Religion Term Paper on Judaic Studies

The Song of Songs, also recognized as the Song of Solomon and the Canticle of Canticles, has long puzzled readers because its themes seem to have not anything to do with the religious concerns of the rest of the Bible. How it came to be classed in the middle of the sacred works called "The Writings" in the Hebrew Bible is unknown. The earliest rabbis whose opinions we have are sure that it cannot perhaps mean what is says literally. If it is among the sacred books, it must have a holy meaning. Some rabbis even argued that as the most mysterious of books, it must have the most deeply spiritual of meanings. The agreement of first-century Jewish scholars was that the poem was a parable of God's love for his people, Israel.

Modern literary scholars usually agree that the brief references to Solomon were added after the fact to reduce its place in the scriptural canon. Solomon was said to have three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines, and was so stereotyped as a great lover who might have written such a work. However, the language and style of the work point to that it was written at least 500 years after his time. Most likely the poems were calm by different hands and dissimilar times and assembled into this "anthology" at a later date. Michael Fox has taken the freedom in this translation of trying to rebuild what he thinks may have been the original shape of the book, which means infrequently moving verses around to make more convincing sense. Generally, however, his translation follows the Hebrew text's order.

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Early Christian scholars pursued the rabbinical lead by agreeing that these verses could not perhaps depict worldly love. Since they regularly interpreted almost all of the Hebrew Bible (which they called "The Old Testament") in allegorical terms, this was only natural. Some consideration that the Song of Songs voiced Christ's love for his Church; but the eventual Christian agreement was that they concerned God's love for the Virgin Mary. She figures in Christian consideration as the spouse of God. Medieval exegetes went to strange lengths to explain away the obvious sensuality of these verses. Bernard of Clairvaux, for example, argued that "kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" must not mean ordinary physical kisses because it was too indirect a look. A man might kiss a woman with his mouth, but he would not kiss her with kisses. Something more religious is meant. He also optional that monks and priests not be allowed to study the book while they were still young and flat to mottled passions. (Marvin H. Pope, 1977, page 78)

Figurative interpretation has fallen out of fashion, and in modern times many attempts have been made to explain this book. One group made a valiant effort to contrast the poems to Arabic wedding songs, arguing that they might have been recited at ancient Jewish weddings. Though, the parallels are quite weak and there is no proof for such use. Besides, the very subject matter seems to have extraordinarily little to do with marriage. The same objection undermines the theory that the poems are destined to depict God's ideal for marital relations. Besides, the latter theory is anachronistic, hardly any but the most radical tassel groups in Christianity careful sensuality and desire even within marriage to be a good thing. For centuries Christians and most Jews Moses Maimonides' power is important here had a powerfully ascetic bias. The concept of sensuous Christian marriage is only decades old, not traditional at all, as is the modern Jewish approach toward sexuality. Of course, it is imaginable that at the time of their writing, these verses reflected attitudes more like modern ones that like those current in the superseding centuries: Jacob was certainly fervent about Rachel. But it is still hard to see in them a backing of marriage. (Bloch, Ariel and Chana Bloch, 1995, p. 65)

The creative importance of these verses probably a collection of short, related poems, rather than a solitary work lies in their inherent beauty and in the enormous influence they have had on later writers, painters, and musicians. They also make known to us many attractive aspects of ancient Jewish attitudes toward sexuality.

The labels in parentheses have been allocated by the translator in an effort to kind out who is speaking when. It is clear that some lines are spoken by a woman, some by a man, and some by groups of people. The labels vary. Some translations rather untruthfully label the speakers as "bride" and "bridegroom," but in the original there is no sign of who speaks each poem or even where one poem leaves off and another begins.

The fact that there are five divisions of the song and five divisions of the woman, who is the Church, and not seven, is since two of the Churches do not go into the Kingdom of God. The Sardis and the Loadicean Churches do not enter the Kingdom of God.

The dissection of the Song into five parts tells how the maiden flees the king's chamber into the wilds five times. The church in the wilderness is in five detach stages. The first four times she is returned from the wilderness to the king's palace. On the fifth occasion she goes out to the wilds and remains there with her beloved, never to return. Why? Because Messiah comes and the last Church, the last group of the elect is united with the Messiah. This is held by Malbim as representing the four times that God emerged to Solomon. Malbim's understandings regarding Solomon and the soul from this point are careful to be incorrect. It is true that God through the Angel of Jehovah appeared four times. God or elohim as the Angel emerged five times to Solomon as Judah, but the Judaic system was plead to by the Church over two thousand years, in each of its seven elements.

The Sardis and Laodicean Churches could not induce Judah at all. But Judah will be rehabilitated in the last days and Judah will be reinstated ahead of Israel and the household of David which we are and in front of Jerusalem, so that nobody can exalt themselves against Judah. Look at Zechariah. The real association, namely, of that of the Lord and His people, which is the view of most rabbinical authorities, is moved to the Church. When Christ ordained the seventy he transferred the power from Judah under the Sanhedrin to the Church under the council of the seventy. Both were the council of the seventy but when Christ intended those elders he transferred the authority of Judah to the Church and removed all authority from Judah counting the calendar. The female speakers gave the audience a hostile observation, the city women factually, "the daughters of Jerusalem", it is a statement of self-affirmation and pride. Most commentators, however, read the poem, in particular the opening line, as an apology; and most translations reflect this understanding. Virtually all Standard English renditions translate the mixture in line 1 as "but," as in the King James Version: "I am swarthy but comely." The exception comes only in 1989, with The Revised English Bible’s rendition: "I am dark and lovely." Indeed, the Hebrew conjunction means "and" far more usually than "but"; the standard translations are based on the biased supposition that blackness and beauty are opposing.

The last stanza presents the peak difficulties to understanding. It is unclear why the "mother's sons" are angry with the speaker, and whether her assignment as keeper of wineries is a punishment meted out because she has deserted herself or whether the self-neglect is a result of the hard task assigned her. In either case, the vineyards are here a sexual symbol: "my own" vineyard refers to the speaker's self; the statement that she has neglected her own vines seems to be a reference to her not having guarded her own sexuality. Implied is the infringement of a moral norm, but it is hard to be specific about what this norm is. I did not try to make your mind up all these questions of understanding in my translation, but chose in its place to let some ambiguities stand in the English as I believe they do in the Hebrew.

The tone of this Hebrew poem is unlike that of any other in the Song of Songs. The strong parallelisms, the wide use of alliteration, and the sweeping images of fire and water all add to the dramatic mood. Perhaps because of this intensity, some commentators assume a male speaker here, but the pronominal suffixes indicate that a male is being addressed, making a female speaker likely.

Certainly, the poem has cosmic, if not religious, implications. Mayim rabbim, literally, "many, or great, waters," which I translate "Endless seas and floods, Torrents," may be a reference to a legendary force, the waters of chaos. Sh'ol, which I translate with the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version "the grave," is actually the place of the dead in Hebrew cosmology. While "the grave" may seem a weak equivalent for sh'ol, the alternatives are worse; "hell," for example, has many unsuitable connotations, and could not be used. (Murphy, 1990, page 34)

The poem closes with a saying, leading from the world of legend into the realm of human mores and behavior. The message of the poem is forceful: love cannot be bought, and those who try to obtain love with money will be scorned, or will find their offer met with scorn the Hebrew pronoun lo, indicating the object of the reprobation, may pass on either to the buyer or to his wealth. It becomes clear that the "seal" of the opening lines is not a sign of obtained control, since the poem argues vehemently against viewing love as a thing that can be owned.

Thus, mythic vision pinnacles in educational pronouncement, giving the poem a sermonic shape. Yet the poem remains, first and fundamentally, a love lyric, which opens with an entreaty to the beloved; it should not be abridged to the moral lesson of its closing adage. Perhaps to avoid this risk, The Jerusalem Bible segregates the last stanza and labels it an addendum, the "Aphorism of a Sage." But this cuts off the resolution of the speech and denies poetic closure. Rather, the poem should be seen as a multifaceted unit that moves from a strong personal plea to a cosmic statement, and finally closes with a statement of practical morality.

I believe that the woman's declaration of her blackness is affirmative, not apologetic, and that the pressure in the poem is the result of disagreement between her and her audience. The city women stare with critical eyes, yet the speaker defies them to reduce her self-worth. No, she argues, I will not be judged by your standards; I am black and I am beautiful. Thus, the images in the first stanza should be seen as similar: the tents of the peripatetic tribe of Kedar and the drapes of King Solomon are each dark and attractive veils. There is both pride and secrecy in these images, as the speaker defies her beholders to go through, with their stares, the external cloak of her skin.

Works Cited

Bloch, Ariel and Chana Bloch, The Song of Songs: A new translation with an introduction and commentary. Afterword by Robert Alter. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1995, p 65
Falk, Marcia. Song of Songs, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990, page 89 & 21
Murphy, Roland Edmund, The Song of Songs: A commentary on the Book of Canticles or the Song of Songs, Jr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990, page 34.
Pope, Marvin H. Song of Songs: A new translation with introduction and commentary. Anchor Bible. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977, page 78.