For those seeking a thorough exegetical commentary, Longman's work in the NICOT series is a good resource. He approaches the book as a poem (or more precisely an anthology of poems) about the male-female relationship, which itself is analogous to the relationship between God and His people. [Full Review]

Evangelical study of a collection of different love songs joined together by literary techniques into a progression. [Full Review]

Evangelical study of a collection of different love songs joined together by literary techniques into a progression. [Full Review]

Durham, North Carolina 27705 For approximately twenty-five years now, the Song of Songs has been the object of intense scholarly interest, probably for the first time since the Middle Ages. An initial marker of this renewed interest—and probably the impetus for much that has followed—was Marcia Falk’s rendering of the Song as universal love poetry. Her free translation was published in full in 1977, and followed five years later by a literary study detailing her approach. Also in 1977, Marvin Pope’s far more sexually explicit translation (The Anchor Bible) appeared, accompanied by a massive commentary which constitutes the fullest reading of the Song in light of what (little) we know about Canaanite cultic tradition. Longman’s own concise and lucid commentary follows in the trajectory set by Falk. Like her, he reads the Song as an anthology of topically related poems for which multiple authorship is likely—“a kind of erotic psalter” (43). More significantly, he agrees with Falk and the vast majority of contemporary scholars that the Song “focuses on the experiences and emotions of intimate male-female relationship” (xiii). However, the approach of this commentary is distinguished by its explicitly evangelical perspective, adopted for all the volumes in the NICOT series. In order to apply this perspective to a book that makes “a studied avoidance” of direct reference to God (116), Longman appeals to the role of the Song in the canon. This is the only extended biblical affirmation of sexual love—in his view, married love—as it is “redeemed” from the distortion that occurred in Eden (following the argument of Phyllis Trible). [Full Review]