The Song of Songs, being a collection of love lyrics of ancient Palestine, a new translation based on a revised text, together with the origin, growth and interpretation of the songs

by Morris Jastrow Jr.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Nook

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Morris Jastrow Jr. was an American orientalist and librarian associated with the University of Pennsylvania.
He was educated in the schools of Philadelphia, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1881. His original intention was to become a rabbi. For this purpose, he carried on theological studies at the Jewish Seminary of Breslau in Germany while pursuing the study of Semitic languages at German universities. He traveled to Europe and studied at the University of Leipzig, where he received his Ph.D. in 1884. He then spent another year in the study of Semitic languages at the Sorbonne, the Collège de France and the École des Langues Orientales Levant Vivantes.

Reviews

[Judy]

"We must "take the book for what is clearly a continuous ecstasy o the theme of sexual love." p. 11 "Obscenity in erotic poetry is the outcome of self-consciousness, but folk poetry is marked by an absence of self-consciousness. p. 14 "....in an ancient oriental book the distinction to which we are accustomed between the body of the text and the marginal additions of footnotes do not exist. A text being put together not for the purpose of circulating it - as is done in the days of printing - but for preserving it, or to act as a guide in reading it or in reciting it to others variant words and phrases as well all kinds of explanatory comments and additions were embodied by the editors who left it to the one who used the texts to distinguish between what was original and what was supplementary." p. 17
"....in the case of book of the old Testament, the final court of appeal was not a body of learned scribes, carefully weighing the pros and the cons, but the silent process of popular approval, reinforced by a growing tradition gathering around certain productions of the past. We must be content if we can succeed in detecting some of the factors involved in this process." p.35
Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE- 50 CE) used allegorical explanations of the Bible however we have not records that indicate he ever applied his method to the Song of Songs." p. 70
"If we were to assume that the Song of Songs is actually a drama, then we could not justify an early composition date." p 105

The author continually refers to the Song of Songs as "folk" lyrics, which is related to his willingness to eliminate from his translated text entire lines which he thinks should not be included.