This is the chapter in which the personal drama of Ruth, who is sexually abused by Levi, and Naomi, who is visited by Haylale, the mysterious character whom the reader knows from the first chapter but does not know what role he plays in the plot, are concentrated.

The final chapter opens, as in the Bible, with the summoning of the men of the community to settle Naomi’s claims to her husband’s property (Ruth 4:1–10) and closes, which is also similar to the biblical story (Ruth 4:13–16), with the marriage of Ruth and Boaz and the birth of their first-born son. This birth, as in the Bible, signifies the restoration of life, that of Naomi, who is no longer “Mara”, and that of her son Mahlon.

4.2.3. The Design of the Characters

The biblical story of Ruth has three groups of characters: the family members of Elimelech and Naomi; the male and female neighbors of Bethlehem; and Boaz. In addition, God is an omnipresent character, although at no point does he intervene directly in the narrative.

All members of the family appear in the NG, and all retain the Hebrew name, as well as the etymological meaning of the name.

The patriarch is identified exclusively as Eli [my god], and the second part of the name [mlk], meaning “king”, becomes the family name. Dyer has drawn well the character’s transformation from the rough farmer in the fields of Bethlehem to the distinguished businessman in New York. His wife, Naomi, meaning “favorite”, “delicate”, or “sweet”, begins the graphic story with this name, and Finch emphasizes her charity for the needy. However, as in the biblical story, when she arrives in Bethlehem, she asks to be called “Mara” [bitterness] to denounce the misfortune that God has unloaded on her. Dyer’s drawing allows us to recognize in her facial features, and in the pattern of her clothes, particularly her blouses, the change from Naomi’s happiness to Mara’s bitterness.

Elimelech and Naomi’s family includes their sons, Mahlon and Kylion, and their daughters-in-law.

Mahlon, a name that means in Hebrew “weak” or “sick”, is drawn with the features of an old man and always covered with a kind of blanket and coughing, and he suffers from tuberculosis and dies as a consequence of it; Kylion, meanwhile, although his silhouette never appears, ends his life when he commits suicide out of despair after receiving news of the stock market crash, honoring the meaning of his name, “tired” and “exhausted”.

Ruth is Mahlon’s wife and is distinguished by her care for her husband and mother-in-law. Dyer has thought considerably about the character’s design, particularly her face, which is always radiant, and her figure tall and strong, capable of transmitting a great deal of confidence. Finally, Orpha, Kylion’s wife, is a frivolous woman whom we only see laying on the luxurious bed in a large bedroom from where she attends the service and who leaves the story suddenly without a word to her mother-in-law and without a formal ending. The neighbors of Bethlehem in the biblical text are groups of women and men.

The female neighbors welcome Naomi and Ruth when they return (Ruth 1:18) and rejoice at the birth of Ruth’s son (Ruth 4:14). The men, on the other hand, only come to the foreground at the end of the biblical story; they are the ones who, at the gate of the city, act as witnesses to the fulfilment of the “law of levirate marriage” (Ruth 4:1–11).

The NG, unlike the biblical account, identifies, as early as the first chapter, a neighbor in Bethlehem. This is Leah, Naomi’s friend since childhood, with whom she has kept in touch over the years; in addition, as soon as she returns to Bethlehem another woman appears, Kitty Sands, whom Ruth and Naomi bump into in the street. However, there is no other reference to other neighbors and they play no role in the story.

Boaz is a former soldier, a landowner who is exploited by his employees, a respectable citizen with the authority to summon all men to defend women’s rights. The biblical text is silent on his physical description, but Dyer has imagined him with the traits of normative masculinity: physically strong, mature, standing on his horse, dominating the land and people, and holding the bridle tightly to control the animal.

Although the reader does not know it, he will discover that the fate of the protagonists has always been linked to him. Thus, his treatment of them is somewhat paternalistic, and, to add tension to the plot, Finch has imagined a story that makes him feel disappointed by Ruth’s behavior and reject her.

Meanwhile, the group of male citizens, as in the biblical account, lacks singular characters. In fact, Dyer has drawn them small and faceless. They all appear in the last chapter when Boaz summons them to solve Naomi’s legal problems.

Finally, Meredith Finch’s script introduces two characters who are not in the Bible. The first is a dark, shadowy character who Dyer has drawn in a hat, suit, and dark glasses. He appears in the first chapter, in the first and last vignettes of the scene of Eli’s death (although in this one he is only a shadow), without the reader being able to know exactly the relationship between the two. He will reappear in chapter three, leading the reader to suspect that he has the capacity to thwart Naomi and Ruth’s plans, for Dyer has now drawn him in a close-up that allows us to see the harshness of his expression, and we can hear him threaten Naomi. Finally, in chapter four, Boaz discovers his deceptions and denounces him to the men of the community.

The name of this character, Haylale, is revealed in chapter four, in a dialogue with Levi, one of Boaz’s overseers, who wanted to sexually violate Ruth. Haylale is the transliteration of the term that the oracle against the king of Babylon (Is 14:3–23) uses to make fun of him. The Vulgate translated “Lucifer” and thus identifies the devil in Christian theology. With the introduction of this dark character, the NG distances itself from the biblical account, and throughout the story of these women, the threat of evil that Lucifer represents in their lives is present.

The second character, who is also absent from the biblical account, appears in chapter three and is one of Boaz’s overseers. Finch calls him Levi; we do not know whether or not this is a reference to the son of Jacob who intervened in the violent episode against the Shechemites (Gen 34). What is certain is that he embodies the sexual violence and abuse of power exercised against Ruth, in a story that, as such, does not appear in the biblical text, although it is presumed that the time of harvest was not without risk for women (Ruth 2:9).

4.3. Theological Reinterpretation

The reinterpretation of the plot, the characters, and the structure that we have just described also has an impact on the re-reading of the theological themes impressed on the biblical text.

Commentators (García-Jalón de la Lama and Guevara Llaguno 2016; Vílchez 1998) usually highlight, as nuclear themes of the theology of this short story in four chapters, the following: the image of God, a provident God who reveals himself in historical events; the image of the people, a covenant people expressed in the law; salvation, a gift of God, gratuitous and universal; and the vindication of the poor and vulnerable represented in this case by the women protagonists, women with autonomy and capacity to decide their future.

The GN, like the biblical text, also starts from the conception of the God of Israel as the one who transcends history and leads it, although for the protagonists, particularly Naomi, what they perceive with crudeness is, precisely, his absence and abandonment. There is no worship or sacrifice, as we do not see it in the biblical text, but in the GN it is recurrent to see the protagonists praying.

Thus, in the first chapter, when Naomi and Eli must leave Bethlehem and migrate to New York, she, in a vignette that occupies a close-up of her face—dark and angular—confesses to her friend Leah that God seems to have forgotten them. And at the end of the first chapter, when all the men have died, she again shows her grief and bewilderment; “What else could I have done?” she asks herself, and she lists her good deeds, concluding that “If there is a God, he has not only abandoned us, but he is taking revenge on us”. Later, in the scene of Eli’s burial, someone who looks like a Christian priest recites one of the traditional Jewish funeral prayers—the Maleh Rachamim—which invokes God’s mercy on the deceased, asking for protection and rest. It is to the memory of this mercy that Ruth appeals, seeking to console her mother-in-law’s grief by showing her how the love experienced in the family is precisely the sign of God’s blessing. In contrast to the biblical story, since Ruth is not a foreigner in the GN, the richness of her confession of faith in the God of Israel (Ruth 1:16) is lost and remains as mere loyal adherence to her mother-in-law based on family ties. This may be why the script disregards the story of Orpah and her return to the “house of her mother” mentioned in the biblical narrative (Ruth 1:12).

As in the biblical account, the arrival at Bethlehem provides another occasion to listen to the bitterness of Naomi who, now, in a vignette inserted in the drawing of a full page where we only see the anger in her eyes, claims, like the biblical text (Ruth 1:20), to be identified as “Mara”, bitter.

In chapter 2, when they are already settled in Bethlehem, on two different occasions, illustrated with two full pages, we see and hear the prayer of both women, something that was absent from the biblical account. One moment is when the work on the threshing floor is about to begin: Naomi prays for Ruth, and begs God to protect her; Ruth, for her part, asks God to restore and repair her mother-in-law’s heart. The other moment is when the chapter ends, and after Haylale has spoken to Naomi; Naomi prays that one day—and the reader does not know which day or why—her daughter-in-law will forgive her; Ruth, for her part, who—like the reader—is unaware of what Haylale’s visit has brought, is grateful for what she believes to be a favorable time for Naomi.

In comparison to chapter 3 of the biblical account, the chapter in the GN is much less theologically dense. This is due to the fact that the threshing floor scene cannot be interpreted in light of the author suggesting that Boaz may be the kinsman acting as Goel. Thus, in the scenes of work on the threshing floor (chap. 3), and unlike in the Bible, we can see Boaz praying to God for protection for Ruth. However, the sexual content of the nighttime encounter between Boaz and Ruth has been ignored.

The last chapter also shows a scene in which Ruth prays alone in her room; this time she is praying with the ‘Thy will be done’ of the Lord’s Prayer. Dyer includes it in a three-vignette sequence to note that her future depends on others, something she is unaware of, but which reveals her as a woman of deep faith. This faith is confirmed in the vignette in chapter 4, in which Ruth recalls the text of Jer 29:11 and confesses, to her mother-in-law’s despair, her radical trust in God’s action in her life, however disconcerting it may be. This strong faith of Ruth’s will heal her mother-in-law’s pain, to the point that we see them praying together with clasped hands, asking God to allow them to discern what he expects of them.

Naomi’s last words in the GN are spoken at the wedding toast; they are the same words that the biblical account puts into the mouths of the men of Bethlehem (Ruth 4:11–12), asking God to include Ruth among the matriarchs of Israel. The last vignette, as in the biblical account (Ruth 4:14–15), includes the invocation to God of one of the neighbors, Kitty Sands, asking Naomi that the child born to Ruth would bring her back to life and joy. Additionally, in the scene, Naomi holds in her lap the newborn child (Ruth 4:16) whom Dyer has covered with the red shawl that Boaz gave her on the night of the threshing-feast. This splash of color confirms that God has been watching over Eli’s family, even though Naomi has lived in constant bewilderment and desolation because of the difficult circumstances she has experienced.

The image of the people of Israel in the biblical text, their connection to the promised land, and the importance of the law as a sign of the covenant with God are rather blurred in the GN.

From the outset, since the family does not emigrate to a foreign country but to a large, wealthy city, the force of the biblical text of the journey to Moab—a biblically hostile scenario—is lost, and the Israelite–foreigner contrast becomes meaningless. Thus, New York, until the Great Depression, is for Eli’s family more a land of opportunity than of uprooting; Ruth’s attachment to her mother-in-law and the journey to Bethlehem do not imply a renunciation of Moabite identity nor an attachment to the God of her mother-in-law. In fact, we cannot presume that Finch thought of Eli and Naomi’s family as Jewish, even though at Eli’s funeral, as previously mentioned, a Jewish chant, typical of funeral celebrations, is recited. Much more importance has been ascribed to the scenes of family life in New York, the land to which they emigrated, than in the biblical account, in which Dyer’s graphic work is remarkable, but, theologically, it does not serve to use the family as an image of the people of Israel, of their blood ties, and their common adherence to Yahweh.

And so, by not identifying the family as Jewish and uprooting them from their world of identity, the force that the biblical account places on the fulfilment of the levirate law (Deut 25) is totally diluted. For this reason, the theology that vindicates Israel as Yahweh’s inheritance, which cannot be left to its own devices among the nations, loses its force. We can thus understand why the character of Boaz, who is revealed in the biblical story as a Goel, called to restore and recover the Lord’s property, becomes in the GN an economically powerful and socially influential man whose social position, and not his family responsibility, allows him to protect the vulnerability of Ruth and Naomi. For the same reason, the claim of Ruth as another matriarch of Israel is not understood, as is the subtitle inserted in the final vignette, which corresponds to Ruth 4:17c.

From what we have already written, we can conclude that God’s salvation seems to be reduced to the concrete context of the circumstances of the Depression of 1929, because the marriage to Boaz restores the dignity of Eli and Naomi’s family and gives them back signs of God’s blessing that they have fervently implored in prayer. And it is necessary to bear in mind what we have said about the treatment of “the foreigner” and the levirate law, which totally obscures God’s action in protecting his inheritance, as well as the universalist dimension of that salvation.

On the one hand, the presence of the characters of Haylale and Levi, who introduce into the story the reflection on evil and its capacity to cloud God’s plan and relationships between people, is something that only appears in the GN. It is true that the biblical account suggests that there are some dangers for women working on the threshing floor (Ruth 3), but that danger is not an evil per se and is far from being personified and capable of twisting God’s design for women and, through them, for Eli’s family.

The biblical book of Ruth, on the other hand, tells a story in which women carry the weight of the story: the protagonists—Ruth and Naomi; the neighbors of Bethlehem; and the gleaners in the fields of Boaz. The sisterly relationships that define the actions of all of them in the biblical story are the key to confronting and reversing the situation of vulnerability and misfortune suffered by the protagonists. This sisterhood can be seen, in the first place, in the Hebrew names of the protagonists, which are respected in the storyboard and which speak of solidarity and mutual care: Naomi, friend, affectionate; Ruth, comforter, helper. Moreover, they both participate in the story as active members of some kind of political network: in terms of family, they are mother-in-law and daughter-in-law; socially, they are “neighbors” or “maids”; tribally, they are “matriarchs”. The chorus of Bethlehem’s neighbors (Ruth 1:19 and Ruth 4:15), also, plays a crucial role in the conclusion of the story. It is they who interpret the link between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law as the key to the process that restores life and memory to Naomi (Ruth 4:14), and they also proclaim Ruth’s role in a history of Israel read in a messianic key (Ruth 4:16). Finally, the women who worked in Boaz’s service constitute, foremost, Ruth’s circle of security in the hostile environment of work in the fields; in addition, because they constitute a qualified group within Boaz’s family (the Hebrew text calls them [na-‘ă-rō-ṯāy]), they introduce her into the sphere of Boaz’s family and patrimonial household.

This relevant role of the different groups of women in the development of the story, not only of the plot, but also of the theological message, is lost in the GN because they lack prominence in the plot. Thus, the role of women in history as a place of salvation is left unaddressed; it is true that, in the last scenes, the biblical references to the matriarchs and the messianic promise are recovered, but they are incomprehensible.

The image of women in the biblical story, who are not interpreted exclusively in terms of marriage, motherhood, or care, although Ruth ends up being invoked as a matriarch of Israel (Ruth 4:11–12), has been diluted in the graphic story. Naomi, who, in the biblical story, dismisses her daughters-in-law by summoning them to return to “the mother’s house”, a totally alternative center of power, rarely mentioned in the Bible (Cf. Ecc 3:4 and 8:2 and Gen 24:28), decides to return to Bethlehem without their consent. In fact, the GN, particularly in the composition of the first chapter, presents women stereotyped in the role of wife and caregiver, and reveals relationships based on patriarchal dynamics that control their lives without their knowledge, which will be revealed in the resolution of the conflict with Haylale in chapter 4.

Finally, while the GN, like the biblical account, presents Ruth and Naomi as exercising personal autonomy, which takes them out of the invisible world of an unprotected widow, it reveals, as we have already mentioned, that it was the men who, in fact, provided them with the economic and social solutions that provided them with a better future. In this context, it is interesting to note that chapters 2 and 3 of the biblical story and the GN allow us to know the content of the dialogues between the protagonists, and, with it, their way of helping each other, loving each other, and planning a better destiny for their lives. However, in the biblical account, the content of the dialogues reveals a way of doing things that does not privilege hierarchical relationships and that, in a way, proposes alternative ways of relating; however, the GN, by ascribing power to care for women to men, has diluted this powerful message of the biblical account.

5. Conclusions: The Journey of a Biblical Story Through Graphic Literature

In the information the authors received in Religions’ special issue, “The Hebrew Bible: A Journey Through History and Literature”, we noted how the Hebrew Bible remains one of the most influential texts in human history for its ability to impact and fertilize not only religious thought, but also cultural narratives over the centuries.

With this in mind, and in the framework of the studies previously developed (Guevara Llaguno 2011, 2019, 2017) about the presence of the Bible in contemporary cultural products (sitcoms, pop art, comics and graphic novels…), we presented in this work the study of a graphic novel with a confessional imprint, which reinterprets the story of Ruth the Moabitess and her mother-in-law Naomi.

As we have seen, the presence of religion in this much-discussed genre we call GN is visible from its origins, since, in one way or another, the genre must be placed in the orbit of the comic. In this way, the unique hybrid genre that is the GN, where text and image offer their own interpretation of things, has been used in the rereading of biblical stories, characters, and traditions that are so versatile and full of creative potential.

This encounter between the biblical tradition and scriptwriters and graphic artists has on many occasions overflowed the boundaries of the believing community, bringing the Bible to circuits that did not receive it as a sacred text imbued with a normative interpretation and provoking what some authors have identified as the “democratization” of access to the Bible (Theobald 2009, p. 14). This “democratization” attests to its inspirational power, so that those who encounter the biblical narratives find in them tools to better decipher the deeper fabric of their own history, in a cultural context in which people continue to believe “that it is impossible to live without giving credit to life” (Bacq and Theobald 2011, p. 88).

The fruitfulness of this encounter of biblical revelation and its truth with new cultural forms of our time has challenged some believers who produce content and cultural forms (music, GN, video games…) about the need to offer within the believing community re-readings of the normative text capable of being more in tune with the believers of our time. The Book of Ruth, the GN by Finch and Dyer, is, as we have already mentioned, part of this current of authors who, from a confessional perspective, want to tell spiritually significant stories in more attractive and suggestive formats. Finch felt, given her experience as a professional screenwriter of super heroine sagas, that she was in a privileged position to design graphic works that put people before the experience of God and show that it is possible to have a personal relationship with Him (The Bible’s Story of Ruth Retold in the Great Depression 2019). Not only that, but she identified with Naomi and her constant struggle to surpass difficulties and failures; in fact, the two protagonists of the biblical story, strong female characters, allowed her to share her own reflection on faith and care for the other (Brooks 2021).

The choice of the 1929 crisis in the United States has proved to be a fertile setting for the reinterpretation of the breakdown of the world of Ruth and Naomi, which in the biblical story is noted in broad strokes (the famine in the land of bread; the migration to hostile Moab, the change in Naomi’s name…). In fact, it was in the rural hinterland, the world’s hardest hit area by the tragedy, that Finch and Dyer placed the protagonists of the GN, and it was, in particular, the women who had to lead the survival of their families. In this sense, the GN spontaneously brings to the reader’s memory the social photography of D. Lange, who in works such as “Dust Bowl Farm north of Dalhart, Texas” or “Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California 1936” documented a unique social tragedy in the history of the United States. In this way, and thanks to the detailed treatment—in the script and in the graphic work—of the successful life of Eli and Naomi’s family in New York, the authors have succeeded, as they intended (The Bible’s Story of Ruth Retold in the Great Depression 2019), in giving the reader a better understanding of the existential crisis of the protagonists, the sterility that colored their lives, as well as the social vulnerability into which it threw them.

Meanwhile, the renunciation of introducing color has helped the reader to feel immersed in the uncertainty of the protagonists; in Naomi’s feeling of bitterness; in the threat that looms over both. Not only that, but the angular strokes of the faces, particularly in the close-ups, have served to bring the reader closer to the drama.

Thus, from the beginning, the readers of the GN identify with the biblical protagonists and are also shaken by the disorder of the time of the Judges (Ruth 1,1), although the way Ruth is presented, with a discreet beauty, a permanent smile, a permanent attitude of service and help to the members of the family, invites the reader of the GN to trust that, through her, the tragedy that hovers over the women will be turned into a blessing.

However, by moving the story to such a unique moment in history and not making the religious interpretation explicit or even suggestive, the theological force of the story is somewhat diluted. The fact is that, lacking the keys to understand Naomi’s drama at losing the male members of her family, and finding herself unable to provide new husbands to her daughters-in-law, the theological play of the levirate law (Deut 25), which from Ruth 1:11–13 to Ruth 4:1–16 serves as the backbone of the biblical story, is forgotten. In the same way, the protagonism of Boaz loses its meaning; he ceases to be the Goel who rescues Israel’s property (Deut 25,5–6)—although the GN makes explicit a certain family relationship with Eli—and is just a landowner who has the power to help two women in a vulnerable situation.

Although the introduction of the character of Levi and his harassment and, to some extent, sexual abuse of Ruth, makes the story much more intelligible to the contemporary reader than the obscure biblical verses of the night on the threshing floor (Ruth 3:7–8), the appearance of the character of Haylale, nevertheless, takes the story theologically to a point not intended by the biblical author. This development, which, in principle, is not reprehensible, has introduced two aspects into the message of the biblical story that were not intended there, but which, in a certain way, have offered somewhat disruptive readings. Thus, in contrast to women—features that are in the Hebrew version of Ruth—described with an autonomy that allows them to decide their future without being subjected to the authority of men (the return to Bethlehem; the dealings with Boaz; Ruth’s sexual initiative in the night scene on the threshing floor), the GN has let us know that, despite what they believed, in the end, it was the men who watched over their destiny. Additionally, the personification of evil in the character of Haylale seems strange in contrast to the message of the biblical story where it is clear that it is God with his sovereignty who drives the story and that it is the faith of the members of the people of Israel that makes it shine. In fact, Ruth, attached to God and the people of her mother-in-law, questions the workers in Boaz’s field and elicits praise from him.

The GN does make visible, as does the biblical story, the world of women; the inner world of their anguish and hopes, as well as the world of sisterly relationships, generally ignored by biblical authors who write from a patriarchal perspective. Even though the dialogues of the protagonists (on the train, in the house) introduce us to a world in which men do not determine the dynamics of things, the accents of the biblical story are lost. For example, the role of the neighbors in Bethlehem or the reference—as we have already seen—to the “mother’s house” (Ruth 1:8a), a space for generating life, identity, and roots, which women inaugurate when they marry, or Ruth’s willingness to become a foreigner in order to join her mother-in-law’s destiny, are the ultimate exercise in sororal generosity.

It is important to consider, if we take into account that this GN has been thought of as a confessional and not only cultural product, that we must bear in mind that it describes religion as a purely individual matter that the believer resolves in his or her personal relationship with God in prayer; religious experience does not seem to be forged in the discernment of the history that each one has to live; and charity is nothing more than a paternalistic attention that does not question the injustice of the system.

Furthermore, it must be acknowledged that Finch’s story, despite the disruptive force of the female characters in the biblical story, does not take advantage of this cultural defiance to offer female and male role models that question the heteronormativity of the churches, and in that sense, does not assist in thinking of them in a more communitarian rather than hierarchical key. Although Finch and Dyer reinterpret the biblical story in a historical and social context that provoked a reconsideration of gender roles in the family and in society, despite having a woman as the story’s scriptwriter, they do not offer a proposal for reflecting on the changes needed to transform societies and churches into more inclusive spaces. Women continue to recognize themselves in the GN for the care of the family and others; men dispose of their present and assure them a future designed according to their values; and marriage is the only way for women’s personal and social advancement.

Not only that, the GN, which is thought of as a graphic quality product aimed at a young audience more prepared for visual culture, challenges them to re-signify social, economic, and political dynamics, nor trains them for a critical reading of the world and reality. The economic system in the background of the novel responds to the liberal model that is not questioned despite the social drama that is described; the protagonists are deprived of any instrument of social solidarity, because even their neighbors are discarded; and Ruth, the object of sexual violence, incriminates herself for having defied social conventions.

All of these theological elements reveal some of the most distinctive features of American evangelicalism, particularly those that have been publicly displayed since Mr. Trump took office for his first term in the White House. These features must be understood as a religious, cultural, and political identity, where everything is intertwined and impossible to separate. Evangelicalism’s traditional definition was characterized by four distinctive features with a clear theological imprint: conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism, and activism. However, in the last fifty to seventy-five years, these theological distinctions have faded—particularly in the United States—into the background for most evangelicals. Instead, cultural and political interests have emerged that mark both a theologically traditional and a very conservative political stance, taking a clear position on issues of gender and sexuality, accepting patriarchal authority and believing in female submission, racialization, and prosperity theology (Mez 2020).

All in all, Finch and Dyer, through their work, have enabled us to recognize the contribution that visual art makes to enhancing the biblical narrative, presenting itself as a new manifestation of what authors today identify as “biblical art” (Yebra 2022, pp. 18–28), works inspired by biblical stories or characters, even if their purpose is not religious in character, and they have confirmed that “for everyone, believer or not, works inspired by Scripture are a reflection of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds and is present in the world” (Juan Pablo II 1999, para. 5).

Finally, we have been able to become familiar, in some detail, with the journey that a small but literary and theologically strong book of the Bible has made through this literary work that today constitutes an expression of the “ninth art.” And, thus, we have been able to recognize how graphic literature and biblical exegesis, art, and theology, when allied in a work like this, make the mystery recognizable; and the fact is that, if theology is word, textual or oral, about God, art can be understood as theoiconía, the image (therefore, visual) of God (Labarga 2017, p. 9).