Some conservative commentators on the Song (e.g., Christopher Mitchell) are reluctant to admit hat the Song plays off pagan mythology, poetry, and iconography. But the evidence provided by other commentators (such as Keel) is overwhelming: The Song does make use of standard ANE love lyrics and alludes with some frequency to pagan myths.
But all these techniques and allusions push against paganism. Where the myths place a goddess, the Song places a human beloved which, as Jewish and Christian commentators have always said, is the people of God, Israel and the church.
Does Yahweh have a consort? Yes, but she’s a human consort, the covenanted bride Israel.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…
