Notes on How to Read the Song of Songs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Я. Эйделькинд
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Female Voices ◽  
Speaking Voice

Эта статья содержит ряд соображений о том, как читать Песнь песней. Будучи сборником лирической поэзии, Песнь песней работает в первую очередь со звуком и не имеет сюжета. Важную роль играет принцип разнообразия и контраста. Серьёзный тон сменяется юмористическим, и наоборот. Гендерные стереотипы сохраняют свою силу в одних случаях, но подрываются в других. Сексуальная физиология, вопреки распространенному мнению, не находится на первом плане — гораздо важнее эмоции (факт, противоречащий как «духовным», так и «плотским» прочтениям). Отождествление читателя с лирическим голосом ведёт к субъективным интерпретациям. Последние вполне законны, пока не претендуют на то, чтобы быть единственно верными. Три контекста помогают понять Песнь песней: древний культурный контекст, более узкий контекст Ветхого Завета и контекст лирической традиции от древности до наших дней. This article is an attempt to formulate some principles of reading the Songs of Songs that would take into account its genre and poetic features. Being a collection of lyric poetry, the Song of Songs works primarily with sound and has no plot. An important role in its composition plays the principle of diversity and contrast. A serious tone gives place to a humorous one, and vice versa. Female voices alternate with male ones; gender stereotypes in some cases retain their power, but in others are subverted. Sexual physiology, contrary to a widespread belief, is not in the foreground — much more important are emotions. This fact belies both “spiritual” and “carnal” readings. The Song of Songs involves an identification of the reader with the lyrical speaking voice and provokes subjective interpretations. These are legitimate as long as they do not pretend to be the only true ones. Three contexts help to understand Song of Songs: ancient cultural context, a narrower Old Testament context and the context of the lyrical tradition from antiquity to the present day.

The Wisdom of Desire in the Song of Songs

2018 ◽  
pp. 260-275
Author(s):  
Carey Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female Voices ◽  
Human Desire

The Song of Songs offers a unique discussion of the experience of sexual longing through dialogues of an unnamed woman and man. The chapter focuses on the use of dialogic structure to frame three prominent discourses of desire: aesthetic appreciation, affective description, and subjective expressions of sexual arousal. These varied discourses affirm a polyphonic view on human desire from the embodied experience of the male and female voices of the Song. With its use of dialogue, the Song is characteristic of the Writings in offering a diversity of perspectives. The chapter further probes the canonical contribution of the Song’s testimony to human longing, sex, joy, and biodiversity.

Allegory or Literal Historical Interpretation?: Andrew Fuller’s Critique of Robert Robinson’s View of the Canonicity of the Song of Songs

2019 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-288
Author(s):  
Jeongmo Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Exegetical Tradition

This study deals with Andrew Fuller’s (1754–1815) critique of Robert Robinson of Cambridge (1735–1790) with a particular focus on Fuller’s critique of Robinson’s view of the canonicity of the Song of Songs. Fuller’s defence of the canonicity of the Song of Songs and his interpretation of it evidently follows the mainstream Protestant view of the Reformation and the Post-Reformation eras in continuity with the patristic and medieval exegetical tradition. In particular, standing firm with the predominant exegetical tradition of previous centuries, Fuller takes allegory as the main exegetical method to interpret the Song of Songs. Even though Fuller emphatically rejects the use of vain allegory as a human invention, his interpretation of the Song of Songs indicates that if allegory may be able to connect appropriate features in an Old Testament passage with a greater truth revealed in Christ, he allows for the use of allegory to expose the meaning of the text.

scholarly journals Ritual Burning and Slaughtering in an AIC: Perspectives from Liturgical Studies and Old Testament Criticism

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Cas Wepener ◽  
Esias E. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Liturgical Studies ◽  
Old Testament Studies

Abstract This article offers the results of research in which two theological fields cooperated in order to investigate one specific repertoire of liturgical rituals. From the perspective of both Liturgical Studies, and its focus on the functioning of ritual within its cultural context, and Old Testament Studies, and a focus on how biblical critics understand certain rituals described in the Priestly texts in the Pentateuch, ritual burning and slaughtering in an AIC was studied. Ritual Studies is beginning to play a much more prominent role in the engagement with books such as Leviticus and Numbers and also in Liturgical Studies, and this article is an example of how these two disciplines can fruitfully cooperate in the study of liturgical rituals in an AIC in South Africa.

scholarly journals EMPOWERING WOMEN AT THE HIGHER INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL: ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (01) ◽  
pp. 150-169
Author(s):  
Summra Khalid ◽  
Wang Dan ◽  
Amir Sohail ◽  
Wahid Raza ◽  
Bushra Khalid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Training Program ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Leadership Training ◽  
Business Education ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Training Programs ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Institutional Level

Purpose – The research study aims to assess the women’s Business education and leadership training program at a higher institutional level in order to examine how the program impacts and contributes to women’s empowerment. Further, this research sought to explore women’s leadership training aspect that has not explicitly elucidated. Besides, this study looks upon women’s self-perception by empowering them with skills and leadership capabilities to change hard-core gender stereotypes in society. Research methodology – The sample size comprised of 82 enrolled female students in the training program. The qualitative statistics (i.e., three focus groups) evaluated with the Kirkpatrick model. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was applied to compare pre-and post-training quantitative data (i.e., questionnaire). Effect size is measured to check the effectiveness of the training program. Findings – The post-training evaluation revealed higher scores in knowledge, tools, and leadership skills. The training program encouraged women to bring change in self-perception and gain confidence for transformative changes in society. Findings support the effectiveness of leadership education and training programs. Research limitations – This research conducted in a Pakistani patriarchal cultural context and one region of Pakistan (Punjab). Hence the results are carefully generalised. The long term outcomes of this leadership training program and women’s performance in the job market are not studied. Practical implications – Findings suggest that a training program positively affects women’s learning, knowledge, and behaviour. Training programs empower women with practical tools for self and business development. The program encouraged women to gain better insight into work-life challenges and enhance personal competencies to gain equal rights. Originality/Value – This research will significantly contribute to the relatively scarce literature on the effectiveness of women’s business education and leadership training programs at a higher institutional level in the Pakistani context for women empowerment.

“Die Empörten Weiber”: Gender, Authority and Protestant Modernism in Jeremiah 44

2021 ◽  
pp. 030908922110190
Author(s):  
Melvin Sensenig
Keyword(s):  
Gender Bias ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Religious Activity ◽  
Israelite Religion ◽  
Social Elite ◽  
Elite Status

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Hebrew Psalmody

1916 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-55
Author(s):  
John P. Peters
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Original Research ◽  
The Real ◽  
Present Volume ◽  
English Reading ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Scientific Value

Professor Kent has undertaken to provide English-reading students of the Old Testament with a complete library of hand-books for the study of the contents of that great collection of Hebrew writings, which shall be of scientific value; not necessarily presenting new and original research by the author, but representing the best results of modern scholarship. The present volume, the fifth in this series, deals with the lyric poetry of the Old Testament, including songs of lamentation, songs of love and marriage, and a variety of oracles, triumphal odes, and national songs. All of these together, however, constitute but one-fifth of the total sum of Hebrew lyric poetry here dealt with, four-fifths consisting of the Psalms. It is especially Professor Kent's treatment of that collection of hymns, constituting not merely far the greater part of Hebrew lyric poetry quantitatively but also far the greater part of it qualitatively, which I propose to discuss in this article. As Kent says in his preface, the Psalms “are the real heart of the Old Testament. In them the innermost soul of the Jewish race is laid bare.” Not only this; they are “the link that binds the Old to the New Testament.” They have played as large a part in Christian as in Jewish worship. They have been translated for Christian use in all kinds of forms into almost every tongue, and an enormous literature has grown up about them. From the modern standpoint, however, they “have been to a certain extent neglected.”

Voicing the Soviet Experience

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Stalin Era ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Conflicting Discourses ◽  
Soviet Experience

This book is an examination of a poet whose career offers a case study in the complexities facing Soviet writers in the Stalin era. Ol′ga Berggol′ts (1910–1975) was a prominent Russian Soviet poet, whose accounts of heroism in wartime Leningrad brought her fame. This book addresses her position as a writer whose Party loyalties were frequently in conflict with the demands of artistic and personal integrity. Writers who pursued their careers under the restrictions of the Stalin era have been categorized as ‘official’ figures whose work is assumed to be drab, inept and opportunistic; but such assumptions impose a uniformity on the work of Soviet writers that the censors and the Writers Union could not achieve. An exploration of Berggol′ts's work shows that the borders between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ literature were in fact permeable and shifting. This book draws on unpublished sources such as diaries and notebooks to reveal the range and scope of her work, and to show how conflict and ambiguity functioned as a creative structuring principle. The text discusses how Berggol′ts's lyric poetry constructs the subject from multiple, conflicting discourses, and examines the poet's treatment of genres such as narrative verse, verse tragedy and prose in the changing cultural context of the 1950s. Berggol′ts's use of inter-textual, and especially intra-textual, reference is also investigated; the intensively self-referential nature of her work creates a web of allusion that connects texts of different genres, ‘official’ as well as ‘unofficial’ writing.

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