The Song of Solomon (Canticles) has captured the imagination of Jewish and Xtian theologians for 2000 years. The overt eroticism and choppy storyline have led exegetes to assume some mystical symbolism in the love story. They are right in this but not as they expect. So whats up.
Aramaic,Persian and Greek words and idiom date the S of S to the 5th-2nd centuries BC. This of course means no "Solomon" was involved in it's final compilation. I said compilation because thats what it is, a mosaic of cultic liturgies and songs from ancient Palestine artificially synthesized into a single narrative set at the mythical times of Solomon.
The book itself is called a "ritual song" or Zarir at 2:12. This is the word used to describe the fertility rite liturgies of tammuz/Ishtar. Fertility cults of ancient Palestine and elsewhere involved the courtship and consummation of goddesss and god of fertility. These stories/songs when reinacted or sung were hoped to "inspire" the deities to "get busy" ensuring the productivity of the land and herds. There are abundant cue that this book was stitched together from fertility rite songs. The references to pomegranates,apple trees,lilies,wine, etc. are references to fertility goddess imagery of the time. The title "beloved" (5:9)was the title proper of Dod aka Tammuz the god restored to life thru union with Ishtar.
Language typical of descriptions of the deities like having breasts like towers and nose like a tower and "leaping upon the mountains (2:8) betray the origin of the story. The "maiden's" appearance like the Dawn, moon and sun (6:10) again make the identification to the godesses certain. The description of the appearance being as "pillars of smoke from the wilderness" (3:6) seems an obvious phallic reference to those who are familiar with the symbolism of pillars.To top this all off we have the very name of the female character as the Shulammite maiden who is black (1:5). The Queen of Saba (godess) called the "Black Shulammite" an we have uncovered votive figurines that depict the lovely godesss as dark skinned. It was from images of her that the "Black Madonna" was derived. The Black Shulammite goddess was called the "Bride of the walled scented Garden" the very description of her in S of S (4:12-16).
The title Shepard King is that of fertility god Tammuz. This then BTW makes the identity to Solomon silly as we can not imagine the glorious Israelite king herding sheep. Thee is no way to honestly separate the characters as the WT has done making a triangle of a King a Shepard and a Maiden. They and others have done this to recycle the story as a"prophecy" about themselves and to retain the semblance of historicity.
What we have then is an amalgum of ancient fertility songs woven together very late and attributed to the time of a quasihistorical King. Ironically the stories would have had great cultic meaning to a king of the reputed time of Solomon.
Song of Solomon/Tammuz
by peacefulpete 18 Replies latest watchtower bible
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peacefulpete
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stillajwexelder
From my background reading and my love of history I would say what you have written sounds about right
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Narkissos
In view of the linguistical elements pointing to a very late creation, the hypothesis of a mythological synthesis including Canaanite (Baal/Anat), Babylonian (Tammuz/Ishtar) or even Greek (Dionysos/Aphrodites) features seems to be the best...
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Leolaia
I agree, but I think it's much more complex than that. Basically, I view the work as a marriage liturgy rooted in a Canaanite tradition about the deities Shalem and Shalmat who in one stream of tradition were historicized as Solomon and his bride and in another conflated and syncretized with Baal-Hadad (from which Addu or Dod derives) aka Tammuz (cf. Dumuzi, the dying-rising god) as the bridegroom and Athtart aka Ishtar as the bride, and then both streams of tradition were combined in the Song of Solomon. But originally in Canaanite myth, Baal-Hadad was quite distinct from Shalem, and similarly Athtart was separate from Shalmat. But we see the conflation at work in Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian texts, and thus I see no reason why a similar process wasn't at work in Israel and Judah in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. and continued in post-exilic times.
I agree that the Song of Solomon is lingusitically very late, especially in the use of words of Sanskrit and Persian derivation (e.g. prds < Avestan pairidaeza "enclosure", 'prywz < Sanskrit paryanka "couch bed"; cf. also 'hlwz, qnmwz, nrd, krkm), as well as Greek (cf. kpr < Greek kupros in 1:14; 4:13). The linguistic and allusional evidence also supports a northern provenience. The uniform use of the relative -sh for 'shr is characteristic of narratives of Ephraimite origin (cf. Judges 5:7, 6:17, 7:12, 8:26; 2 Kings 6:11) and resembles the neighboring dialect of Phoenicia, where the relative was 'sh. The poet also alludes most frequently and vividly to localities in the north (e.g. Hermon, Senir, the Tower of Lebanon, Damascus, Carmel, Baal-hamon, etc.) that suggests an origin in or near Lebanon. If this is the case, this would strengthen the case that the poem alludes to local Phoenician/Canaanite deities.
Shalman is the Assyrian version of Canaanite Shalem, and both names refer to the god of dusk (cf. Akkadian shulum "sunset") -- specifically the evening manifestation of the planet Venus, who was the twin brother of Shahar (= Assyrian Shahru) "Dawn," who is referred to in Isaiah 14:12. The connection between Shalem and Solomon is most apparent in the tradition about Solomon building the Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Long before Jerusalem became the Judean capital, the site or district was known as a sacred area to Shalem; the name Urusalimmu is known from texts as early as the 19th century B.C. which in Canaanite means "Founded by Shalem," and likely the site had been home to a shrine to Shalem for hundreds of years on Mount Zion. It was only when Yahwist priests replaced Shalem with Yahweh as the deity residing on Mount Zion that Shalem/Shalman became historicized as the human founder of the Temple at the site. That shades of Shalem are found throughout the Solomon tradition can be found in the fact that Solomon's brother is also named after Shalem (cf. Absalom "Shalem is father"), and Shalem is associated with a priest-king in Genesis 14:18 whose name Melchizedek ("Zedek is king") contains the same priestly suffix -zdq "righteous" as the high priest in the time of both David and Solomon (cf. 2 Samuel 20:25; 1 Kings 4:4). The Ugaritic myth of Shalem and Shahar also relates that they founded cities on "barren hilltops," just like Jerusalem:
"I would call on the gracious gods [Shahar and Shalem] and beautiful, sons of [Asherah and Womb], who have provided a city on high (ytnm.qrt.l'ly[]), [...] in the steppe-land, on the barren hilltops" (KTU 1.23 R 1-4).
If there was a historical Solomon at all, I would view him as a devotee of Shalem (and named after Shalem) who possibly rebuilt or improved the pre-existing temple at the site. But there is one other critical text to consider: according to the article on Shalem in the DDD (Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible), there is an Assyrian inscription that refers to Shalman's consort Shalmanitu as the "Ishtar of Jerusalem". This furnishes explicit evidence of the cult of Shalem in Jerusalem and the worship of Shalmanitu (or Shalmat in West Semitic). This leads me to suspect that what we have in the Song of Solomon is a conflation of northern Shalem traditions and a southern kingly tradition about Solomon and Jerusalem.
The Song of Solomon does not name the bridegroom outright but allusions to Solomon (slmh; the LXX assumes Heb. slmwn, which resembles the Assyrian form of Shalem) abound (e.g. 1:1, 5, 7; 3:7, 9, 11; 8:11-12), and the bride being "the maid of Shulamit" (swlmyt; cf. 6:13-7:1) clearly evokes the name Shalmat/Shalmanitu. The name is a slightly disguised form of the feminine form of Solomon (slmh + yt, the feminine ending), the "Solomoness," just as "Judith" is the feminine form of "Judah". In this vein, I would like to draw your attention to the Ugaritic marriage liturgy of El with Asherah and Raham ("Womb"), which results in the birth of the "gracious and beautiful gods" of Shahar and Shalem. The resemblance between this Canaanite poem and the Song of Solomon is quite striking. Take a look at this text:
"The lord and master sat enthroned, in his hand the staff of sterility, in his hand the staff of widowhood. Those who prune the vine pruned him, those who bind the vine bound him, they let his tendril fall like a vine. Now the steppe, the vast steppe, is the steppe of Asherah and Womb.... Let El's penis grow as long as the sea, yes El's penis as the ocean.... The two wives are the wives of El, the wives of El, and forever. He stooped, their lips kissed. Oh how sweet were their lips, as sweet as pomegranates; from kissing came conception, from embracing impregnation.... Both of them crouched and gave birth of Shahar and Shalem." (KTU 1.23 R 8-10; V 34, 48-53)
Here we find the trope comparing body parts (El's penis, the goddess' lips, El's tendrils) to natural or geographical features (cf. Cant. 4:1-5; 7:2-9), and likening the sweetness of lips to pomegranates recalls the language in Cant. 1:2; 4:3, 11; 7:10. According to Dennis Pardee, the mythological context of the marriage liturgy relates to agricultural motifs: Shahar and Shalem were not gods of fertility and bounty but rather voracious consumers of agricultural bounty -- whose own voraciousness could provoke storages and famine. Pardee believes the liturgy was part of a Canaanite precursor of the Feast of Booths (Sukkot), a harvest-time festival where Shahar and Shalem were satiated and where separate dwellings for the "gods" were set up as booths on the roof of the Temple of El. It is interesting that Leviticus 23:42-43 connects the Feast of Booths with the nomadic wilderness traditions of the Israelites, just as how Shahar and Shalem are banished to the wilderness because of their voraciousness, where they had to "dwell as aliens among the stones and trees for seven full years ... the gracious gods went to and fro on the steppe, they roamed the edge of the desert" (KTU 1.23 V 65-68).
In the Assyrian period, Shalmanitu/Shalmat was identified with Ishtar/Athtart (Sumerian Inanna) and Shalman/Shalem was identified with Hadad/Dod and Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi), with Shalmanitu for instance being called the "Ishtar of Jerusalem". The Dumuzi-Inanna couple was also the subject of a sacred marriage liturgy which related to the New Year festival. The Sumerian version of the liturgy shows an even greater similarity with Song of Solomon:
"My dear, my dear, my honey of the mother who bore her, my sappy vine, my honey-sweet, my mellifluous mouth of her mother. Your eyes -- their gaze delights me, come my beloved sister! Your mouth -- its utterance delights me, my honey-sweet mellifluous mouth of her mother, your lips -- their kiss delights me, come my beloved sister! My sister, your barley, it's beer is delicious, my mellifluous mouth of her mother.... My beloved, the man of my heart, oh my brother of beautiful eyes! My brother, I will make you take an oath, oh my brother of beautiful eyes! Your right hand on my nakedness should be placed, your left hand on my head should be laid." (TCOS, 1.169; cf. Ni 2489 = SRT 31; written ca. 2100-1800 B.C.)
Like the Song of Solomon, we here have both the bride and the bridegroom describing each other in turn, and the language is in places almost verbatim in resemblance to the Hebrew text. Thus, in Cant. 6:8 the bride is said to be "the darling of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her," in Cant. 2:10, 13 we have a beckoning for "my love, my lovely one" to come, in Cant. 4:9, 8:1 and throughout the work the lovers address each other as brother and sister, and in Cant. 2:6; 8:3 the bride says that "his left arm is under my head and his right arm embraces me". It thus seems likely that in Song of Solomon we have some residue of the Inanna-Duzumi (i.e. Ishtar-Tammuz) liturgical traditions mixed with the Shalmat-Shalem (and maybe the El-Asherah) traditions.
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Narkissos
Leolaia:
Very interesting!
So in Ugarit Shahar and Shalem are actually not twins but half-brothers from two different mothers, (respectively?) Asherah and Raham (I had missed that point).
Leaving the Song of Solomon for a moment (your reconstitution makes a lot of sense), I can't help trying to bring this information into Psalm 110:3 as referring to the divine begetting (actually, childbearing, for the images are feminine) of the Jerusalem king.
One possible reading would be:
`immkha nedivoth beyôm cholelkha / beharare qodesh, meracham (mi)shachar / ketal yelidtikha...
To you the virtue in the day of your birth / on the holy mountains, from Womb (Raham) from/of Dawn (Shahar) / like Dew (Tal) I gave birth to you...
It's difficult to appreciate the variation in details between Ugarit's and Jerusalem's traditions (was Raham portrayed as the mother of Shahar? was Shahar substituted for Asherah?), yet the similarities seem pretty obvious...
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metatron
If I've never said so before, Leolaia, your posts are very impressive.
I'd love to see you do one on the pagan archetype of a dragon or primordial monster
slain by a chief god. There's some very strange stuff in the Bible about this (Rahab)
metatron
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Leolaia
metatron.....I was going to do one on Rahab in fact fairly soon, as soon as these other threads peter out.....Hey Narkissos and PP, didn't you guys see my post last night in the Aqhat thread? There's no new comment in the thread, and I found some really intriguing stuff last night on a connection between Elisha and Danel....check it out.
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peacefulpete
Unbelievable. That's fantastic. Does anyone know more about this Queen of Saba? In my limited library I have only found that she was a goddess and that she was reprseetned as black. I'm assuming that she was the region's namesake.
There are numerous online sites that cconnect Saba with Sheba, is this correct? Is this then somhow conneted to the Queen of Sheba OT legend? One source said that Jewish mythology had Solomon suspecting that the Q of Sheba was in fact Lilith because she had hairy legs. I just thought I'd thro that in for fun. -
Blueblades
Does anyone know who penned the song, The Shulammite Remnant, song number # 1.Its classified under the section, Jesus Christ, in the back of the song book.The writer is connecting the 144,000 as the shulammite, and Jesus as the shepherd.
From what I have read here, its all the writer's great imagination.I think the song is sung during the memorial.
Blueblades
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peacefulpete
BB..No I don't know who wrote that kingdom melody. The allegorical language has traditionally been interpreted as a cryptic reference to Israel as the maiden and YHWH being the lover. Xtians of course identify their sect as the maiden with jesus as the lover. Neither of course reflects the meaning of the actual material. Perhaps the late compiler (possibly as late as 200BC) of the fertility/wedding liturgies had some intention of reapplying the ancient songs to the people politically, who knows.