Book of Song of Songs

Origen’s exegesis of the Song of Songs, despite the praise it generally raised both in antiquity and in modern times, still awaits for deeper investigation as far as the literary project of the Alexandrian and its output are concerned. In this respect, it is difficult not only to exactly define the mutual relations between the Commentary and the Homilies on the Song of Songs, apart from the evident similarity of their themes, but more specifically to catch the particular nature of Origen’s interpretation at the first level of the biblical text against his well-known allegorism. Viewing the «littera» or «historia» of the Song as a theatrical piece, as especially shown in the Commentary, Origen delivers a dramatical interpretation which by its careful description of the successive scenes develops into a proper script for the stage. Though this explanation is meant to guide the reader to a further level of interpretation, the ‘letter’ cannot here be appreciated simply as the provisional step leading to the ‘spirit’, i.e. the spiritual intelligence of the Song which is in principle the only one permitted for Origen in this biblical love poetry. Instead of that, through the discourse engaged by the dramatic interpretation, on the one hand, there is an overlapping of both the ‘historical’ and the ‘spiritual’ explanation and, on the other hand, the dramatic exegesis also delivers a surplus of sense which is not totally subsumed in the spiritual interpretation. At moments the Song as ‘play’ seems therefore to gain in Origen’s perceptive reading a life of its own.

A volume in the Story of God Bible Commentary series (Zondervan). This work offers a new interpretation of both Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, places them on the trajectory of theological development, and offers thoughts on reading these books as Christian scripture. Ecclesiastes is identified as (mainly) the work of a Davidic descendant in the Hellenistic Era, deploring the state of the Jewish nation under wicked and foolish leaders, and agonising over why God does not seem to do anything to fix the situation. Song of Songs is viewed as a ballad that tells the story of a young woman who has fallen in love with a shepherd boy, when her brothers promise her in marriage to King Solomon. The Song is also viewed as resistance literature, encouraging Jews to be faithful to their true shepherd, Yahweh, even to the point of death during the Antiochene persecution.

Author: Arthur H. Lewis
Publisher: CBE International

The Hebrew view of marital sex, in contrast with Neoplatonism and early church, was not celibate. The Jews were never prudish about sex. The best evidence of this is the high place Solomon's Song of Songs, an ancient collection of poems on courtship and love, holds in the canon of Hebrew Scripture and in the worship of the synagogues, where it is usually read on the 8th day of Passover.

This essay considers the conflict created by the figure of Solomon, and clarifies his image and his function as literary figure. The intertextual base in 1 Kings is referenced but a different interpretation of Solomon is considered. The conventional interpretation of Solomon in the Old Testament and the later reception in non-biblical traditions such as the Qur’an is sketched. By contrast, Qoheleth and Song of Songs present a much more critical image of Solomon. The passages of Song of Songs referring to Solomon are analysed directly. The effect of understanding the heading of Song of Songs as reading instruction is pointed out. All instances where Solomon is mentioned are also considered. It is shown that a sliding transition takes place, which introduces the contrast of “real love” to that represented by Solomon. The figure of Solomon reinforces the theme of love. He may be superfluous to the plot, but is integral to the story.

The study aimed to investigate (a) the effect of digital games, songs, and flashcards on vocabulary knowledge of Iranian EFL preschool learners and (b) the young learners" performance on mid-course tests of vocabulary with different topics. The participants included 350 preschool female learners in Oshnaviyeh, a town in Western Azarbaijan Province and were divided into three tablet, song, and traditional groups. Pre and post-tests of vocabulary and four mid-course tests based, on the learnt vocabularies, were administered during the research. The materials also consisted of a digital game, 16 songs, a structured student book, a workbook, and 60 flashcards. The analysis of the data revealed that there was no significant difference in the vocabulary knowledge of preschool learners who learnt vocabularies via games, songs, and flashcards. The results also showed that there was a significant difference in the three groups" mid-course tests with different topics. The findings r...

St. Gregory of Nyssa (335 – 394) builds on an ancient Jewish-Christian tradition which interprets the love relationship depicted in the Song of Songs as a narrative about the relationship of God and his beloved people. A peculiar feature of Gregory’s exegesis is a very wide meaning of “God’s people” – it denotes all humankind, all human nature. In his Commentary on the Song of Songs the image of the garden of the Canticle with its two lovers blends with another garden. That is the whole earth where there is God who loved humankind so very much that he became a human.
Ancient exegetes, however, who viewed the Song of Songs as a prophetic writing perceived in it also other prophetically relevant themes. The Bridegroom of the Song of Songs is the Messiah, Christ, and according to prophets he was to suffer and die. And so the authors were sensitive to possible intertextual links between the Song of Songs and the gospel Passion texts – annointment with aromatic oils, coronation, the garden of suffering and death, looking for the Lord, resurrection in the garden... This line of interpretation, too, is widely present in Gregory’s work. After all, his Commentary is an adapted series of homilies he pronounced in the Great Lent as preparation for the celebration of the mysteries of the Easter, the feast of the Lord’s Resurrection, which is the completion of the Incarnation.

“Blue Universe (flowers of symbiosis)” is a book containing
a love poem, divided into four parts in ascending progression:
from the beholding and idealisation of the Beloved Woman (I);
the approach (II); the discouragement (III); in the end, the full
expression of love happens, with an invitation to the Beloved,
unveiling the full thrill through the accomplishment of love
(IV).
This album was influenced by the “Song of Songs”.
Drawings by ANA PINTO, inspired in this light poetry,
illustrate the idyllic setting and the tension created by this
magic book.
This love poem is an english translation of the original portuguese poem "Universo azul (flores da simbiose)".

35 Sonnets belongs to the metaphysical stage of the English poetry of Fernando Pessoa and constitutes the final phase in the personal growth process of the reader; previously having gone through the erotic-sexual stage (constituted by Epithalamium), the affective-moral stage (Antinous), the intellectual stage (Inscriptions) and the spiritual stage (Mad Fiddler). In this final stage, amidst the didacticism of Hermetic-Pessoan philosophy, the author uses the traditional metaphysical themes, following the tradition of the Shakespearean sonnet. However, the Pessoan innovation resides in the originality of the Pessoan neologism and in the novel point of view that each poem adopts. Its originality reaches the syntax; the linguistic games  of "light and soul" allows us to elucidate a unique perspective in contemporary Western poetry; that is, the visual perspective of the intangible. Without having to resort to obvious metaphors or similes, Fernando Pessoa manages to glimpse the Universal Consciousness, inherent to every man, and leads us towards the Divine Promise. The Pessoan metaphysics are not a cry to the resignation of the solitary sailor, but are a new Song of Songs of spiritual ecstasy, before the ancient knowledge of the sages, able to reveal their own divinity.

Abstract
In the Song of Songs, the daughters of Jerusalem are mentioned seven times explicitly (Cant. 1.5; 2.7; 3.5; 3.10; 5.8; 5.16; 8.4). Furthermore, there are references to the daughters of Zion (Cant. 3.11), daughters (Cant. 2.2; 6.9); (the) maidens (Cant. 1.4; 6.8), queens and concubines (Cant. 6.8). The identity of these figures in relation to the daughters of Jerusalem is crucial for the interpretation of Song of Songs. Often, they have been understood as members of the harem, identical with the queens and concubines of Solomon.
This article argues that the interpretation of the daughters of Jerusalem as members of Solomon’s harem miss the point. They have a far more important function than being ‘decoration’ for the relation between the man and the woman. They can best be understood as the third major figure of the text rather than just her maids or just her friends. Even if they always appear in the plural they speak as a unity with one voice. They have a positive praising function and are the addressee of the adjurations. For the reader, the daughters of Jerusalem are figures of identification to interact with the text. This enables him to take over their observing and partly participating role, leaving space for the identification of the two main protagonists with other identities. The daughters of Jerusalem might have been placeholders for young woman of the society to be taught about love.

"הזמן והאחר" הוא הצעד הפילוסופי הראשון של לוינס: בספר זה נקבעים הצירים המרכזיים והתמות העיקריות שיאפינו את הגותו לכל עורך הדרך. בספר זה, פורץ לעצמו לוינס דרך חדשה. 

לפרוץ דרך משמע להיפרד מהעבר. הזמן והאחר נכתב כולו בסימן הרצח-אב: לוינס מנסח בו לראשונה את הביקורת שלו על הפילוסופיה המערבית, מפרמנידס ואפלטון עד ברגסון היידגר וסארטר. להבין את פריצת הדרך של הזמן והאחר משמע קודם כל לעקוב אחר האופן בו לוינס נפרד מן הפילוסופיה המערבית הלכה למעשה. אולם לפרוץ דרך משמע גם לפלס דרך חדשה. להבין את פריצת הדרך של לוינס, משמע גם להתחקות אחר האופק החדש שזה פותח, מעבר לביקורת. משימה זו דורשת חריגה אל מעבר לגבולותיו הגלויים של הטקסט. שכן הקטסט של לוינס הוא טקסט מורכב, מרובד, מתוח. זהו טקסט המתקיים מכוח דיאלוג מתמיד עם ההיסטוריה של הפילוסופיה ועם המקור ההתגלותי (הטקסט הדתי). אך בעוד ב"הזמן והאחר" הדיאלוג עם הפילוסופיה נוכח וגלוי לכל אורך הדרך, ההתכתבות עם היסוד הדתי, ההתגלותי, נסתר. ההיפותזה המנחה אותי בקריאה שאני מציע כאן ל"הזמן והאחר" היא שהטקסט ההתגלותי פועל בתוך כתיבתו הפילוסופית של לוינס כרובד נסתר המפרה את המהלכים הנועזים והתיאורים הפנומנולוגיים החדשניים ביותר של ספר זה. על הפרשן לעורר את הכוח הסמנטי החבוי ברבדים העמוקים של "הזמן והאחר". על עבודת הקריאה לחשוף את המקור הנסתר המאפשר את רצח-האב הגלוי. זה מה שאני מבקש לעשות כאן.

This article presents seven new textual witnesses to Midrash Song of Songs Rabbah that were previously unknown to scholars, on account of late or inaccurate records. It begins by reviewing earlier research on the textual evidence for this midrash. It goes on to present the new findings: three manuscripts and four Cairo Genizah fragments, of various lengths and in various states of preservation. The article concludes by offering an updated list of all the textual witnesses to Song of Songs Rabbah discovered to date. These findings constitute a significant contribution to the philological study of this midrash. Keywords Song of Songs – Midrash Rabbah – midrash – aggadah – manuscript – Cairo Genizah – philology – critical edition The Midrash Song of Songs Rabbah (ShirR) is an exegetical midrash on the Song of Songs which was compiled around the sixth to seventh century in the Land of Israel. It is the oldest and largest of the midrashim on the Song of Songs,1 and constitutes a collection of tannaitic and amoraic interpretations to the verses of the megillah. It reveals the way in which the Sages understood

The starting point of this paper is the old debate on which kind of interpretation is more appropriate for the Song of Songs, namely, literal or allegorical, and to what extent. By treating the poem as a literary work and letting it speak for itself, metaphor emerges as the main expressive resource referring to a multi-dimensional reality. The analysis of metaphor in the Song of Songs, based on selected samples, reveals highly developed metaphoric speech in the poem, with images accumulating and interacting in multiple, concurrent and mutually enriching levels of meaning. Behind this complex intertwining of metaphors there emerges the main referent for the book as a whole. Metaphor, then, appears as a particularly adequate means of articulating both anthropological and theological discourse.

Partiendo del antiguo debate acerca de cuál es la clave de lectura más adecuada para comprender el Cantar de los Cantares –literal o alegórica, y en qué sentido cada una de ellas–, se vuelve sobre el texto en cuanto literatura poética, dejándolo hablar por sí mismo. Allí aparece inmediatamente el rol protagónico de la metáfora como recurso expresivo que permite referir a una realidad pluridimensional. Estudiando el uso de la metáfora en el Cantar, a partir de algunos ejemplos, se reconoce en el poema un grado muy elaborado de metaforización, donde las imágenes se acumulan e interactúan generando varios niveles de sentido simultáneos, que no se eliminan sino que se enriquecen mutuamente. Detrás de este complejo entramado de metáforas, emerge el referente principal del libro y la metáfora se revela como lenguaje especialmente adecuado para decir tanto lo humano como lo divino.

Both the verses of the Dalai Lama and The Song of Songs use fruit metaphors to engage our collective and individual memory of the sensuous act of eating fruit, and also evoke the potent sexual intimacy and spiritual connotations associated with fruit. Both use these images and metaphors to describe their lover with a hint of excessiveness (the ever-turning peach tree of the Sixth Dalai Lama and the lush locked garden of The Song of Songs) and a direct everyday interaction like Bernard Cooke suggests in “Christian Marriage: Basic Sacrament”: “God has revealed, not just some truths about ourselves and our world, but about God’s own way of being personal in relation to us” (Cooke, 84). These relationships, whether it be understanding of buddha-nature for the Dalai Lama or a soul-and-God in The Song of Songs, are insights into the divine. Both The Song of Songs and the verses propose a direct trusting relationship with reality as it is. Human relationships, friendships to lovers who share physical intimacy, are absolutely needed as we experience one another. Pleasure (whether literally derived from fruit and potent scents or metaphorically “plucked”) is not devoid of the divine. Attempts at reading these verses devoid of sensory pleasure from “ordinary” things is missing the utter power that can be derived from desire and sexuality.

For both texts, sexuality and spirituality are interdependent: they rely on each other, they feed each other, they expand when one is lessened, they contract when one increases, they add tension for one another, they provide balance for each other. One without the other would leave it hollow. Sexuality feeds into the spiritual, and the spiritual feeds into the sexual. While some interpretations may convincingly advocate for one more than the other or even exclusively, this is not inherently a problem as long as the interdependence of language and metaphors is acknowledged. In 4:9-15 and Verses 5, 6, 35, and 63 of the Sixth Dalai Lama, descriptions of their lovers through fruit, garden metaphors, and potent fragrances powerfully reveals the interconnected nature of sexuality and spirituality. These verses are meant to be read, sung, experienced, embodied, remembered, placed into our mouths noticing any scents or tastes, chewed, digested, they are meant to become us. Herein lies pure power, utter essence, the livewires of the universe.

This paper addresses the question concerning the part which Solomon plays as a character within the Song of Solomon. This question really contains three basic sub-questions: 1) Does the leading man in the Song have to be identified with Solomon? 2) Should the leading man in the Song be identified with Solomon? 3) If the leading man is not Solomon, why does Solomon show up in the Song?

This study provides a new account of how the Song of Songs became one of the most popular biblical texts in medieval Western Christianity, through a close and detailed study of its interpretation by late antique Latin theologians. It has often been presumed that early Latin writers exercised little influence on the medieval interpretation of the poem, since there are so few extant commentaries from the period. But this is to overlook the hundreds of citations of and allusions to the Song in the writings of influential figures such as Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine as well as the lesser-known theologian Gregory of Elvira. Through a comprehensive analysis of these citations and allusions, it is argued that contrary to the expectations of many modern scholars, the Song of Songs was not a problematic text for early Christian theologians, but was a resource that they mined as they debated the nature of the church and of the virtuous life. The first part of the volume considers the use of the Song in the churches of Roman Africa and Spain, where bishops and theologians focused on images of enclosure and purity invoked in the poem. In the second part, the focus is late fourth-century Italy, where a new ascetic interpretation, concerned particularly with women’s piety, began to emerge. This erotic poem gradually became embedded in the discursive traditions of Latin Late Antiquity, which were bequeathed to the Christian communities of early medieval Europe.

This essay demonstrates that the creation of a poetic language of love in the "West-östlicher Divan" is deeply rooted in a specific tradition within Western intellectual history that Goethe had actively engaged with in his early work, and that was vehemently discussed during his lifetime: namely, the translation, adaptation, and interpretation of the biblical Song of Songs (Hohes Lied). More specifically, I claim that the Song provides the model for the poetology of love that Goethe develops in the ‘Buch Suleika’.

If wisdom is the skill of living well, it seems prudent to ask what the end results of a life lived well looks like. If one heeds the advice of the sages, when can one expect their life to look like in the end? This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining the Wisdom Literature of ancient Israel and Egypt and comparing the conclusions each culture's wise ones reach.

qu'inscrit dans la tradition poétique de la Bible, le Cantique des cantiques met en Guvre, sur bien des points, une poétique spécifique. Le parallélisme sémantique y débouche sur une forme particulière de contraste des genres, celle de l'alternance des locuteurs. Le poème a par ailleurs en propre de rappeler sa dimension d'artéfact littéraire et d'accuser par là son statut symbolique. Le Cantique, enfin, et notamment à cause de sa dimension onirique, donne aux métaphores une puissance inédite dans la Bible, qui s'exprime dans l'impératif métaphorique que s'échangent les amants. Cette spécificité du Cantique, qui lui donne sa beauté singulière conìme poème, est également le ressort secret de son ròle au sein du canon et dans la réception de celui-ci.

This is an excerpt from a draft version of my book A God of Our Invention: How Religion Shaped the Western World (Apocryphile Press, 2023). I argue that the ancient Israelites generally had a positive attitude toward sex and didn't limit it to procreation. But around the time of the first Christians, there was one sect, the Essenes, which limited all sexual activity to procreation. Whether or not there was a direct connection, the Christians adopted the same view, to the point that they prized celibacy and virginity above all. Augustine then codified this position by calling sex "original sin," but he did this by making two serious mistakes. Christians have suffered for it ever since, and are only now openly accepting sex without procreation and even without marriage.

Leiner had hidden in the folds of his text a great secret. Said simply, Leiner was the lineage heir and inheritor of the ancient Wisdom of Solomon. According to Leiner's hidden code, the covert teachings of the Wisdom of Solomon had been transmitted personally from master to student, down through the generations, until they reached him. But it was more than that. The very core of my being shuddered with some mixture of fear and joy when I realized that Leiner wanted to transmit these same teachings to me. – Marc Gafni

The thesis of this project is that the clause functions as the constitutive linguistic unit in the Song of Songs in lieu of parallelism or other rhetorical devices. First, clause boundaries are compared with cola boundaries to demonstrate that clause syntax should receive priority over parallelism or other rhetorical devices. These stylistic elements exist as the author’s selective use of the language system, but they do not precede or supersede that system. Second, the study analyzes clause occurrence and distribution to show how the clause provides meaning as the text’s basic unit. Rather than treating the book with a different technique from prose, the investigation analyzes clause use as a normal function of the language system. The method ascribed to by this work is textlinguistic and computer-assisted. The textlinguistic approach facilitates building a model of clause functions from the raw data. The computer-assisted approach allows the data to be produced efficiently and consistently. The data provided by the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer serves as the basis for the analysis.

Nous avons choisi ici de nous pencher sur les premiers versets du Cantique des cantiques (Ct 1, 1-7). en nous situant dans la tradition des lectures allégoriques, qui lisent le couple amoureux de ce chant selon une métaphorisation des personnages. Nous en explorerons  une version particulière . En effet, dans la tradition juive comme chrétienne, une lecture métaphorique postule que l’amant peut être lu comme représentant Dieu, et l’amante comme représentant l’humanité. Mais que se passe-t-il si l’on inverse les deux pôles, autrement dit, si l’on invite une autre lecture, inversée, où c’est le bien aimé, l’homme, qui représente l’humanité, tandis que la femme représente Dieu ?

(Travail de master 2, FUTP)

Song of Solomon becomes a delightful compilation of love songs when we make it our own, when we allow it to guide our lives and stories. It brings us closer to the Eastern melodies and embraces us with affection, dialogue, respect, and—even—good sex.
In these eight chapters, you will enjoy a particularly exciting experience as well as the great- ness of the Bible message, which has the power to touch us in the deepest part of our being.

Although it is widely argued that the Hebrew Bible contains texts which caricature violence against women, the present article shows that some biblical texts could also offer liberating possibilities to oppressed women in South Africa. The interest of this article lies in bringing Brenda Fassie's song " Nakupenda " (I love you) into conversation with the Song of Songs in order to produce an interaction between the biblical text and an African popular song. In the reading of both songs, the issue of violence against women as well as women's (sexual) independence in the context of patriarchy is highlighted. In conclusion, the author of this article draws liberating lessons for women in South Africa from the actions of the woman protagonist in the Shir ha-Shirim and of the female lover in Brenda Fassie's song " Nakupenda " .