Song of Songs

From Wikible

Song of Songs

For other uses, see Solomon.

The Song of Solomon or Song of Songs is a love song and abounding in metaphors and oriental imagery. In the first verse, it is attributed to Solomon. It depicts the wooing and wedding of a shepherdess by King Solomon, and the joys and heartaches of courtship. Scholars sharply disagree about the nature of the book, the number of sections, the number of speakers and purpose of the book.

The Hebrew title Shir Hashirim comes from verse one, "The song of songs." Hebrew lacks the English superlative, so its means "the greatest song" (comp. "King of Kings" or "Lord of Lords"). The Greek title Asma Asmaton and the Latin Canticum Canticorum also mean "Song of Songs" or "The Best Song." The name Canticles ("Songs") is derived from the Latin title. Because Solomon is mentioned in S.o.S. 1:1, the book is also known as the Song of Solomon.

1 Allegorical
2 Number of Speakers
3 Structure
4 References
5 External links
- 5.1 Articles/Commentary
- 5.2 Video

Allegorical

Ancients Jews have long interpreted the book as a metaphor. The man is assumed to be God and woman Israel. In Christianity, the early church fathers said that human life finds its highest fulfillment in the love of man and woman, so spiritual life must find its highest fulfillment in the love of God for His people and Christ for His church. Modern critics argue that this need to explain away a clearly erotic poem's essential nature arose from Dualism, the idea that the Material is evil and the Spiritual is good. Theologians also point out that Christ does not love the church because of how she is, but in spite of it. Both attest that the text is only speaking of romantic love between humans.

Number of Speakers

Debates have also raged regarding the number of speakers involved. Some modern redactionists say that the book is nothing but a compilation of over a dozen love poems, and so the number of speakers range from twelve to over 50. Traditionalist argree that there is the bride (Shulamite), the king (Solomon), but argue over a proposed third speaker, a chorus (daughters of Jerusalem).

Structure

With little or no consensus, modern scholars estimate the number of sections in the text between four and 28! However, with the new Literary Criticism comes an attempt to analyze the text as it stands and not piece together how it arose. Using seven units, a clear-cut chiasm emerges:

A. Mutual love and desire (1:2-2:7)

B. Young man's invitation to the young woman (2:8-17)

C. Young woman's nighttime search (3:1-5)

D. Wedding (3:6-5:1)

C. Young woman's nighttime search (5:2-7:11)

B. Young woman's invitation to the young man (7:12-8:4)

A. Mutual love and desire (8:5-14)

For those who subscribe to this model, the book is not in chronological order and maintains the necessity of marriage before intimicy. However, the traditional chapter divisions and paragraph titling are not conducive to this interpretation.