Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Rutgers core course is Making Jews Modern: Varieties of Secular Judaism. The other courses are The Secular Turn: Jewish Thought from Medieval to Modern, Community and Crisis: The Jewish Encounter with the Secular, Modern Jewish Culture: New Practices in a Secular Age, Germans and Jews: An Intercultural History, and Special Topics: The Bible through Literary Eyes.

Making Jews Modern: Varieties of Secular Judaism

This course will examine the many different ways Jews have engaged the challenges of
modernity through a wide array of new secular cultural activities--including
autobiography, theater, music, art, film, journalism, language use, architecture, modern
scholarship, political action, philanthropy, foodways, and tourism. Primary works and
secondary literature will be drawn from the Enlightenment era to contemporary times and
from an array of Jewish communities, focusing on Europe and North America.

The course is organized thematically, within a general chronology, but making
deliberate comparisons across time and place within each thematic unit. The course is
designed to complement the study of modern Jewish political and social history and
modern Jewish thought by focusing on how Jews realize new modernist ways of
Jewishness through secular cultural practices that are either themselves new to Jewish
experience or are conceived as providing new venues for realizing Jewishness in
unprecedented ways.

Course Outline:

1. Introduction: The Historical Emergence of Secular Judaism
• Characteristics of pre-modern Judaism: community and authority
2. Enlightenment culture
• Emily D. Bilski and Emily Braun, eds. Jewish Women and Their Salons; the
Power of Conversation. New York: Jewish Museum; New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2005 (selections)
• Solomon Maimon. Autobiography. New York: Schocken, 1947.
3. Jews take the stage
• Jacques Fromenthal Halevy. La Juive (audio or video recording).
• Martin Goldstein. “Halévy and Meyerbeer and a Jewish contribution to French
opera.” Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jewish Music
(1997): 26-36.
• Edna Nahshon, ed. From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish
Plays. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 2005. (selections)
4. Jewish language
• Norman Berdichevsky. “Zamenhof and Esperanto.” Ariel 64 (1986): 58-71.
• Benjamin Harshav. Language in Time of Revolution. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993 (selections).
• Jacob Glatshteyn, et al. “Introspectivism” (Manifesto of 1919). In American
Yiddish Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology, ed. Benjamin and Barbara Harshav.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
5. Jews and science
• Sigmund Freud. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1963.
• John Efron. Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-
Siecle Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
6. Building secular Jewish places
• Barbara Mann. A Place in History: Modernism, Tel Aviv, And the Creation of
Jewish Urban Space. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. (selections)
• Robert Weinberg. Stalin’s Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a
Soviet Jewish Homeland. Berkeley: University of California Press/Judah L.
Magnes Museum, 1998.
7. Sculpting Secular Jewish Heroes
• Olga Litvak, “Mark Antokolsky,” forthcoming essay.
• Beth S Wenger. “Sculpting an American Jewish hero; the monuments, myths, and
legends of Haym Salomon.” In Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel and America,
eds. Deborah Dash Moore and Ilan Troen, Yale University Press, 2001: 123-151.
8. Jews and print culture
• Sarah Abrevaya Stein. Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in
the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2004. (selections)
• Isaac Metzger, ed. A Bintel Brief. New York: Schocken, 1990.
• Steven Cassedy. "A bintel brief: the Russian émigré intellectual meets the
American mass media.” East European Jewish Affairs 34:1 (2004): 104-120.
9. The Political Culture(s) of Secular Jews
• Tony Michels. A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. (selections)
• Mir kumen on (documentary film), 1935.
• Michael Staub. The Jewish 1960s: An American Sourcebook. Waltham:
Brandeis University Press, 2004.
10. Muscle Jewry
• George Eisen, Haim Kaufman, Manfred Lämmer, eds. Sport and Physical
Education in Jewish History; Selected Papers from an International Seminar Held
on the Occasion of the 16th Maccabiah, 2001. [Netanya]: Wingate Institute, 2003
(selections)
• Aviva Kempner, dir. Hank Greenberg (film)
11. European Jewish popular culture
• Anna Shternshis. Soviet And Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union,
1923-1939. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
• Michael Steinlauf and Anthony Polansky, eds. Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol.
16 (2003) Focusing on Jewish Popular Culture and Its Aftermath. (selections)
12. The culture of Philanthropy
• Jonathan S. Woocher. Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. (selections)
• Rebecca Kobrin. “Contested contributions; emigré philanthropy, Jewish
communal life, and Polish-Jewish relations in interwar Bialystok, 1919-1929.”
Gal-Ed 20 (2006): 43-62.
13. Consuming Jewishness
• Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. “Kitchen Judaism.” In Getting Comfortable in
New York; the American Jewish Home, 1880-1950, ed. Susan L. Braunstein and
Jenna Weissman Joselit. New York: Jewish Museum, 1990, 77-105.
• Jack Kugelmass, “Green Bagels: An Essay on Food, Nostalgia, and the
Carnivalesque.” YIVO Annual 19 (1990): 57-80.
14. Touring the Jewish world
• Michael Berkowitz. “The invention of a secular ritual; Western Jewry and
nationalized tourism in Palestine, 1922-1933.” In The Seductiveness of Jewish
Myth (1997) 73-95.
• Ruth Ellen Gruber. Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe.
University of California Press, 2002 (selections).


The Secular Turn: Jewish Thought from Medieval to Modern

Since the seventeenth-century, a new model of Jewish existence has emerged that does not have religious observance as a sine qua non. But this is merely a negative definition, asserting what is no longer the case. This course will survey the developments that led to the emergence of this new model, as well as some of the attempts to provide a positive definition to non-halakhic Jewish existence, attempts that constitute a significant part of modern Jewish intellectual history. The course recognizes that the idea of the secular was not born fully formed, but rather grew out of an ongoing debate and polemic with religious worldviews, and that there are different responses to this development.

Course Outline

1. The Question of Secularism: An Introduction
Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular

2. Religious Thinkers and the Origins of Secular Thought
i. Maimonides: Divine Transcendence or Divine Absence
Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed
Halbertal and Margalit, Idolatry

ii. Spinoza: God i.e. Nature
Spinoza, The Ethics

iii. Spinoza and Critical Bible Scholarship
Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise

iv. Mendelssohn and the Justification of the Commandments
Mendelssohn, Jerusalem

3. Cultural Judaism: Ahad ha-Am
Ahad ha-Am, Al Parashat-Derakhim

4. Bialik and the Secularization of Hebrew
Bialik, "Revelation and Concealment in Language," Azzan Yadin, "Nietzche and Bialik on Language, Truth, and the Death of God," Prooftexts

5. Jewish Atheism: Freud as Jewish Critic
Moses and Monotheism

6. Jewish Scholarship as Jewish Cultural Praxis


Community and Crisis: The Jewish Encounter with the Secular

This course will examine the transformation of the Jews and their communal structure from late medieval to contemporary times. For some members of the European Jewish community, this transition meant a crisis. For others, particularly on American soil, it denoted the beginning of creative new forms of Jewish life, practice and identity.

Course Outline

Modern Judaism
Michael A. Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew
David Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry
Katz, Out of the Ghetto

The Emancipation of the Jews of France
The Jew in the Modern World
Selections from Trana, Transactions of the Paris Sanhedrin
Zosa Szajowski, Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848
Salo Baron, "Ghetto and Emancipation," The Menorah Journal
Goldscheider and Zuckerman

Creating a 'Reformed' Jewish Community
Selections from Abraham Geiger
Michael Meyer, Response to Modernity
Goldscheider and Zuckerman

Creating an American Jewish Community
The Jew in the Modern World
The American Jewish Yearbook
"In Defense of the Immigrant," Cyrus Sulzberger, The American Jewish Yearbook
Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed
Gerald Sorin, The Prophetic Minority: American Jewish Immigrant Radicals

Creating a 'Kahal' in America
Louis Marshall, "The Kehillah"
Arthur Goren, New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehillah Experiment, 1908-1922
Moses Rischin, The Promised City
Daniel Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939

Creating an American Jewish Community (The Second Generation)
Mordecai Kaplan, "A Program for Reconstruction of Judaism"
Deborah Dash Moore, At Home in America: Second Generation New York Jews
Goldscheider and Zuckerman

Creating an American Jewish Community (The 'Return' and Continuity of Tradition)
Samuel Heilman, Defenders of the Faith
M. Herbert Danziger, Returning to Tradition: The Contemporary Revival of Orthodox Judaism
Janna Weissman Joselit, New York's Jewish Jews: The Orthodox Community in the Interwar Years

The Contemporary American Jewish Community
Steven Cohen and Charles Liebman, The Quality of American Jewish Life - Two Views
Jack Wertheimer, A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America
Hasia Diner, "Jewish Self-Governance: American Style," American Jewish History
Jonathan Webber, "Modern Jewish Identities"


Germans and Jews: An Intercultural History

Tentative Course Outline:

1. Introduction: Entering into “Culture” (Kultur, Bildung)

Enlightenment and Bildung
2. Lessing, The Jews; Frederick II, “The Charter Decreed for the Jews of
Prussia”
3. Lessing, Nathan the Wise, Acts 1-2; Dohm, excerpts from “Concerning the
Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews”
4. Nathan the Wise, acts 3-5; Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”
5. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, section 1; “What Does ‘To Enlighten’ Mean?”]
6. Jerusalem, section 2

Autobiography and Romanticism
7. Maimon, Autobiography, pp. 1-144
8. Autobiography, pp. 145-289
9. Rahel Levin and David Veit, “Correspondence”; Dorothea Schlegel (née
Brendel Mendelssohn), Florentine, pp. 1-33
10. Florentine, pp. 34-75; Friedrich Schlegel, “Ideas”

Heine and Marx
11. Heine, selections from The Book of Songs, “To Set Your Mind at Rest,” “Night
Thoughts,” “Germany,” “The Silesian Weavers,”; Marx, “A Contribution
to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” “Critical Marginal Notes
on the Article ‘The King of Prussia and Social Reform’”
12. Heine, From the Memoirs of the Herr von Schnapelewopski, Florentine Nights
13. Heine, The Rabbi von Bacharach
14. Heine, “Jessica,” “The Slave Ship,” Hebrew Melodies; Marx On the Jewish
Question

“Anti-Semitism” and Zionism
15. Wagner, The Jew in Music (along with a discussion of Felix Mendelssohn and
Meyerbeer)
16. Hess, Rome and Jerusalem, pp. 35-105; Hess, Rome and Jerusalem, pp. 106-78;
17. Herzl, “Autobiography,” excerpts from The Jewish State
18. “Anti-Semitism”: excerpts from Marr and Dühring; Richard Wagner,
selections from Judaism-Jewry in Music

Three Theologies
19. Hermann Cohen, selections from Germanness and Jewishness
20. Martin Buber, On Judaism, 3-55
21. Buber, On Judaism, 56-107, 149-74
22. Franz Rosenzweig, On Jewish Learning, 27-71
23. Rosenzweig, On Jewish Learning, 72-92, 103-24

Two Writers
24. Else Lasker-Schüler, “The Voices of Eden,” “O God,” selections from Hebrew
Ballads, 51-67
25. Lasker-Schüler, selections from Hebrew Ballads, 67-75, “Jerusalem,” “Over
Glistening Gravel,” “To Me,” “Friday Night”
26. Franz Kafka, “Letter to My Father,” “Cares of a Family Man,” “Jackals and
Arabs,” “The Crossbreed,” “Before the Law”
27. Kafka, “Report to an Academy,” “Josefine, the Songstress or: the Mouse-
People”

Two Ideas of Redemption
28. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, 11-104
29. Walter Benjamin, “Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of his Death,”
“On the Concept of History”


Special Topics: The Bible through Literary Eyes

One of the major developments in biblical studies during the past thirty years has been a marked increase in attention to the literary artistry of the Bible – with a concomitant decrease in attention to historical and theological matters. This course will seek to bring the many lines of scholarly inquiry concerning the literary aspects of the Bible into coherent focus, with specific attention to a) the manner in which language and literature intersect to create the prose and poetry of the Bible, and b) how recent translations of the Bible reflect these concerns.

We will discuss the orality of the text, describe how people in ancient Israel read the literature, and survey a host of literary-linguistic devices, such as the use of alliteration, wordplay, the Leitwort, the manner of repetition, style-switching, and the intentional employment of confused syntax. A basic knowledge of Hebrew is required, though texts will be read in both the Hebrew original and in English translation.

Among the texts to be studied are the creation accounts, episodes within the Abraham and Jacob narratives, the Joseph story, sections of the legal and cultic material from the Torah, the stories of Rahab, Deborah and Yael, and David and Bathsheba, and (in order to give a sampling of poetry) portions of the Song of Songs.

Required Reading:

Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (Norton, 1981)
Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, (Eisenbrauns, 1994)
Adele Berlin and Marc Z. Brettler, eds., The Jewish Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Course Outline:

Week One: The Bible as Literature, and How to Translate

We begin our course with a discussion of the literary approach to Bible, as developed by scholars during the last three decades. We will take special notice of how this trend operates independently from any religious or theological concerns with the Bible, but rather develops out of a general engagement with literature in a secular age and a recognition of the Jewish contribution to world literary culture. We then turn our attention to various translations techniques utilized by translators of the Bible.

Robert Alter, “A Literary Approach to the Bible,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 3-22.
Adele Berlin, “Poetics and Interpretation,” in Poetics and Interpretation of
Biblical Narrative, pp. 13-21.
Everett Fox, “Translator’s Preface,” in The Five Books of Moses, pp. ix-xxvi.
Robert Alter, “Introduction,” in The Five Books of Moses, pp. ix-xlviii.
Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Literary Approach to the Bible and Finding a Good Translation.”

Week Two: Genesis 1-2 – Creation

We begin our reading of the Bible at the beginning, utilizing the two creation accounts in Genesis 1-2 to exemplify the various literary devices employed by the biblical authors, and the various renderings employed by different translators. Since most scholars believe that the two stories emanate from different authors, we also will discuss the source theory of the Torah (also known as the JEDP Theory).

Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 9-21.
Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 17-23.
Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Genesis 1-2” (handout).
Richard Elliott Friedman, “Introduction,” in The Bible with Sources Revealed, pp. 1-31.
Robert Alter, “Composite Artistry,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 131-154.
Adele Berlin, “Poetic Interpretation and Historical-Critical Methods,” in Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, pp. 111-134.

Weeks Three-Four: Genesis 12-22 – The Abraham Story

This reading allows us to see an extended narrative, one that covers a full eleven chapters in Genesis. We will approach the narrative as a unified text, notwithstanding the conclusion of source critics, which holds that three different strands (J, E, and P) are woven together to create the Abraham story. Among other issues to be discussed, we will pay special attention to the manner in which the two female characters (Sarah and Hagar) are portrayed; and we will read most closely the story of the Aqedah (Genesis 22), which serves as the climax of the narrative. A key literary device to be studied is the manner in which the reader may know something unknown to the characters in the story, along with the flipside by which the characters in the story may know something unknown to the reader.

Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 53-97.
Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 61-112.
Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Genesis 12-22” (handout).
Gary A. Rendsburg, “Unlikely Heroes: Women as Israel.”
Adele Berlin, “Point of View,” in Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, pp. 43-82.

Week Five: The History of Bible Translation; The Masora

We take time out from our reading of individual biblical texts to consider the history of Bible translation, from antiquity down to the present day. We will discuss the four ancient renderings, translated directly from the Hebrew: the Septuagint (or LXX) in Greek, the Targumim in Aramaic, the Peshitta in Syriac, and the Vulgate in Latin. We then will consider the various English translations of the Bible, starting with the work of Wycliffe and Tyndale in the Middle Ages, culminating in the King James Version of 1611, as well as renderings of the Bible into contemporary English during the 20th century. In conjunction with this material, we also will study the transmission of the Bible in the Hebrew original from antiquity to the Middle Ages, with special consideration of the Masora (or oral reading tradition).

Leonard Greenspoon, “Jewish Translations of the Bible,” in The Jewish Study Bible, pp. 2005-2020.
Harry M. Orlinsky, “Introduction,” in Notes on the New Translation of the Torah, pp. 1-40.
Jordan Penkower, “The Development of the Masoretic Bible,” in The Jewish Study Bible, pp. 2077-2084.

Week Six: Genesis 27 – Jacob and Esau

We return to reading a single chapter from the book of Genesis, the well-known episode of the appearance of both Jacob and Esau before Isaac in order to obtain their father’s blessing. The main literary device to be studied here is the repetition of language. We will note how the biblical authors employ repeated language, but almost always with slight changes (that is, not verbatim). Compare, for example, Isaac’s words to Esau in vv. 2-4 with Rebekah’s repetition of those words while speaking to Jacob in v. 7.

Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 123-129.
Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 139-146.
Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Genesis 27” (handout).

Week Seven: Genesis 29 – Jacob and Rachel

This chapter serves as the natural follow-up to our reading of Genesis 27, especially due to the presence of the expression yamim a'adim ‘a few days’ in both Gen 27:44 and Gen 29:20. We again will see the device by which the reader knows something in advance of the character in the story, which in this case is coupled with the use of the key word hinneh (noted earlier in the reading, in Berlin, pp. 62-63). Most importantly, we will consider the type-scene, as identified and studied by Robert Alter. Finally, we will consider how the biblical author depicts the punishment of both Rebekah and Jacob for their deception of Isaac in Genesis 27.

Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 132-138.
Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 152-156.
Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Genesis 29” (handout).
Robert Alter, “Biblical Type-Scenes and the Uses of Convention,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 47-62.

Week Eight – When Were These Stories Written?

At this point in the course we consider the date of authorship of these stories and the development of biblical prose narrative. Different theories will be presented, ranging from the 10th century (the period of David and Solomon) to the 8th century (the reign of Hezekiah), the 7th century (the reign of Josiah), the 6th century (the Exile), and beyond (the post-exilic period).

Robert Alter, “Sacred History and the Beginnings of Prose Fiction,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 23-46.
Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Genesis of the Bible.”
William M. Schniedewind, “Hezekiah and the Beginning of Biblical Literature,” in How the Bible Became a Book, pp. 64-90.

Week Nine: Genesis 37-50 – The Joseph Story

We return once more to the reading of an extended narrative, this time the story of Joseph at the end of the book of Genesis, with a close reading of chapters 37, 39-41. While we have studied repetition before, we now see this device in full bloom. We also will introduce yet another literary device, the intentional use of confused language to indicate confusion, uncertainty, and bewilderment. Finally, we will consider larger issues within the Joseph story, most importantly, the manner in which the author demands that the reader be involved in the reading process, as the reader needs to make certain judgments as he or she proceeds through the text.

Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 173-181, 186-199.
Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, pp. 206-213, 221-238.
Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Genesis 37, 39-41” (handout).
Robert Alter, “The Techniques of Repetition,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 88-113.
Robert Alter, “Narration and Knowledge,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 155-177.
Edward L. Greenstein, “An Equivocal Reading of the Sale of Joseph.”.
Gary A. Rendsburg, “Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative.”
Meir Sternberg, “The Structure of Repetition,” in The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 394-400, 423-427.

Week Ten: Literary Devices in Legal and Cultic Material

While the great majority of our course is devoted to narrative prose, we should not lose sight of the fact that even within the relatively ‘dry’ presentation of the legal and cultic material, the biblical authors made every effort to utilize literary techniques whenever possible. We will look at a sampling of such texts and note the use of repetition with variation (already noted above) along with the presence of alliteration in the material, befitting the oral-aural quality of ancient literature.

Week Eleven: Joshua 2 – The Story of Rahab; Judges 4-5 – The Story of Deborah and Yael

At this point in the course we leave the Torah and look at narrative texts in the historical books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. In particular, we will read the two new narratives of Rahab in Joshua 2 and of Deborah and Yael in Judges 4-5. These stories grant us the opportunity to consider once again the role of women in biblical narratives. In addition, we will read some poetry for the first time in the course, comparing and contrasting the presentations of Deborah and Yael in the prose account in Judges 4 and in the poetic version in Judges 5. The number one poetic technique to be discussed is parallelism, which serves as the guiding principle in ancient Hebrew poetry.

Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Joshua 2” (handout).
Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Judges 4” (handout).
Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “The Guardian at the Door: Rahab,” in Reading the Women of the Bible, pp. 34-44.
Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Warriors by Weapon and Word: Deborah and Yael,” in Reading the Women of the Bible, pp. 45-57.
Adele Berlin, “Reading Biblical Poetry,” in The Jewish Study Bible, pp. 2097-2104.

Week Twelve: 2 Samuel 11-12 – The Story of David and Bathsheba

We now turn our attention to the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11-12, which many readers of the Bible consider the ‘crown jewel’ of all biblical narrative texts. Our detailed reading will allow us to consider many of the devices already surveyed, along with several new techniques not previously encountered, most significantly, the ‘gap’.

Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of 2 Samuel 11-12” (handout).
Everett Fox, Give Us a King!, pp. 197-210.
Robert Alter, The David Story, pp. 249-264.
Adele Berlin, “Character and Characterization,” in Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, pp. 23-42.
Robert Alter, “Characterization and the Art of Reticence,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, pp. 114-130.
Meir Sternberg, “Gaps, Ambiguity and the Reading Process,” in The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 186-229.

Week Thirteen: The Book of Ruth

Our final narrative text is a self-standing unit within the Bible, the book of Ruth. The chapter in Adele Berlin’s book will serve as our guide, as we take all that we have learned in the course and apply the lessons to a close reading of this masterful tale.

Gary A. Rendsburg “Translation of Ruth” (handout).
Adele Berlin, “Poetics in the Book of Ruth,” in Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, pp. 83-110.

Week Fourteen: The Song of Songs

We end the course with a second look at a poetic text, in this case, the ‘crown jewel’ of all biblical poetry, the book of Song of Songs. We will read the poem as originally intended by its author, that is, as a piece of secular love poetry, before it received the multiple layers of religious and theological readings within the Jewish and Christian traditions. The one final literary device to be introduced at this point is the use of wordplay, by which a single word or phrase can be understood in more than one way at the same time.

Robert Alter, “The Song of Songs: An Ode to Intimacy.”
Gary A. Rendsburg, “Word Play in Biblical Hebrew: An Eclectic Collection.”

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