Episode 23: Love. Desire. Exegesis. (The Song of Songs/Solomon)
Literature and History
Doug Metzger
4.9 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2016
⏱️ 78 minutes
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Summary
The Old Testament, Part 9 of 10. What’s the Song of Songs doing in the Bible? Is it a pious hymn to God, or just a couple of horny lovers talking to each other?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Literature and history are come. |
| 0:12.0 | Hello and welcome to literature and history. |
| 0:15.0 | Episode 23, Love, Desire, Exegesis. |
| 0:21.0 | This is the ninth of ten episodes we're doing on the Old Testament. This show is mainly going |
| 0:27.1 | to be about a book in the Tanakh that gets called either the Song of Solomon or The Song of Songs. The Song of Songs is one of the |
| 0:35.4 | poetic and wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible. And like the Book of Job and |
| 0:40.4 | the Book of Ecclesiasties, the Song of Songs is quite a different text than what we find |
| 0:45.8 | in the rest of the Old Testament. |
| 0:48.4 | The Book of Job asks difficult questions about why bad things happen to good people. |
| 0:55.1 | The Book of Ecclesiasties repeatedly emphasizes that the best thing you can do in life is to |
| 1:00.3 | enjoy it and enjoy everything God has given you until you bite the dust. |
| 1:05.9 | And the Song of Songs doesn't mention God at all, actually. |
| 1:10.8 | The Song of Songs is, in the words of one scholar, quote, |
| 1:15.0 | A collection of popular love ditties, close quote. |
| 1:19.0 | A Slim Book of just eight chapters written in parallel verses, the song of songs is a series of impassioned |
| 1:26.6 | monologues between two lovers, vividly detailing their desire, their anxieties, and their thoughts and memories of one another. |
| 1:35.0 | The Song of Songs then |
| 1:37.0 | is another one of those later |
| 1:39.0 | Second Temple Period books in the great anthology of the Hebrew Bible that is surprising and remarkable. |
| 1:46.6 | You don't expect to find a protracted and erotic love poem in the same book that talks about stoning people to death, fearing God, and |
| 1:56.2 | following commandments. |
| 1:58.3 | You don't expect to, but it's there. |
... |
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