Epiphanius’s Panarion or Medicine Chest was a compendium of heresies and their cures, and inspired an entire genre of “heresiologies.” The book is often dismissed with some hostility by Byzantine historians, but Averil Cameron notes that it displays some literary skill. . . . . Continue Reading »
A number of scholars in the past few decades have studied the parallels between the Song of Songs and Egyptian “love poetry.” These parallels are questionable, but even if we assume they are there, it doesn’t prove the case that several of these scholars want to make - . . . . Continue Reading »
Kingsmill again. She argues that the anti-mystical trend in Song of Songs interpretation has deprived “the Hebrew Bible of its most sublime expression of the nature of God’s love” and thus left “a void into which the spirit of Marcion has inevitably stepped, with . . . . Continue Reading »
Kingsmill ( The Song of Songs and the Eros of God: A Study in Biblical Intertextuality (Oxford Theological Monographs) ) notes that, like Esther, the Song of Songs has no “fully explicit reference to God,” but wisely adds “it has always been the way of poets to avoid explicit . . . . Continue Reading »
Several scholars have written about the interpretation and influence of the Song of Songs during the Middle Ages (Ann Matter, Ann Astell, Denys Turner). So far as I know, no one has done it for the modern world. Edmee Kingsmill’s The Song of Songs and the Eros of God: A Study in . . . . Continue Reading »
The same Jewish commentary mentioned in the previous post has a couple of interesting comments about the declaration that love is better than wine. Rashi points to various passages (Esther 7:8; Isaiah 5:12; 24:9), where “wine” refers not just to the drink but to a banquet, a . . . . Continue Reading »
Why is the Song of Songs the best Song? According to a contemporary Jewish commentary ( Shir Hashirim / Song Of Songs: An allegorical translation based upon Rashi with a commentary anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic, and Rabbinic sources (Artscroll Tanach Series) ), it is this: “in . . . . Continue Reading »
Richard Davidson ( Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament ) notes the connections between Song of Songs 8:6 and Daniel 7:9-10. The two passages are “intertextual twins”: “In immediate succession, three times flames/fire are mentioned, matching (in Aramaic) almost . . . . Continue Reading »
Jill Munro’s Spikenard and Saffron: The Imagery of the Song of Songs (Jsot Supplement Series) is superb. Though written originally as a dissertation, Munro has cleared out the apparatus and provided an uncluttered and concise discussion of the Song’s imagery. She finds three . . . . Continue Reading »
Robert Alter ( The Song of Songs: The World’s First Great Love Poem (Modern Library Classics) ) notes the variety of imagery in the Song of Songs, which “translates that bodily reality into fresh springs, flowering gardens, highlands over which lithe animals bound, spices and wine, . . . . Continue Reading »
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