The Human Truth Foundation

Shir Hashirim / Solomon's Song of Songs / Canticle of Canticles / Aisma Aismaton

http://www.humanreligions.info/song_of_songs.html

By Vexen Crabtree 2012

This is a collection of love poems1,2, often erotic, and it is often hard to see how it is has religious value2,3. There is no mention of God in the text3 and there are historical signs that the Song is actually a result of the worship of a pagan God, Tammuz, and his lover, Ishtar Shalmith ('the Shulamite')4, which makes sense given that Ezek. 8:14 warns that Tammuz is worshipped in Jerusalem4.

The author(s) of the poems are unknown5, and the Song is not referenced at all in the New Testament3. As with all songs, it is possible to attach emotions in various ways and attain a range of meanings from the lyrics and as such many apologists explain that the "love" is not physical but is about God´s love for humankind (etc), but, this does not account for many of the directly vulgar and consistently base writing in the Song. Jewish leaders said young people should not read this book until they were thirty because of its unspiritual nature3

This book [is] a love poem, an epithalamium, sung on nuptial occasions in praise of the bride and the groom.

"The Woman's Bible" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898)3


1. The 8 chapters of Song of Solomon (117 verses)