Linked with Tiere sind weder Menschen noch Waren, and with Departement of Biblical Studies, Univ. Fribourg (Switzerland).
He says « I wrote someplace that the Bible doesn’t really have that much about sex, despite the obsession of various Christians with trying to stop people from having it. However, there is one book that seems to be about nothing else but, and that is this one. In the history of the church, the erotic elements of this book have been interpreted as being praise of Solomon’s favorite wife, about God’s love of Israel, the relation of a student to wisdom itself, and so on. Over the last 200 years or so, the natural understanding of the text has regained ascendancy ». (see Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs, A Continental Commentary, Fortress Press, 1994, 290 pages).
Othmar Keel – Switzerland
Keel’s contribution is an extensive analysis of love poetry in related cultures as well as an examination of many drawings, carvings, and so on.
The book reproduces over a 100 line drawings of these images and it serves to provide background and perspective on various images in the Song of Songs. He pays considerable attention to trying to reconstruct the way that various metaphores are used, thus we find images like « Your neck is like the tower of David » jarring because we use comparisons for shape and size. But Hebrew uses comparisons for function, so « to speak with the neck » is to speak with pride. (See on jpnordin.com).
Four studies included in this volume demonstrate the impact of Hellenism on Judaean events and texts of the second century B.C.E., where thus far no such influence was supposed. The first three studies focus on aspects of Daniel 7 and Antiochus’s attack on Jerusalem. The fourth concentrates on 1 Maccabees 2. (See dovebook).
Books in english on queertheory.com.
livres en français chez Amazon.fr.
Othmar Keel (*1937) studierte Theologie, Exegese und altorientalische Religions- und Kunstgeschichte in Zürich, Freiburg (CH), Rom, Jerusalem und Chicago. Von 1969-2002 Professor für Altes Testament und Biblische Umwelt an der (Schweizer) Universität Freiburg.
Wichtige Veröffentlichungen: Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament (Zürich/Neukirchen 1972, 5. Aufl. 1996); Das Hohelied (Zürich 1986); Corpus der Stempelsiegel aus Palästina/Israel von den Anfängen bis zur Perserzeit. Einleitung und Katalog Band I Freiburg CH/Göttingen 1995 und 1997); gemeinsam mit Christoph Uehlinger: Altorientalische Miniaturkunst (Mainz/Freiburg CH 1990, 2. Aufl 1996); Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole. Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen. (Siehe Bibel-Orient-Museum).
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