The Song of Songs: The World's First Great Love Poem

by Ariel Bloch and Chana Bloch

This new edition of The Song of Songs offers both a beautiful new translation and a definitive interpretation of this great love poem. The Blochs' translation, a combination of refined poetic resourcefulness and philological precision, brings us closer to the magical freshness of this ancient Hebrew love poetry than has other English versions. From the Hardcover edition.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679409629
• ISBN13: 9780679409625
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.7" x 9.4"

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Gorgeous book

You want to be scholarly and sexy all at once? Looking for the perfect book for an important anniversary or a gift for that intellectual you have your eye on? Look no further. The very first verse sets the tone: "Kiss me, make me drunk with your kisses! Your sweet loving Is better than wine." In their introduction, the Blochs note that the woman's viewpoint predominates in this amazing collection of love poems. Most of the lines are hers and she is more forceful than her lover. the two of them live in an earthly paradise, thriving in nature, exulting in their youthful sexuality. Later of course, the rabbis justified this book's inclusion in the biblical canon by pretending it was an allegory of love between God and the Jewish people or the Jewish people and the Torah. Christianity saw it as an allegory of the love between Jesus and the church or somesuch nonesense. This translation casts aside these perversions and reclaims this wonderful celebration of human sexuality for what it is. I can't recommend it too highly. For more on me and my book, The Nazi Hunter: A Novelgo to www.alanelsner.com.

Profoundly Sensual

How wonderful you are, O Love, how much sweeter than all other pleasures! But to try to quote from the Song is like hunting for a rabbit's foot. Or trying to cook only a spoonful of soup. The lovers are stoked with the such desperate passion, that no matter the circumstance, the politic, or the law, they bestow on themselves and, now, thanks to the translation, on us, a profound innocence. In that split moment before tears begin to well. Before pain is translated into reaction. Or desire hits the brain. No wonder the Song flaunts such a pure animal presence. The lovers living between the heartbeats. I can see the Shulamite stealthing around the city at night. Silent, almost rolling, footsteps. The lovers collision always in the softlight of dawn. The air cold. Hurry, my love! Run away, my gazelle, my wild stag on the hills of cinnamon.

Love is human and divine, both

This book of the Old Testament is first of all a beautiful poem. The subject is love, love for a woman and love for a man. It is the love song of two lovers.It is never erotic or pornographic, but always poetic. That is probably why it was used over and over again by composers in vespers dedicated to the Holy Virgin, particularly the first poem : « I am black but lovely, daughters of Jerusalem » with the famous songs « Nigra sum » and « Pulchra es ». This book has always been considered by the Catholics as an emanation of King Solomon and as prophecy about the coming of Jesus, about the Holy Virgin.It is of course possible to see a metaphor in that lovesong, the Bride being Israel, the people of God, who have neglected their vineyard and were punished for it, who have sinned and are now repenting after the fair punishment. Then the Bridegroom is God himself. But what remains - above and after all - is the marvellous poetic language to describe love and the loved ones. It is probably the Book that demonstrates best the fact that the Bible is speaking of real men and women and not of unreal, virtual ones. They believe in God, which gives them a higher vision and deeper meaning, but they remain human with their attachment to love, justice and peace, the three main virtues Jesus will bring us in the New Testament.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Religious preconception - the enemy of divine conception

Song of Songs - A New Translation by Bloch & Bloch This is a translation and commentary which in many ways had to wait for the day in which we are living. For this is a day when the exchange of information is at an all time high. This is a day when information concerning historical and cultural context is at a maximum, but perhaps more than anything, this is a day, when the paradigms have shifted enough to make women real people, and the exploration and revelation of physical passion within the pages of the Scriptures, a real possibility.The power of this book, both as translation, and commentary is that it is so free of religious prejudice, prudery and preconception. Religious preconception in translation always and everywhere prevents God from getting through to where people live in language and imagery that they/we can understand. In short, religious preconception is the greatest enemy of divine conception. The two authors, have done everything in their power to allow the Scripture to say what it was meant to say, say it with passion, and in a way that anyone who has ever lived and loved can understand.So far from bringing just another pious agenda to the task, they have done all that they could to dismiss such a possibility, exploring just about every possible reason for this book's inclusion in the cannon of Scripture, except the possibility that God put it there in order to communicate a love that transcends the physical. This is to say, that the authors are so carnally minded in the highest sense of the word, that their motives are pure, and so is their translation. It finally allows the creation to do what Romans One tells us it was designed to do from the beginning, particularly in the creation of male and female.Written necessarily from a very Jewish perspective, how else could there be such delicious understanding of the sensual aesthetics and economy of the Hebrew poetic form. Their translation finally provides us with the bedrock of passion that the New Testament tells us was written down for our instruction on whom the end of the age has come.More than this, they have allowed us to have the foundational clues so necessary to unlock the great mystery of the Scriptures, which is that they are all about Christ, the Christ who is incomplete without His Church. At last armed with what He has truly said, perhaps we can discover what He is truly after. For surely this has been a great mystery, Christ and His Church. Now she might fully know the intention that she had in the heart of her lover on the day He said, "I love you" from the tree.Jay Ferris - September, 2000