Between sensual and heavenly love: Franz Rosenzweig's reading of the Song of Songs

Paul Mendes-Flohr

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206575.003.0019

Between sensual and heavenly love: Franz Rosenzweig's reading of the Song of Songs

Paul Mendes-Flohr^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Jewish Thought

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

This chapter examines how Franz Rosenzweig read and responded to the Song of Songs' juxtaposition of love and death. Rosenzweig viewed the erotic imagery of the Song of Songs as the most eloquent statement in the Hebrew Bible on the meaning of revelation, of the divine-human relation. Indeed, he refers to this love-song as the Kernbuch der Offenbarung, the focal-book of revelation. Yet God is not once mentioned, nor even alluded to, in this dialogue between a man and a woman, testifying to the physical delights and anguish of their mutual love.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Scriptural Exegesis
Subtitle of host publication	The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination Essays in Honour of Michael Fishbane
Publisher	Oxford University Press
ISBN (Electronic)	9780191709678
ISBN (Print)	9780199206575
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206575.003.0019
State	Published - 1 May 2009

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© John Wilson Foster 2009. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Death
Franz Rosenzweig
Kernbuch der offenbarung
Love
Song of songs

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10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206575.003.0019

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Between sensual and heavenly love: Franz Rosenzweig's reading of the Song of Songs

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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