NIVAC 16: Ecclesiastes, Songs of Songs

Most Bible commentaries take us on a one-way trip from the twentieth century
to the first century. But they leave us there, assuming that we can somehow
make the return journey on our own. In other words, they focus on the original
meaning of the passage but don't discuss its contemporary application. The
information they offer is valuable - but the job is only half done! The NIV
Application Commentary Series helps us with both halves of the interpretive
task. This new and unique series shows readers how to bring an ancient message
into modern context. It explains not only what the Bible means but also how it
can speak powerfully today.The Song of Songs has been read,
historically, by Christians, in two primary ways - as a text which concerns the
love and sexual intimacy of human beings and as a text which uses the language
of human love and intimacy to speak of something else - the relationship
between Christ and the church.

Christians have often felt that they
must choose between these options - that a text about human love and sexual
intimacy could not be at the same time a spiritual text. It is one of the
challenges of reading the Song to explore how far this is necessarily true and
how far Christian readers have been influenced in their reading more by
Platonism and Gnosticism than by biblical thinking about the nature of the
human being and of human sexuality.

Another challenge is to discover
whether the Song is really one ÊsongË at all, or simply a haphazard collection
of shorter poems cast together because of their common theme of love; and still
another is to gain clarity on what, precisely, is the connection between the
Song and Solomon.

This commentary sets out to wrestle honestly with all
the challenges of reading these biblical books - the challenges of reading the
texts in themselves, and the challenges of reading them as intrinsic parts of
Christian Scripture. 'Provan has written one of the most interesting
commentaries on these two intriguing books. Even though one may not agree with
his final conclusions, his thinking is provocative and will lead the reader to
think through old issues. One example is his understanding of the Song as a
drama having three main characters. The basic plot as he reconstructs it is
that Solomon has forced a country girl into his harem, though she continues to
love the shepherd boy back home. The theme of the book proclaims that true love
resists coerced legal love.' - Tremper LongmanSeries: NIV
Application Commentary.Recommended € 32,90