To: "'Biblical Hebrew'" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>, "'Peter Kirk'" <Peter_R_Kirk AT hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: FW: Song of songs commentaries
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 15:25:21 -0500
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Marvin Pope's Anchor Bible commentary
(Doubleday, 1977), but I guess everybody's busy at SBL. Tremper Longman
called it "one of the best commentaries written on any book of the
Bible", with a 5-star rating. He connects the book with the love and
death cults of the ancient world, but that's not the strength of the
commentary. I suppose I'd call it "liberal", but I'm not sure what that
means any more. Pope does a good job of summarizing other viewpoints.
> What good commentaries are there on the Song of songs? What
> are your favorites? I would be very interested in a small
> description of them, especially on the following questions:
> 1) Bibliographical data (name, author, publication year)
> 2) What is the approach of the commentary (literal, allegory,
> typology, other (what))?
> 3) What is the basic theological outlook, if clearly present
> (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant; conservative, liberal; etc)?
> 4) What is the basic approach to the book (two lovers,
> triangle)?