Scrolls of Love : Reading Ruth and the Song of Songs

Scrolls of Love is a book of unions. Edited by a Jew and a Christian who are united by a shared passion for the Bible and a common literary hermeneutic, it joins two biblical scrolls and gathers around them a diverse community of interpreters. It brings together Ruth and the Song of Songs, two seemingly disparate texts of the Hebrew Bible, and reads them through a number of the methodological and theological perspectives. Respectful of traditional biblical scholarship, the collection of essays moves beyond it; alert to contemporary trends, the volume returns venerable interpretive tradition to center stage. Most significantly, it is interfaith. Despite the fact that Jews and Christians share a common text in the Hebrew Scripture, the two communities have read their Bibles in isolation from one another, in ignorance of the richness of the other's traditions of reading. Scrolls of Love brings the two traditions into dialogue, enriching established modes of interpretation with unconventional ones. The result is a volume that sets rabbinic, patristic, and medieval readings alongside feminist, psychoanalytic, and autobiographical ones, combining historical, literary, and textual criticism with a variety of artistic reinterpretations―wood cuts and paper cuts, poetry and fiction. Some of the works are scholarly, with the requisite footnotes to draw readers to further inquiry: others are more reflective than analytic, allowing readers to see what it means to live intimately with Scripture. As a unity, the collection presents Ruth and Song of Songs not only as ancient texts that deserve to be treasured but as old worlds capable of begetting the new. Introduction / Peter S. Hawkins And Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg -- All That You Say, I Will Do : A Sermon On The Book Of Ruth / Ellen F. Davis -- Beginning With Ruth : An Essay On Translating / Ellen F. Davis -- Subverting The Biblical World : Sociology And Politics In The Book Of Ruth / André Lacocque -- The Book Of Ruth As Comedy : Classical And Modern Perspectives / Nehama Aschkenasy -- Transfigured Night : Midrashic Readings Of The Book Of Ruth / Judith A. Kates -- Dark Ladies And Redemptive Compassion : Ruth And The Messianic Lineage In Judaism / Nehemia Polen -- Ruth Amid The Gentiles / Peter S. Hawkins -- Ruth Speaks In Yiddish : The Poetry Of Rosa Yakubovitsh And Itsik Manger / Kathryn Hellerstein -- Printing The Story : The Bible In Etchings, Engravings, And Woodcuts / Margaret Adams Parker -- Translating Eros / Chana Bloch -- I Am Black And Beautiful / André Lacocque -- Reading The Song Iconographically / Ellen F. Davis -- Unresolved And Unresolvable : Problems In Interpreting The Song / Marc Brettler -- Entering The Holy Of Holies : Rabbinic Midrash And The Language Of Intimacy / Judith A. Kates -- Intradivine Romance : The Song Of Songs In The Zohar / Arthur Green -- The Love Song Of The Millennium : Medieval Christian Apocalyptic And The Song Of Songs / E. Ann Matter -- Monastic Reading And Allegorical Sub/versions Of Desire / Mark Burrows -- The Female Voice : Hildegard Of Bingen And The Song Of Songs / Margot Fassler -- The Harlot And The Giant : Dante And The Song Of Songs / Lino Pertile -- In The Absence Of Love / Carey Ellen Walsh -- Song? Songs? Whose Song? : Reflections Of A Radical Reader / Carole R. Fontaine -- Honey And Milk Underneath Your Tongue : Chanting A Promised Land / Jacqueline Osherow -- Where Has Your Beloved Gone? : The Song Of Songs In Contemporary Israeli Poetry / Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg. Edited By Peter S. Hawkins And Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 331-367) And Indexes. For more than a generation, the University of Dayton has invited a prominent. Catholic intellectual to present the annual Marianist Award Lecture on the general theme of the encounter of faith and profession. Over the years, the lectures have become central to the Catholic conversation about church, culture, politics, and society.In this book, ten leading figures explore the connections in their own lives between the private realms of faith and their public calling as teachers, scholars, and intellectuals. This last decade of Marianist Lectures brings together theologians and philosophers, historians, and anthropologists, academic scholars, and lay intellectuals and critics.Here are Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., on the tensions between faith and theology in his career; Jill Ker Conway on the spiritual dimensions of memory and personal narrative; Mary Ann Glendon on the roots of human rights in Catholic social teaching; Mary Douglas on the fruitful dialogue between religion and anthropology in her own life; Peter Steinfels on what it really means to be a "liberal Catholic"; and Margaret O'Brien Steinfels on the complicated history of women in today's church. From Charles Taylor and David Tracy on the fractured relationship between Catholicism and modernity to Gustavo Gutierrez on the enduring call of the poor and Marcia Colish on the historic links between the church and intellectual freedom, these essays track a decade of provocative, illuminating, and essential thought. Respectful of traditional biblical scholarship, this collection of essays aims to move beyond it. It brings together two communities that have read their Bibles in isolation from one another, in ignorance of the richness of the other's traditions