Scriptural Context of the Song of Songs, Chap. 4 from "The Spiritual Marriage: the Exegetic History and Literary Impact of the Song of Songs in the Middle Ages," Ph.D. Diss. (Princeton, 1971). (original) (raw)
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Nuptial Motifs in Composition : A Key to the Interpretation of the Song of Songs
The purpose of this paper is to explore the references to nuptial customs found in the Song of Songs as well as their place in relation to the structure of the text. The first stage of analysis consists of identifying various types of these references, while the second stage involved analysing and evaluating their positioning within the composition of the Song of Songs as an expression of the editorial intent of the biblical writers. The study has used elements of form analysis and lexical analysis as well as a comparative analysis of biblical and non-biblical/sub-biblical texts. The analysis revealed that the most important places in the structure of the Song of Songs are allocated to the so-called "poetic episodes," which have been distinguished earlier, concerning the different stages of nuptials-engagement negotiations, wedding procession, wedding feast and consummation of the marriage. Therefore, they constitute a point of reference for the interpretation of the remai...
Restoration Quarterly, 2024
Across the world today, particularly in the West, the subject of marriage and human sexuality elicits no small debate, opinion, or controversy. For communities of faith, especially churches, it is crucial to pay attention to the divine wisdom available in their respective biblical canons in terms of how they frame and communicate views and positions vis-à-vis marriage and human sexuality. Here is where the Song of Songs (hereinafter "Song"), inter alia, comes into play. As an ancient Near Eastern (hereinafter "ANE") text wherein it is virtually impossible not to imagine the celebration of romantic love, the Song invites its readers to ponder how God might transmit instruction through it for the benefit of an increasingly confused world apropos of all things love and sex. Naturally, many attempts at relating the Song's message(s) to the modern context in regard to theology and ethics have already been made. However, since not every effort can or should share the same value with respect to developing a biblical theology of marriage and human sexuality, a good deal of sifting and categorizing is necessary. Such is what I intend to do in this paper.
Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (Abstract)
2016
In Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, André Villeneuve examines the ancient Jewish concept of the covenant between God and Israel, portrayed as a marriage dynamically moving through salvation history. This nuptial covenant was established in Eden but damaged by sin; it was restored at the Sinai theophany, perpetuated in the Temple liturgy, and expected to reach its final consummation at the end of days. The authors of the New Testament adopted the same key moments of salvation history to describe the spousal relationship between Christ and the Church. In their typological treatment of these motifs, they established an exegetical framework that would anticipate the four senses of Scripture later adopted by patristic and medieval commentators.
Acta Theol 31(1) 2011 What's turning the wheel? The theological hub of Song of Songs.pdf
Different interpretations are evaluated for their contribution towards a better under-standing of the theology of Song of Songs. Chapter 4:16-5:1 is presented as the structural centre of Song of Songs. Linear, cyclic and concentric structures point to the centrality of this passage. It has a key-function for the theology of the book which is understood as creational theology because love recalls paradise. God is identified with the third voice, encouraging the lovers to enjoy love in all its fullness.
The “ Metaphor ” of Marriage in the Bible
LOGIA, 2019
In Eph 5:22–33 the Apostle Paul delivers instructions to Christian husbands and wives according to the pattern of Christ as Bridegroom to his Bride the Church (ἐκκλησία). What is immediately striking is how Christian marriages are to reflect the divine Marriage, not the other way around. Christ’s relationship to the Church is not “like” marriage in human experience according to a simile; it is a marriage—the Marriage of which Christian marriages provide a dim but real reflection as they bear witness to Christ’s self-sacrificing love for his Bride and her subordination (ὑποτάσσω) to her Bridegroom and his word. Nor does St Paul speak about these things as though Christ’s Marriage to the Church were merely analogous to marriage understood a certain way. The direction of comparison rather runs the other way in Paul’s paraenesis as he exhorts husbands and wives to emulate the Lord and his holy Bride through loving, self-denying, self-sacrificial headship and faithful subordination.
Song of Songs - Prolonging Covenant Love in Marriage
2022
Valentine’s Day launches a shopping spree for flowers, chocolates, hearts covered cards, champagne, and candlelight dinners at crowded restaurants with their clanging dishes and low level chatter. It’s a once a year occasion that occurs just after the Super Bowl, another event that rings up the tab for beer, pizza, burgers or brisket on the grill, fries, wings, tailgate parties, jam-packed bars with several 60 inch TV screens, and an overflowing stadium. Does romance take a back seat in our day and time to sports or many other extracurricular activities? Have love songs lost their luster? Does Cupid still have a good aim? Has the warranty expired on a passionate adventure and candy hearts? That couple in the biblical poetic book of the Song of Songs had a very different take on the modern version of romance on a day set aside for it. It informs the reader of a very different type of romance and love. This article explores this love and romance.
2015
Genesis 2:23 speaks of a miraculous couple in a literal one-flesh union formed by God without a volitional or covenantal basis. Genesis 2:24 outlines a metaphoric restatement of that union whereby a naturally born couple, by means of a covenant, choose to become what they were not in a metaphoric one-flesh family union-such forms the aetiology of mundane marriage in both the Hebrew Bible and the NT. It is this Gen 2:24 marriage that is understood in the Hebrew Bible as the basis of the volitional, conditional, covenantal relationship of Yahweh and Israel, and in the NT of the volitional, conditional, covenantal relationship of Christ and the church-that is, Gen 2:24 is the source domain which is cross-mapped to the target domain (God 'married' to his people) in the marital imagery of both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It is an imagery that embraced the concept of divorce and remarriage. The NT affirms that the pattern for mundane marriage is to be found in Gen 2:24 (Matt 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12). But NT scholars and the church have conflated the aetiology of the Gen 2:24 marriage with that of Adam and Eve's marriage described in Gen 2:23, and thus see that the NT teaches that mundane marriage is to be modelled on the primal couple-a model that imposes restrictions on divorce and remarriage that are not found in the Hebrew Bible. In contrast, this study suggests that the NT writers would not employ an imagery they repudiated in their own mundane marriage teaching, and that an exegesis of that teaching can be found, focusing on divorce and remarriage, which is congruent with its own imagery.