Song of Songs [3/15]; Feed me with raisins

reply to post by Deetermined

Yes,I think I tracked down the language to an American pastor I had not heard of before.
But the idea that the Woman rejected the king and chose another is nonsense, as far as I'm concerned, an imaginative misreading.

reply to post by DISRAELI


"The" rock denotes a particular rock (Earth?) and does not allude to being a general area as you say, it would have to say "a" rock in order to fit your interpretation, because "a" does not specify a certain rock, "the" does.

The verse says "come with me" which does not imply that She is separate from the world. I can tell the image I see to come with me, but that does not separate the image from itself.

Actually, He is the one behind the wall, not She. "There "he" stands behind the wall", not "She".

ETA: This is arguing semantics though. I have my interpretation that fits and so do you, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
Actually, He is the one behind the wall, not She. "There "he" stands behind the wall", not "She".

They are each "behind" the wall from the other's viewpoint, but the Woman is evidently the one who is "shut in", because otherwise he would not be urging her to "come away".
As I've just been explaining carefully, the invitation to "come away" comes from the gazelle, not from the woman. The woman herself says so; her "beloved", the gazelle, is the one who is speaking.

I repeat, you need to read the language naturally instead of trying to strain it for an artificial interpretation.
Look at the image of v14.
The dove is in some crevice or other; she is urged to come out; if she comes out, that means the dove and the crevice are two different things, which can be separated. What could be more natural or straightorward?

reply to post by DISRAELI


I see the world in a different way than you, that is where we differ. If a dove is part of the world then it is not separate from it. Is your body completely separate from all other matter? No, because even air is made of matter, so the body of the dove (which is a metaphor by the way, not literal) is still not separate from the world, even if you like to think so.

As I said, I can tell a rock to come away with me, then pick the rock up and take it with me, but that does not separate the rock from the world.

I do not see my interpretation as straining. It's no more straining than you personifying "She" as Jerusalem.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

A dove is a part of the world, but it is not the whole world.
I am part of the world, but I am not the whole world.
This makes it possible for me to step back and observe the world as a whole, and mentally detach myself from it as something distinct.

That is what is happening here.
There are three elements in the picture, as i have said.
There is the gazelle, who represents, I believe, the consciousness of the Creator God.
There is the Woman, symbolised in v14 as a dove, who is a human consciousness.
What is happening in vv10-14 is that the gazelle is inviting the Woman to share with him and celebrate the third element in the picture, which ios the created world at large.

reply to post by DISRAELI


The woman is the physical part of the conscious god. The male half is the spirit, or "He", and the female half is the physical world, or "She". It's really quite simple actually. That's why they call Earth "Mother" Earth, because it is the female representation on the masculine "Father" consciousness, it is the other half of God.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I come back to the point that you're ignoring the cultural background of this poem.
The book was not written by a twenty-first century New Age Gnostic; he would not have thought in terms of "male and female halves of God", so that cannot be what he meant, and it cannot be what he is writing about.
It was written as part of a monotheistic tradition which distinguished betwen a Creator God, on the one hand, and a created world, on the other hand, and believed in the possibility of relationships between the Creator God and human conscioiusness within the created world. In other words, it is part of the mental world of the Bible.
So the proper interpretation of the book revolves around being faithful to the intended meaning of the writer.
You are not even attempting to do this; you are more interested in moulding your understanding of the book around your own preferred philosophy.

reply to post by Myrtales Instinct

Yes, of course;
I was going to do that at the beginning, but didn't get around to it.
First part;Draw me after you
Second part;Tell me where you rest at noon
When the series comes to completion, I shall have to do an Index thread again.

You shouldn't forget that you can find my threads by clicking on the link just to the left or on my profile.
There's been a recent series on James and a half-series on Daniel.

So you didn't get the memo about my infallibility?

reply to post by DISRAELI


And this brings me back to my point, that the cultural theme that Solomon is using also has even deeper roots, an even deeper underlying theme. I am taking his cultural theme into account, it is what I am using to draw out the even deeper meaning to the theme.

If the shoe fits so to say. Of course you will not think it fits because you have preconceived notions. I'm going one step further than you are, while you stay stuck in the mainstream interpretation of the text.

All of religion is based on very natural things, only with a supernatural twist to obscure that natural meaning. What's more natural than what we can see and experience?

Can you tell me who this woman is? Because I can, it is mother nature, which is why Solomon uses nature to describe her.

Solomon uses the pomegranate heavily in this book. Pomegranates have deep roots in Greek mythology, where Hades tricks Persephone into eating them in order to trap her in the underworld for six months. Do you see a connection with today's world and Solomon's use of pomegranates in this book? Because I do.

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
Can you tell me who this woman is?

I identified her at the beginning of the thread, and indeed in the very first thread of the series, as "God's people".
I also identified the male figure as the Creator God.
That would make the subject of the poem the relationship between God and God's people, which is also the subject, one way or another, of every other book in the Bible.

The interpretation of any written work has to be based, fundamentally, on what the author thinks it means.
An interpretation which sets that aside has no objective value- it is nothing but a projection of the commentator's own mind.
This is about the difference between honesty and dishonesty in interpretation.

reply to post by DISRAELI


I assume you saw that one line and replied to it without reading the rest? What are your thoughts on the pomegranate mythology? Do you see the connection? If not, then you decide to not see it in my opinion.

Also, there was no church in those times, only clans and tribes. It's straining it to believe a singular "She" represents thousands or millions, or in today's standards, billions of people in my opinion

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Who said anything about a church? I said "God's people". The writer, being a Jew, thought of himself as a member of God's people. He believed that this community began with Abraham and continued to maintain a corporate relationship with God in his own time.
Don't you know anything about the Old Testament? No, you don't. That's the problem with your mode of interpretation.

As for using the figure of a woman to represent an entire community, this is commonplace amongst the Old Testament prophets.
It is there in the opening chapters of Hosea; "I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her"- Hosea ch2 v14
It is there in Jeremiah; "What do you mean that you dress in scarlet?...I heard a cry as of a woman in travail"- Jeremiah ch4 vv30-31 (this portrait is the original model of BOTH women in Revelation, the Harlot of Babylon and the "Woman in heaven", who divide up her characteristics between them)
It is there in Ezekiel; "You grew up and became tall and arrived at full maidenhood"- Ezekiel ch16 v7.
Or in Ezekiel ch23, where Jerusalem and Samaria are labelled as the unchaste girls Oholah and Oholibah.
Don't you know anything about the Old Testament? No, you don't. That's the problem with your mode of interpretation.

You are making no attempt to get into the thought-world of the person who wrote this poem.
All you are doing is taking things out of your own private thought-world, and trying to impose them on the text.
This is about the difference between honesty and dishonesty in interpretation.

reply to post by DISRAELI


And what is the purpose of this thread other than to impose YOUR interpretation on the text? Pot meet kettle. Are you the only one who is allowed to interpret books of the bible? That's very hypocritical of You.

The whore of Babylon is what religion has turned Earth into, they have removed her role from heaven and in turn have exploited her resources (oil, etc.) to become rich and powerful. Catholic Cardinals wear scarlet robes, a hint to what they really are, adulterers and liars.

Your mention of Jeremiah 4:30-31 is interesting as well.

Jeremiah 4
30 What are you doing, you devastated one?
Why dress yourself in scarlet
and put on jewels of gold?
Why highlight your eyes with makeup?
You adorn yourself in vain.
Your lovers despise you;
they want to kill you.

31 I hear a cry as of a woman in labor,
a groan as of one bearing her first child—
the cry of Daughter Zion gasping for breath,
stretching out her hands and saying,
“Alas! I am fainting;
my life is given over to murderers.”

The Earth has been given to murderers, those who run religion and the world. They have dressed her in scarlet and have been slowly killing her with pollution, exploitation of resources, and the like.

The ones who run the world and religion despise Earth because they have removed her role and dressed her in scarlet in order to exploit her resources. By exploiting her resources and polluting her with said resources, they are trying to kill her, and that process is more evident than ever today.

I am allowed my interpretation just as much as you are, and to say I am somehow imposing my own interpretation is ignoring the plank in your own eye and pointing out the speck in mine.

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
And what is the purpose of this thread other than to impose YOUR interpretation on the text?

The purpose of this thread is to draw out of the text what the writer thought it meant.
The clue is in the opening words- "the INTENDED meaning of the Song of Songs".
This is achieved by trying to enter into the writer's thought-world.
It is not achieved by drawing concepts out of your own thought-world and trying to impose them on what somebody else has written. That is not objective.
If you're going to be taking words and making them mean anything you like, you might as well be using a telephone directory.
You don't need to hi-jack a book of the Bible for that purpose.

reply to post by DISRAELI


And how do you know what his intended meaning was? Just because the bible and Christianity have a certain interpretation that you refuse to stray from doesn't mean it is the right one.

I think my interpretation makes perfect sense, because it deals with natural order, natural things that we can see and experience. "She" is Earth/physicality, and your mention of Jeremiah only cements that fact even more in my opinion.

A whore is willing to give herself away, Earth is "willing" to giver herself away as well with her resources, and religion has turned her into the whore of Babylon and despise her and want to kill her just as Jeremiah says. Good of you to ignore that part of my post.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

You need to read the OP. I don't think you've done that yet, have you?
My approach to discovering the writer's meaning is to go through what the writer actually SAYS, sytematically, line by line, bearing in mind the shades of meaning in the Hebrew, and bearing in mind his cultural background.
This is the rational and scientific way of doing things.
That is what interpreters of a text do, when they want to ascertain what a text means.

This is clearly not something within your capabilities. I suspect that your mind does not have the scientific rigour which would be necessary for such a task.
You've got a few half-formed ideas, and you take a few odd scraps of text and try to squeeze them to fit yoiur ideas.

In technical terms, I am practicing exegesis, which is rational and objective, whereas you are practicing eisegesis, which is non-rational and subjective.

You have no interest in trying to understand what the writer wants to say, and that is why your explanations of the text have no value.

reply to post by DISRAELI


And what is the point of this thread if you just plan on rehashing the same interpretation that has been used for thousands of years? Why go through the effort of going line to line when you are just using the interpretation you were taught to believe? Seems like a waste of time to me.

If you think I'm using eisegesis then you have no idea what it means apparently. Eisegesis is interpretation leading into the text, that is not what I am doing, I am drawing my I terpretation out of the text, meaning I am using exegesis.

Your presupposition is that you must follow common interpretation without deviating from it at all, ever, no way no how. So you are using eisegesis, meaning you have presuppositions tbat lead into your interpretation.

If anything, you aren't interpreting at all, only parroting what the church has taught for thousands of years.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

The point, as I said, is to identify the meaning that was intended by the writer.
if it is a waste of time, my time is my own.

reply to post by DISRAELI


And you know what his intended meaning was how? Just because you have been taught a certain interpretation does not mean it is the right one. Instead of considering my interpretation, you throw it away because it doesn't agree with what you have been brought up to believe. Maybe that's the problem?

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I told you two posts ago about the process of ascertaining the writer's meaning.
Just read the OP, as I suggested, and you can see the process at work.