/lit/ - Literature

>>23276746
Yes, and Yose is saying there was a rabbincal (or Pharisee) dispute over whether the Song of Song defiled the hands, i.e. whether it was sacred or not.

The same Rabbi Akiva (or Akiba) is in that Mishnah 3.5 as a strong defender of the sanctity of the Song of Songs, his dishonest hyperbole that "no one disputed its sanctity" is thought to be indicative of how much it was disputed (as both Yose and his own report in the Tosephta confirm) and held by the common people to be a vulgar song.

>>23276736
There is very very little from the second temple era. Philo of Alexandria is an important source writing just prior to the destruction of the temple. He is a Hellenic Jew and middle Platonist who invented allegorical reading of Jewish scripture that would be borrowed directly by Christians and indirectly by post-temple Jews. I have seen a secondary source mention that Philo thought the Song of Songs was an erotic song to be understood literally, but nothing primary.

I doubt there are any other second temple era sources on any interpretations or attitutes towards the Song of Songs, but others may know more. Otherwise all the sources begin with the early post-temple Rabbinic period.