Quiz 023

Episode 23 Quiz

Welcome to the quiz for Episode 23: Love. Desire. Exegesis. See how much you can remember about the Song of Songs by clicking “START” below!

1 / 10

One of the Song of Songs’ most pervasive features is:

The use of polysyndeton from end to end.

A parallel structure in which a lover proposes a union and another lover rejects the union.

The use of chiasmus from end to end.

A parallel structure in which unions between lovers are likened to unions between state agencies.

A pair of lovers offering itemized lists of one another's features.

2 / 10

The Song of Songs is traditionally attributed to:

Solomon

Baruch

Samson

Daniel

David

3 / 10

The traditional Jewish interpretation of the Song of Songs has been that:

It is a coded update to Leviticus, specifying more laws for sacred offerings.

It captures Jerusalem's harmonious relations with Ecbatana and Susa during the Persian period.

It is about the impassioned love between Yahweh and the Israelites.

It is about a temple priestess and Levite who lived during the days of Nehemiah.

It is about Alexander of Macedon and the Bactrian princess, Roxana.

4 / 10

Exegesis means:

The preservation of a material text

Distortion

Interpretation

Transition

Discovering the roots of a text

5 / 10

A frequent interpretation of the line “My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept” (1:6) is:

This line may describe the shifting economy of Persian period Jerusalem.

The line might be about the female speaker's unkempt hair.

The line might describe the male speaker falling away from his discipline.

This line may reference the male speaker betraying his ancestry.

This line may describe the female speaker's loss of chastity.

6 / 10

Modern readers of the Song of Songs are often struck by its strange

Blend of Hittite and Akkadian

Denial of Yahweh's power

References to a mysterious dark force

Metaphors

References to the Roman Emperor Diocletian

7 / 10

The traditional Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs has been that:

The poem prophecies a coming period when all will set aside their differences and unite under the teachings of Jesus.

The poem is a dialogue between the Father and the Son.

The poem is about Paul's missionary work at Ephesus.

The poem captures the passionate relationship between Christ and his followers.

The poem is a dialogue between Joseph and Mary.

8 / 10

The Song of Songs was probably written:

Before the Babylonian Captivity.

Before the Bronze Age Collapse.

During the Persian or Hellenistic periods.

After the Roman Imperial period began.

During the Babylonian Captivity.

9 / 10

There are extensive parallels between the Song of Songs and:

A Hittite stele discovered at Hattusa called H147, thought to be written by Suppiluliuma.

The domestic records on Sennacherib's prism.

Retenu poetry dated to the 7th-century BCE.

Ancient Egyptian love poems in a 13th-century BCE manuscript called Papyrus Harris 500.

A recently discovered Akkadian version of the Epic of Ishtar and Tammuz.

10 / 10

This Hellenistic Greek writer’s description of a lover, “They call [you] a gypsy, gracious [love], and lean, and sun-burnt, [it’s] only I that call [you] honey-pale,” may help us understand the Song of Songs’ enigmatic line “I am black and beautiful. . .Do not gaze at me because I am dark, / because the sun has gazed on me.”

Theocritus

Callimachus

Eratosthenes

Apollonius

Theophrastus

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