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Love in the Ancient World and Love in Ours

What the Song of Songs can tell us

Love in the Ancient World and Love in Ours

In the Bible, which has surprisingly little to say about human love and even less to say about passion and sexual desire, the Song of Songs is an unusual book. God is not explicitly mentioned and the book is filled with expressions of human love, not to mention overtly sexual metaphors, that make it seem something of an interloper. This talk will explore how the Song of Songs’ use of love language makes it distinct from much of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, what it can tell us about love in the ancient world, and why this matters.

Martien Halvorsen-Taylor is associate professor and associate chair in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. She is the author of the book Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible and is working on a commentary on the Song of Songs, along with other projects dealing with wisdom, gender and sexuality in the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Halvorsen-Taylor has degrees from Yale and Harvard universities, and is a sought after public speaker and popular undergraduate teacher.

Admission is free.

Sponsored By
CLU Religion Department

Contact

Sam Thomas
sthomas@callutheran.edu
805-493-3693

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