Michael V. Fox

An excellent analysis of ancient Egyptian love songs and the Song of Songs (=Song of Solomon, Canticles).

Fox presents his translations and comments on ancient Egyptian love songs and the Song of Songs. He compares and contrasts them, showing how they are part of the same genre yet reflect many differences based on distinctions in culture. He addresses the time, setting, and cultural contexts of the Egyptian love songs and the Song of Songs, along with societal function, the literary themes present, and how love and sexuality are expressed in them. The appendices include images from Egypt relevant to the love songs, an Egyptian concordance for the love songs, and the transcription of the Egyptian texts.

This is an excellent book demonstrating the larger ancient Near Eastern context for both the love songs and the Song of Solomon. While some of Fox's conclusions about dating and individual translation decisions could be challenged, his overall presentation of the parallels between the Egyptian songs and the Song of Solomon is sound and worthy of consideration.

An important work in contexualizing the Song of Songs and to better understand what it is designed to reflect-- the rhapsodizing of young love.… (més)

An excellent analysis of Ecclesiastes, making sense of the message within the context of Near Eastern wisdom literature yet displaying the Preacher's developments and difficulties.

This book is designed for those who have a working knowledge of Hebrew and a fairly decent handle on scholarly terms and concepts. The first section of the book is Fox's discussion of key terms and concepts in the book, the Preacher's contradictions, his understanding of wisdom, and the essential meaning of the book. The second section is Fox's translation and commentary on the Hebrew text, with additional discussions of the role of the epilogist, the meaning of the "times" in Ecclesiastes 3 and the meaning of Ecclesiastes 12:2-7.

I appreciate how Prof. Fox tries to make the best sense of the text as it is and the message as presented; emendations are reserved for the times when the Hebrew seems nonsensical or ungrammatical. His perspective on the Preacher is refreshing-- he does not see the Preacher as being antagonistic toward wisdom, but instead is working out his dismay at the ultimate absurdity of life, justice, the pursuit of pleasure, and so on in a world where everyone dies regardless.

Prof. Fox also makes many intriguing connections between the Preacher's message and perspective with modern existentialism, making many parallels between Ecclesiastes and Camus, especially The Myth of Sisyphus. While Fox does show that there is not precise parallelism between the two, it would seem that the Preacher has come upon a version of existentialism long before our own day. The translation of "hebel" as "absurd" is well-defended and reflects the Preacher's idea much better than "vanity," the common translation in English.

A most excellent resource that should be considered in any study of any depth into Ecclesiastes.… (més)

An excellent analysis of the book of Esther, including the text, textual history, and the characters involved.

The book consists of an introduction, commentary on the text, discussion of historicity, genre, and style, character analysis, analysis of the textual history and different versions of the text, more technical philological notes, and, in the second edition, an update on Esther scholarship in the past decade.

Fox does not believe that the events happened but upholds the author's desire for the book to be read as if it is history. Fox provides a good counterweight to the often anti-semitic and hostile views taken against the book-- he shows how the author attempts to show how the Jews (and, really, any minority people) can try to live, function, and perhaps even their way a few times, within a gentile empire. The analyses of the characters are probing and excellent, and Fox does well at redeeming the book from the harsh criticism of the feminists.

An invaluable resource to help in understanding the book of Esther.… (més)