The Canticle of the canticles , known as also Canticle of Solomon , is a book of the Bible.

Positioning

Although included in the Seventy, it is allowed in the biblical gun only at the 1st century, following the allegorical interpretation of Akiba, which sees in the Song of Songs a declaration symbolic system of the love between God (Jéhovah/YHWH) and his people, Israel. For this reason, he is recited at the time of Pessah, Jewish Passover. He belongs to Ketouvim (other writings) in the Tanakh - the Hebraic Bible - and of the Old Testament for the Christians, who all include this book in their gun.

Contents and approaches

It revêt the form of a succession of poems, a song of love alternated between a Beloved and her Beloved. It is one of the most poetic books of the Bible . Its composition is allotted to a writer of the fourth century BC which would have there dissolve various poems coming from Mésopotamie. The book was initially rejected because of its profane character, to which the many erotic images testify like: " Your centres are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle" or " Your chest like the grapes mûrs".

The Christian exégètes often were perplexed in front of this book. Although he is recognized like belonging to the biblical gun, its contents disturbed of them more one. One observes in interpretation two attitudes:

• the first takes the text as allegory of the relation of love which Christ and her Église maintain, relation which is many times celebrated or illustrated in New Testament, mainly in the writings of Paul, but also in some Parabole S of Jesus himself according to the Gospels. However, this allegorical interpretation and symbolic system are gradually called into question to the reading of the erotic images which the text contains. An important criticism, also, is the fact that the relation of love between Jesus and his Church is never portraiturée in such a manner: (1) the type of love of which it is question (αγαπε - reunion , free love) is not the same one as that of Canticle of the Canticles (ερος - Eros , fusional love); (2) when well even the New Testament brings the image closer to married and husband to that to Christ and Church, never authors of New Testament do not take the Song of Songs like model.
• the other attitude vis-a-vis this book is to regard it as a poem describing the love between an young girl and her engaged couple, like their weddings. This design is even based on the fact that this comprehension is close, corresponds perfectly to the Hebraic thought, whereas according to it the first allegorical alternative would be influenced too much by the Greek thought regarding the body as something of méprisable or at spiritually makes indignant (allusions being sometimes made to Aristote, Plato and the Gnosticisme of the first centuries of the Christian era, then with the thought of Saint Augustin which largely influenced the catholic doctrines). We however have, in this book, business with a love sensual and passing continuously by the exaltation of the beauty and the relations physical. The Hebraic language of the book clearly makes reference to the sensuality and a relation of love expressed physically, and this as of its first lines, as in verse 2 of the chap. 1st, “That he kisses me kisses of his mouth! Because your kisses are better than the wine”: the term translated by " baisers" , in Hebrew (דּוֹדךָ, dæwdîm ), means love (between the sexes) and insinuates acts of loves (kisses, caresses), so that associated in another term (and declined) it indicates the marital bed. Interpretation " hébraïque" of Canticle of the Canticles is for a its holding (generally, a big number of Protestant) ideal model of the love between the husbands such as it would be, believe they, according to the will of God.

Another approach was proposed by J.F. Froger. It consists in superimposing the topics approached of the Song of Songs to those of the myth of Eros and Psyché of Apulée. According to the author there sufficient exists indices to propose a bringing together of the two subjects. The importance of " there is found; the night in the song of amour". do not wake up, do not awake, my love, before the hour of its good pleasure is a warning statement which points out the warning of Psyché against temptation to know Eros. The topics of the exile and loneliness constitute the central part of the tale. But the eternal weddings triumph over the endured suffering.

In the introduction to the Canticle (Bible of Chouraqui), it is described two plans of significances: that of human and that of creation. " The Hebraic poesy Marie it here the human one with cosmos; she sees reality in the shape of a man, and in this man the totality of the univers". This is not foreign in the Eros, which can surprise in a biblical book.