I. Introduction: Eros Brutalized into Allegory
The Song of Songs—שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים (Shir HaShirim, "Song of Songs," literally "the greatest of songs"), also called שִׁיר (Shir, "Song") or שִׁיר שֶׁלֹּמֹה (Shir Shelomo, "Song of Solomon")—stands as the Hebrew Bible's most explicitly erotic text: an eight-chapter collection of sensual love poetry celebrating physical desire, sexual longing, bodily beauty, and mutual passion between a woman and her beloved. Composed possibly in the post-exilic period (fifth-fourth century BCE) though attributed to Solomon, this literary masterpiece employs sophisticated garden imagery, bold metaphors for bodies and desire, and most radically, centers a female voice who actively pursues, desires, and celebrates her lover with unashamed eroticism. Yet Christian theology—particularly in its purity culture, allegorical spiritualization, and patriarchal "biblical marriage" manifestations—has performed perhaps the most grotesque hermeneutical violence in the entire canon on this text, transforming explicit erotic poetry celebrating embodied sexual pleasure into a fucking allegory about Christ's love for the Church, weaponizing it for purity culture's sexual shame theology, colonizing the woman's voice for submissive "bride of Christ" imagery, and brutally suppressing the text's radical celebration of female sexual agency and desire.
Christian Dominionism and prosperity gospel movements have participated in this violence by spiritualizing the text's intimacy language into metaphors for Christians' "intimacy with God" that produces spiritual blessing and breakthrough—transforming mutual erotic delight into individualistic mysticism serving conquest theology. Meanwhile, evangelical purity culture has performed breathtaking distortion by simultaneously claiming Song of Songs validates sexual pleasure within marriage while weaponizing it to control, shame, and suppress actual sexuality (especially female sexuality) through rigid "biblical sexuality" frameworks that would make the text's unashamed eroticism vomit. The centuries-long Christian allegorical tradition—reading every kiss, every caress, every celebration of breasts and thighs as "really about" Christ and Church or soul and God—represents interpretive violence that refuses to let the text celebrate what it actually fucking celebrates: bodies, pleasure, desire, and the goodness of embodied sexuality.
What makes this theological colonization especially egregious is how systematically it obliterates the text's revolutionary content. Song of Songs presents a female protagonist—the שׁוּלַמִּית (Shulammit, Shulammite woman)—who speaks more than any other character, who pursues her beloved through Jerusalem's streets at night, who celebrates her own dark beauty, who demands her lover come to her, who describes his body with erotic delight, who claims ownership of her own sexuality ("I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine"), and who faces no divine judgment, receives no prophetic rebuke, experiences no punishment for her desire. This is Torah without law, covenant without obligation, sexuality without patriarchal control—just mutual desire, embodied pleasure, and the celebration of eros as inherently good. Christian appropriation has colonized this radical text and brutally suppressed its subversive content to serve patriarchal marriage theology, purity culture's sexual shame, allegorical spiritualization that denies bodies, and prosperity mysticism that weaponizes intimacy language for conquest purposes. This represents supersessionist violence against one of Judaism's most body-positive, erotically celebratory, and female-voiced texts.
II. The Allegorical Tradition and Christianity's Refusal to Let Bodies Be Bodies
The Song's opening verse has suffered immediate allegorization:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים א:ב - יִשָּׁקֵנִי מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת פִּיהוּ כִּי־טוֹבִים דֹּדֶיךָ מִיָּיִן
Song of Songs 1:2 - "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine."
This is explicitly erotic opening: יִשָּׁקֵנִי (yishakeini, "let him kiss me") with נְשִׁיקוֹת פִּיהוּ (neshikot pihu, "kisses of his mouth"). The plural נְשִׁיקוֹת (neshikot, "kisses") intensifies—not just a kiss but kisses, multiple, from the mouth. The declaration that דֹּדֶיךָ (dodekha, "your love/lovemaking") is טוֹבִים...מִיָּיִן (tovim...miyyayin, "better than wine") uses דֹּד (dod), which can mean love, lovemaking, or caresses—physical affection and sexual intimacy. This is desire, longing, the celebration of kisses and physical love.
The Jewish interpretive tradition recognized the text's eroticism while also reading it allegorically. The Mishnah (Yadayim 3:5) records debate about whether Song of Songs "renders the hands unclean" (makes them holy), with Rabbi Akiva declaring: "Heaven forbid!—No man in Israel ever disputed that the Song of Songs renders the hands unclean, for the whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies." The Talmud (Sanhedrin 101a) discusses how it should not be sung in taverns as secular entertainment. The Midrash Rabbah extensively interprets Song of Songs allegorically as depicting the love between YHWH and Israel, between the Holy One and the Jewish people, often connecting specific verses to Exodus events, Torah giving, and covenant moments.
Jewish allegorization, however, maintained several crucial elements that Christian interpretation obliterated:
Jewish tradition never denied the text's literal eroticism—it held both the literal erotic meaning AND the allegorical covenant meaning in creative tension. The Zohar's mystical interpretation explicitly celebrates the text's sexuality as reflecting divine eros within the Godhead itself.
Jewish allegory centered Israel specifically—this was about YHWH's particular covenantal love for the Jewish people, not universal spiritual principles.
Jewish interpretation celebrated the female voice—the Shulammite's bold desire and agency was interpreted as Israel's seeking after God, maintaining female initiative even in allegory.
Christian allegorical tradition, by contrast, committed grotesque violence:
They completely suppressed the text's literal eroticism, refusing to acknowledge that Scripture celebrates embodied sexual pleasure, that it describes breasts and thighs and kisses without shame, that it presents mutual desire as inherently good.
They weaponized allegory to deny bodies: Origen (third century CE) established the Christian allegorical tradition reading Song of Songs as dialogue between Christ (bridegroom) and Church (bride) or between the Word and the individual soul. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote 86 sermons on Song of Songs without ever acknowledging literal sexuality. This is body-denying Platonism colonizing Hebrew Scripture—the claim that the text can't "really" be about bodies because bodies and sexuality are lower realities that must be transcended.
They superseded Israel: Christian allegory claims the "bride" is the Church, not Israel, weaponizing this text for supersessionist theology claiming Christianity has replaced Israel as God's beloved.
They colonized the female voice for patriarchal submission theology: The Shulammite's active desire became the Church's or soul's passive reception of Christ's love, transforming bold female initiative into submissive bridal waiting.
Medieval Christian mysticism weaponized this for individual "spiritual intimacy" disconnected from community, transforming Israel's collective covenant love into privatized religious experience.
Protestant purity culture created monstrous hybrids: claiming Song of Songs "really" validates married sex while simultaneously allegorizin everything erotic, producing theology that says "sex is good" while refusing to let the text actually celebrate sex—every kiss must be about Christ, every embrace about spiritual intimacy.
III. The Shulammite's Voice and Patriarchy's Violent Suppression of Female Sexual Agency
The woman's voice dominates Song of Songs—she speaks first (1:2), speaks most, initiates pursuit, describes her lover's body, and experiences no punishment for her desire. This is revolutionary:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים א:ה-ו - שְׁחוֹרָה אֲנִי וְנָאוָה בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם כְּאָהֳלֵי קֵדָר כִּירִיעוֹת שְׁלֹמֹה׃ אַל־תִּרְאוּנִי שֶׁאֲנִי שְׁחַרְחֹרֶת שֶׁשְּׁזָפַתְנִי הַשָּׁמֶשׁ
Song of Songs 1:5-6 - "I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed on me."
The declaration שְׁחוֹרָה אֲנִי וְנָאוָה (shechorah ani vena'avah, "I am black/dark and beautiful") celebrates dark skin beauty. The conjunction וְ (ve, "and") is critical—some Christian translations render this "but beautiful," implying darkness needs qualification. The Hebrew says "and"—black AND beautiful, both equally true, no contradiction. She's שְׁחַרְחֹרֶת (shecharoret, "darkened") because שֶׁשְּׁזָפַתְנִי הַשָּׁמֶשׁ (sheshezafatni hashemesh, "the sun has gazed/burned me")—she's an outdoor laborer, tanned from sun exposure, celebrating working-class beauty.
The woman actively pursues:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ג:א-ב - עַל־מִשְׁכָּבִי בַּלֵּילוֹת בִּקַּשְׁתִּי אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי בִּקַּשְׁתִּיו וְלֹא מְצָאתִיו׃ אָקוּמָה נָּא וַאֲסוֹבְבָה בָעִיר בַּשְּׁוָקִים וּבָרְחֹבוֹת אֲבַקְשָׁה אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי
Song of Songs 3:1-2 - "Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not. 'I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves.'"
She's in bed at night (עַל־מִשְׁכָּבִי בַּלֵּילוֹת, al-mishkavi balleilot) seeking שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי (she'ahavah nafshi, "him whom my soul loves"). When she doesn't find him, she declares אָקוּמָה (akumah, "I will arise") and אֲסוֹבְבָה בָעִיר (asovevah va'ir, "I will go about the city") through שְּׁוָקִים (shevakim, streets/markets) and רְחֹבוֹת (rechovot, broad places/squares). This is radical: a woman alone at night searching the city for her lover. She encounters the שֹׁמְרִים (shomerim, watchmen) who patrol the city (3:3)—this is dangerous, sexually charged, and completely unashamed.
She describes his body erotically:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ה:י-טז - דּוֹדִי צַח וְאָדוֹם...רֹאשׁוֹ כֶּתֶם פָּז...עֵינָיו כְּיוֹנִים...שְׂפְתוֹתָיו שׁוֹשַׁנִּים...יָדָיו גְּלִילֵי זָהָב...מֵעָיו עֶשֶׁת שֵׁן...שׁוֹקָיו עַמּוּדֵי שֵׁשׁ...חִכּוֹ מַמְתַקִּים וְכֻלּוֹ מַחֲמַדִּים
Song of Songs 5:10-16 - "My beloved is all radiant and ruddy...His head is the finest gold...His eyes are like doves...His lips are lilies...His arms are rounded gold...His body is ivory work...His legs are alabaster columns...His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable."
She catalogs his body from head to שׁוֹקָיו (shokav, "his legs/thighs") with unabashed erotic appreciation. The phrase מֵעָיו עֶשֶׁת שֵׁן (me'av eshet shen, "his body is ivory work") uses מֵעַיִם (me'ayim), which can mean belly, internal organs, or genitals—this is potentially sexually explicit. She concludes: וְכֻלּוֹ מַחֲמַדִּים (vekhullo machamaddim, "he is altogether desirable")—the verb root חָמַד (chamad, "desire") is the same used in the Tenth Commandment's prohibition against coveting, here positively celebrating desire.
She claims agency over her own body:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ח:י - אֲנִי חוֹמָה וְשָׁדַי כַּמִּגְדָּלוֹת אָז הָיִיתִי בְעֵינָיו כְּמוֹצְאֵת שָׁלוֹם
Song of Songs 8:10 - "I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who brings peace."
She declares אֲנִי חוֹמָה (ani chomah, "I am a wall") with breasts (שָׁדַי, shaday) like מִגְדָּלוֹת (migdalot, "towers")—architectural imagery for bodily strength and maturity. She controls access to her sexuality; she determines when to open her "wall."
Patriarchal Christian colonization commits grotesque violence:
They suppress the woman's voice and initiative, either allegorizing it away (making her voice "really" the Church's passive receiving) or ignoring passages showing female sexual agency.
Purity culture weaponizes Song of Songs for "biblical womanhood" by cherry-picking verses while ignoring that the Shulammite pursues her lover, searches for him at night, speaks explicitly about bodies and desire, and experiences no punishment.
They erase her dark skin celebration, either ignoring 1:5-6 or rendering it "but beautiful," unable to tolerate Scripture centering dark-skinned beauty.
They cannot tolerate her describing his body, often allegorizing chapter 5's male body catalog into descriptions of Christ's attributes—refusing to acknowledge a woman's erotic gaze on male bodies.
They weaponize "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine" (6:3) for patriarchal marriage theology while erasing the mutuality and reciprocity—she claims him as much as he claims her, neither submissive nor dominant but equal partners in desire.
Christian "biblical marriage" teaching uses Song of Songs to claim sex within marriage is blessed while simultaneously suppressing everything the text actually says about sex—the pursuit, the risk, the night searches, the explicit body celebration, the lack of procreative purpose (Song of Songs never mentions children, marriage, or fertility—it's purely about desire and pleasure).
IV. The Garden and Vineyard Imagery: Dominionist Prosperity Colonization
Song of Songs extensively employs garden and vineyard imagery that Christian Dominionism and prosperity theology have colonized:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ד:יב-טו - גַּן נָעוּל אֲחֹתִי כַלָּה גַּל נָעוּל מַעְיָן חָתוּם...גַּן מַעְיָן מַיִם חַיִּים וְנֹזְלִים מִן־לְבָנוֹן
Song of Songs 4:12-15 - "A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed...a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon."
The גַּן נָעוּל (gan na'ul, "locked garden") and מַעְיָן חָתוּם (ma'yan chatum, "sealed fountain") employ garden imagery for the woman's body and sexuality. The repetition of נָעוּל (na'ul, "locked") emphasizes she controls access. The shift to גַּן מַעְיָן מַיִם חַיִּים (gan ma'yan mayim chayim, "garden fountain, living waters") celebrates her sexuality's life-giving abundance when opened.
The woman invites:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ד:טז - עוּרִי צָפוֹן וּבוֹאִי תֵימָן הָפִיחִי גַנִּי יִזְּלוּ בְשָׂמָיו יָבֹא דוֹדִי לְגַנּוֹ וְיֹאכַל פְּרִי מְגָדָיו
Song of Songs 4:16 - "Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits."
She summons winds to הָפִיחִי גַנִּי (hafichi ganni, "blow upon my garden") so her lover will come to גַנּוֹ (ganno, "his garden"—she calls it his, offering herself) and יֹאכַל פְּרִי מְגָדָיו (yokhal peri megadav, "eat its choicest fruits"). This is explicit sexual invitation using garden metaphor.
He responds:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ה:א - בָּאתִי לְגַנִּי אֲחֹתִי כַלָּה אָרִיתִי מוֹרִי עִם־בְּשָׂמִי אָכַלְתִּי יַעְרִי עִם־דִּבְשִׁי שָׁתִיתִי יֵינִי עִם־חֲלָבִי
Song of Songs 5:1 - "I come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk."
The verb series—בָּאתִי (bati, "I have come"), אָרִיתִי (ariti, "I have gathered"), אָכַלְתִּי (akhalti, "I have eaten"), שָׁתִיתִי (shatiti, "I have drunk")—describes consummation using food/garden metaphors for sexual pleasure.
Vineyard imagery throughout the text (1:6, 2:15, 7:12, 8:11-12) employs agriculture for sexuality. The woman's brothers made her keeper of vineyards but she hasn't kept her own vineyard (1:6)—possibly referencing her sexuality. The "little foxes that ruin the vineyards" (2:15) threaten love's flourishing.
Christian Dominionist and prosperity gospel colonization:
They spiritualize garden imagery into "intimacy with God" producing spiritual blessing, claiming Christians who cultivate "garden intimacy" through worship and prayer will experience breakthrough—transforming erotic garden metaphor into mystical devotional practice.
Prosperity theology weaponizes "choicest fruits" and "milk and honey" abundance as promises of material blessing, claiming spiritual intimacy produces financial harvest—colonizing sexual pleasure imagery for prosperity promises.
Seven Mountain theology uses vineyard imagery for cultural cultivation, claiming Christians must "tend the vineyard" of culture by placing believers in influential positions—ripping agricultural-sexual metaphor from context and weaponizing it for conquest.
They erase that this is explicitly about bodies and sexual pleasure, refusing to acknowledge Scripture celebrates sexual abundance, sensual delight, and erotic pleasure as inherently good without needing spiritual justification.
"Locked garden" gets weaponized for purity culture's virginity obsession, claiming it mandates female sexual gatekeeping and premarital abstinence—when the text celebrates the woman controlling and then opening her sexuality on her own terms, with no mention of marriage requirements.
V. Mutual Desire and Purity Culture's Asymmetrical Sexual Shame
Song of Songs presents mutual, reciprocal desire—both lovers long for, pursue, and celebrate each other. Yet purity culture weaponizes it asymmetrically:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ז:יא-יג - אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְעָלַי תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ׃ לְכָה דוֹדִי נֵצֵא הַשָּׂדֶה...שָׁם אֶתֵּן אֶת־דֹּדַי לָךְ
Song of Songs 7:10-12 - "I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields...There I will give you my love."
The phrase וְעָלַי תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ (ve'alay teshukkato, "and his desire is for me") uses תְּשׁוּקָה (teshukah, "desire"), the same word from Genesis 3:16 ("your desire shall be for your husband"). Here it's positive—he desires her, she celebrates this, no curse, no punishment. She initiates: לְכָה (lekhah, "come"), inviting him to fields where אֶתֵּן אֶת־דֹּדַי לָךְ (eten et-doday lakh, "I will give you my love")—דֹּדִים (dodim) meaning lovemaking/caresses.
Earlier, he celebrates her body:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ז:ב-ו - שָׁרְרֵךְ אַגַּן הַסַּהַר...בִּטְנֵךְ עֲרֵמַת חִטִּים...שְׁנֵי שָׁדַיִךְ כִּשְׁנֵי עֳפָרִים...מַה־יָּפִית וּמַה־נָּעַמְתְּ אַהֲבָה בַּתַּעֲנוּגִים׃ זֹאת קוֹמָתֵךְ דָּמְתָה לְתָמָר וְשָׁדַיִךְ לְאַשְׁכֹּלוֹת
Song of Songs 7:2-8 - "Your navel is a rounded bowl...Your belly is a heap of wheat...Your two breasts are like two fawns...How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden! You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters."
He describes her שָׁרֵּר (shorer, navel), בֶּטֶן (beten, belly), שָׁדַיִם (shadayim, breasts) with unashamed erotic celebration. He declares מַה־יָּפִית (mah-yafit, "how beautiful") and מַה־נָּעַמְתְּ (mah-na'amt, "how pleasant") she is בַּתַּעֲנוּגִים (batta'anugim, "in delights/pleasures"). Her קוֹמָה (komah, "stature/form") is like a palm tree with breasts like אַשְׁכֹּלוֹת (eshkolot, "clusters" of dates).
He continues:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ז:ט - אָמַרְתִּי אֶעֱלֶה בְתָמָר אֹחֲזָה בְּסַנְסִנָּיו
Song of Songs 7:8 - "I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches."
אֶעֱלֶה (e'eleh, "I will climb") and אֹחֲזָה (ochazah, "I will grasp/take hold") are sexually suggestive—he'll climb her body-as-palm-tree and grasp her breasts-as-branches.
Purity culture's asymmetrical weaponization:
They claim Song of Songs validates sex within marriage while creating rigid frameworks policing all sexuality outside their definitions of marriage, weaponizing celebration of desire for control.
They emphasize male sexual desire as natural while suppressing female desire as dangerous, ignoring that the woman initiates as much as the man, desires as actively, celebrates bodies as explicitly.
They weaponize "his desire is for me" to claim wives should sexually satisfy husbands while ignoring the mutuality—she desires, pursues, and claims her own pleasure with equal agency.
They cannot tolerate the text's pure celebration of bodies and pleasure, needing to add caveats about marriage, procreation, or "appropriate" expression—when Song of Songs never mentions marriage requirements, never mentions having children, purely celebrates desire and pleasure.
They use this to shame single people and police sexuality while the text itself contains no marriage frame—it's unclear if these lovers are married, betrothed, or in an affair. The text doesn't care about social legitimation; it cares about mutual desire and embodied pleasure.
VI. The Brothers and Patriarchal Control
The woman's brothers appear briefly, representing patriarchal family control:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ח:ח-ט - אָחוֹת לָנוּ קְטַנָּה וְשָׁדַיִם אֵין לָהּ...אִם־חוֹמָה הִיא נִבְנֶה עָלֶיהָ טִירַת כָּסֶף וְאִם־דֶּלֶת הִיא נָצוּר עָלֶיהָ לוּחַ אָרֶז
Song of Songs 8:8-9 - "We have a little sister, and she has no breasts...If she is a wall, we will build upon her a battlement of silver; but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar."
The brothers plan to control their sister's sexuality—if she's a חוֹמָה (chomah, "wall," sexually unavailable), they'll reward her with silver battlement; if she's a דֶּלֶת (delet, "door," sexually accessible), they'll נָצוּר (natzur, "barricade/block") her with cedar boards. This is patriarchal family control over female sexuality.
Her response is magnificent defiance:
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ח:י - אֲנִי חוֹמָה וְשָׁדַי כַּמִּגְדָּלוֹת
Song of Songs 8:10 - "I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers."
She asserts אֲנִי חוֹמָה (ani chomah, "I am a wall")—but on her own terms, not theirs. Her mature breasts (שָׁדַי, shaday) are towers, indicating she controls her sexuality, and she opened her "wall" when and how she chose. She defied patriarchal control.
Christian patriarchy cannot tolerate this, so it either:
Ignores these verses entirely, unable to acknowledge Scripture depicts women claiming sexual agency against family control.
Allegorizes them away, making the brothers "guardians of purity" and the wall "appropriate boundaries"—colonizing resistance to patriarchy into validation of patriarchy.
Weaponizes "wall" imagery for purity culture, claiming it validates family control of daughters' sexuality—when the text shows the woman asserting her own terms against her brothers' control.
VII. Conclusion: Eros Colonized for Shame
Christian appropriation of Song of Songs represents the colonization of Scripture's most body-positive, erotically celebratory, female-voiced text for purity shame, allegorical body-denial, and patriarchal control. An explicitly erotic poem has been:
Allegorized into body-denying spirituality—centuries of refusing to let the text celebrate what it celebrates: bodies, desire, pleasure.
Weaponized for purity culture shame—used to simultaneously claim "sex is good" while controlling, policing, and shaming actual sexuality.
Colonized for patriarchal marriage theology—the woman's bold agency stripped away, her voice suppressed, her initiative erased.
Appropriated for prosperity mysticism—garden and abundance imagery weaponized for spiritual intimacy producing material blessing.
Deployed to suppress female sexuality—her pursuit, her desire, her explicit body celebration systematically erased by interpretation claiming "biblical womanhood" means passive submission.
Song of Songs deserved better than becoming a purity culture weapon. The Shulammite deserved better than having her bold sexuality suppressed for patriarchal theology. And contemporary believers deserved Scripture that celebrates bodies, pleasure, and desire without shame—that honors female sexual agency, that finds erotic love inherently good, that never once demands marriage, procreation, or spiritual justification for embodied pleasure. The text offers this—Christian appropriation has colonized it into the opposite.
References
JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH, Jewish Publication Society
Steinsaltz, Adin. The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition. New York: Random House, 1989-.
Charles, R.H., ed. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913.
Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 4th ed. Leiden: Brill, 1996.
Marshall, Alfred. The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament. 4th ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012.
Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. 5th ed. London: A&C Black, 1977.