Longmanand Enns 2008 contains three chapters on the Song with bibliographical materials.Īrcher, Gleason L., Jr. Walton 2009 gives a visual presentation of the images in the Song, connecting text with images. Keck 1997 is a concise discussion of the Song, commented on by paragraphs rather than verse by verse. Brueggemann 2005 and Freedman 1992 are Bible dictionaries that provide introductory materials regarding authorship, date, literary features, theological messages, and background information of the Song. It is a starting point for a quick glance of the book. Archer 1964 is a critical introduction to the Song and serves as a textbook for Old Testament survey courses. They provide an overview of the issues involved in studying the Song. The introductory works are generally brief and concise. Yet its exact interpretation still thrives with intrigue and tension in the present day.

Contemporary scholarship sees the book as a collection of love poems between a man and a woman. With the rise of the historical critical method in the 19th century, interpretation expanded beyond the allegoric to include the dramatic interpretation, the cultic interpretation, the wedding interpretation, the funerary interpretation, and various strands of feminist and intertextual interpretations. Within the allegorical interpretation is also the Jewish historical allegory, the Christian mystical allegory, and the Catholic Marian allegory. From the early centuries until the medieval period, the allegorical interpretation dominated the understanding of the book.

The book was at the center of controversy starting from the process of its inclusion in the canon for its literary genre, authorship, literary unity, frequent change of scenes in the text, gender relations, as well as its lack of explicit “God-content.” The book’s history of interpretation is one of the most fascinating subjects. Although a small book with only eight chapters and 117 verses, the Song of Songs has generated thousands of works since its canonization in the 1st century. The Song of Songs has been deemed the most sublime song, the holy of holies, and the interpretive key that has been lost.

Listening For God by Renita J. Weems