Song of Songs: A Commentary
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While there are correspondences between the Song and the literatures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and they are cited in the commentary, the greatest foreign influence on the book comes from Greece. The commentary approaches the Song as a Jewish-Hellenistic work, in the full sense of that hyphenated term. It notes Greek ideas and tropes that appear throughout the book and shows how they have been adjusted and incorporated into Jewish thought and literary forms. The book's Grecisms are dressed in "biblical" idioms and imagery. Going beyond previous studies, this volume emphasizes that the Song's blending together of the Jewish and the Greek is part of its literary virtuosity.
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Adele Berlin is Robert H. Smith Professor of Biblical Studies (Emerita) at the University of Maryland. She is a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature. She is the author of several acclaimed commentaries and books, including The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism. With Marc Zvi Brettler, she is the co-editor of The Jewish Study Bible.
