The Song of Songs Afresh: Perspectives on a Biblical Love Poem
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
This volume is one of the fruits of a six-year series of international conferences on the Song of Songs. The 13 diverse articles here being presented in four categories.
1. Classical exegetical studies. What does the blackness of the woman signify? Ausloos sees a tension between an exegetically appropriate and a politically correct interpretation, Biernot an example of Jewish discourse on blackness and whiteness ranging from antiquity to modern times. The function of the so-called dream in the Song is examined in the context of dreams in the ancient Near East with their two kinds of wake-up expressions (Fernandes). Fischer sees the daughters of Jerusalem as a means of identification for the reader and as placeholders for the young women of society. Next are intertextual readings of the Shulammite with a South African poem (Lombaard) and of the Song’s vision of love with mythological traces in the Hebrew Bible (Mathys).
2. Post-modern exegetical studies. Included is a dialogue on horses in love and war (Landy and Metzler), a psychoanalytical reading on the theme of death (van der Zwan), and a blend of Ricoeur and cognitive metaphor theory that profiles the man in the Song (Verde).
3. Jewish studies. Baraniak studies the targumic exegesis, and DamohorskÌÁ the Song in Passover Piyyutim.
4. Hermeneutics. Responsible exegesis of the Song is Oosthuizen’s theme, and Scheffler’s is varieties of allegorizing.
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- Includes classical exegetical studies.
- Explores post-modern exegetical studies.
- Provides Jewish studies.
- Shows hermeneutics.
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I: Classic Exegetical Studies
- Part II: Postmodern Exegetical Studies
- Part III: Jewish Studies
- Part IV: Hermeneutics
- Index of References
- Index of Authors
- Hans Ausloos
- Marek I. Baraniak
- David Biernot
- Pavla Damohorská
- Gavin Fernandes
- Stefan Fischer
- Francis Landy
- Christo Lombaard
- Hans-Peter Mathys
- Maria Metzler
- Marlene Oosthuizen
- Eben Scheffler
- Pieter van der Zwan
- Danilo Verde
The volume benefits much from the diverse background of its contributors. The different perspectives and approaches often take a new look at the texts and provide inspiring interpretations of several passages. The word “afresh” in the title is there- fore certainly justified. The volume will be of service to those who want to deepen their understanding of certain texts or topics in the Song of Songs, those who are appreciative of various interpretations from heterogeneous perspectives, and those who are generally interested in hermeneutical and methodological issues.
—M. Peetz, Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses