Digital Logos Edition
Roland Murphy offers a representative sounding in the major periods of the Song’s exegetical history. Attention is given to the hermeneutical principles operative in the development of Jewish and Christian exposition. Murphy examines the literary character and structure of the Song, aspects of its composition and style, and its meaning and theological significance.
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“During the later patristic period and the rest of the Middle Ages, Christian interpreters wrote more works on the Song of Songs than on any other individual book of the Old Testament.” (Page 21)
“It is well known that the dominant traditions of interpretation, in Judaism and Christianity alike, have understood the Song to portray the relationship between God and the people of God—more specifically, the bond of mutual love between Israel and her divine Lord in Jewish exegesis or between the Church as bride and Christ as the bridegroom in Christian exposition.” (Page 11)
“In the homilies themselves, Origen develops the declarations of love made by the Song’s male and female protagonists (or ‘the Bridegroom’ and ‘the Bride’ as he refers to them) into a portrait of the nuptial relationship between Christ and the church; here the female figure is only rarely identified as the individual human soul espoused to Christ.” (Page 17)
“While no certainty can be reached in such matters of authorship, the collection of poems within the Song is not haphazard. The individual poems themselves attest a world of imagery, a literary style and form, and a pathos that point in the direction of a unified composition rather than a mere anthology.” (Page 3)
“the poetry is explicitly erotic in its appreciation of sexual love, it never becomes prurient or pornographic” (Page 102)