Editing Song of Songs (section)

== Genre ==

The consensus among contemporary scholars of the Bible is that the Song of Songs is an erotic poem, and not an elaborate metaphor.<ref>{{cite book |last=Barton |first=John |title=How the Bible Came to be |publisher=Presbyterian Publishing Corporation |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-664-25785-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UfU4_9M4N2YC&pg=PA54 |access-date=3 October 2023 |page=54 |quote=For example, most scholars think that the Song of Songs originated as a set of erotic poems of very high quality, which were only later treated as scriptural: this was achieved by regarding the lovers in the poems as representative, allegorically, of God and Israel (Jesus and the Church, in the Christian version of the allegory).}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Hamilton |first=Adam |title=Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-06-223497-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p28pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT20 |access-date=3 October 2023 |page=20 |quote=most scholars see it as a bit of erotic poetry to remind us that God invented sexual desire, and it is a good gift.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Fant |first1=Clyde E. |last2=Reddish |first2=Mitchell Glenn |title=Lost Treasures of the Bible: Understanding the Bible Through Archaeological Artifacts in World Museums |publisher=Eerdmans Publishing Company |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-8028-2881-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dj6zVQJz7zYC&pg=PA250 |access-date=3 October 2023 |page=250 |quote=The view of most scholars today is that the Song of Songs should be taken at face value as erotic love poetry celebrating human love and sexuality, rather than as a divine allegory.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kling |first=David W. |title=The Bible in History: How the Texts Have Shaped the Times |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-19-531021-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4fZQEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA115 |access-date=5 October 2023 |page=115 |quote=The reigning consensus among contemporary scholars is that the Song is a collection of poems about human love.}}</ref>

In his commentary for the [[Anchor Bible Series]], [[Marvin H. Pope]] quotes scholars who believe that the Song described a fertility cult liturgy, rooted in the fertility cults of the ancient Near Eastern cultures of Mesopotamia and Canaan, as well as their sacred marriage rites and funeral feasts.<ref name="Pope 2007 p." />

J. Cheryl Exum wrote: "The erotic desire of its protagonists, everywhere evident in the Song, leads me, in conclusion, to the Song's unique contribution to the conceptualization of love in the Bible: its romantic vision of love".<ref>{{cite book |title=Where Is the Way to the Dwelling of Light?: Studies in Genesis, Job and Linguistics in Honor of Ellen van Wolde |last=Exum |first=J. Cheryl |publisher=Brill |year=2022 |isbn=978-90-04-53629-6 |editor-last=Van Hecke |editor-first=Pierre |page=335 |chapter=Conceptualizing Love in the Song of Songs |editor-last2=Van Loon |editor-first2=Hanneke |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=no2cEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA319}}</ref>

The historian and rabbi [[Shaye J. D. Cohen]] summarises:

{{blockquote|1=Song of Songs [is a] collection of love poems sung by him to her and her to him: [– –] While authorship is ascribed to Solomon in its first verse and by traditionalists, [modern Bible scholarship] argues that while the book may contain ancient material, there is no evidence that Solomon wrote it. {{pb}}[– –] What is a collection of erotic poems doing in the Hebrew Bible? Indeed, some ancient rabbis were uneasy about the book’s inclusion in the canon.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://courses.biblicalarchaeology.org/hebrewbible/notes/20-Notes.pdf |title=The Hebrew Bible: Notes for Lecture 20 |first=Shaye J.D. |last=Cohen}}</ref>}}

Several scholars have also argued that, alongside its condition as love poetry, the Song of Songs also shares a number of features with [[Wisdom literature]].{{sfn|Andruska|2022|p=203}} For instance, Jennifer L. Andruska argues that the Song employs a number of literary conventions typical of this didactic literature and that it combines features of both ancient Near Eastern love song and wisdom genres to produce a wisdom literature about romantic love, instructing readers to pursue what she describes as a particular type of 'wise love' relationship, modelled by the lovers of the poem.{{sfn|Andruska|2022|pp=214–215}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Wise and Foolish Love in the Song of Songs |last=Andruska |first=Jennifer L. |publisher=Brill |year=2019 |isbn=978-90-04-33100-6 |pages=11–12}}</ref> Likewise, Katharine J. Dell notes a number of Wisdom motifs in the Song such as parallels between the lovers and the advices and conduct of Woman Wisdom and the Loose Woman of [[Book of Proverbs|Proverbs]], among others.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Solomonic Corpus of 'Wisdom' and Its Influence |last=Dell |first=Katharine J. |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-19-886156-0 |pages=52–58 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YyX3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA52}}</ref>