Chapter 8
verse 5
8:5 under the apple tree I awakened you
(29) p 267-268 in the resent Hebrew text, the woman is the speaker and the man the addressee. Many exegete (e.g., Rudolph, Krinetzki) change the masculine suffixes for “you” to feminine forms, because “the claim by a woman that she has ‘awakened’ the man’s love would, however, be extraordinary, particularly in an ancient Near Eastern poem” (Krinetzki). But it is primarily in the context of the pervasive patriarchalism of the world of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that the claim would be found problematic, where one could imagine an initiative by the woman only as an example of sinful seduction. But this paternalistic view, reserving all initiative to the man, was less obvious in the ancient Near East, where goddesses actively courted their admirers. Some of that feminine activism remains in the OT. The Song often depicts the woman as remarkably active.
Under the apple tree I roused you;
(the five megolith) p. 30 in the east, childbirth in the open air was not uncommon
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