The Song of Songs
The Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, is a unique book in the Old Testament canon. The book contains exquisitely beautiful lyric poetry, full of sensuous symbolism. Because of the sexual nature of Song of Songs, the message of this book has been debated for the past eighteen-hundred years. The erotic content of this book has lead it into canonicity problems and authorship problems. These issues have become central to the interpretation of the Song of Songs. The issue of the canonicity of Song of Songs was a major subject of debate at the 90 A.D. Council of Jamnia. Jewish Rabbis from across the spectrum of Judaism assembled in order to close in Jewish Canon. At that time, many rabbis who opposed the Song of Songs and other works toke the opportunity to argue against their inclusion in Jewish Canon. It was the Palestinian rabbinical school of Shammai that stood in the fore of the opposition for canonization of Song of Songs. They argued that nothing coul
The literal view saw Song of Songs as nothing more than a collection of love poems. The entire book is a play with either two (Delitzsch), or three (Ewald) characters. This view of Song of Songs is one of the two oldest interpretations, and was forwarded by the Midrash, Targum, and Medieval Jewish commentators. Fortunately the cause of Song of Songs was championed by the less stringent Babylonian rabbinical school of Hillel. Both of these views suggested that the work was meant to either be read aloud, or acted out. It was not until the advent of modern textual criticism that questions began to arise over the authorship of Song of Solomon. These poems, 20 to 30 in all, were collected by an unknown editor(s) for their consistent themes, and placed in the anthology which is found today. CONCLUSION Today, the majority of Christians belief in the Allegorical interpretation of Song of Songs, with a large number holding to the literal interpretation. This interpretation states that the intended message of Song of Songs is an allegory of God and Israel. Wedding Cycle Among the more recent interpretations proposed by Christians is the wedding cycle. Useful for exemplifying the nature of Godly love, but otherwise only poems. The presence of these words means that the work antedates the sixth century B. However, there are several textual clues within the work which allow for citing a general range of years.
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Acceptance Essays
