<P> The Song offers no clue to its author or to the date , place , or circumstances of its composition . The superscription states that it is `` Solomon 's '' , but even if this is meant to identify the author , it can not be read as strictly as a similar modern statement . The most reliable evidence for its date is its language : Aramaic gradually replaced Hebrew after the end of the Babylonian exile in the late 6th century BCE , and the evidence of vocabulary , morphology , idiom and syntax clearly points to a late date , centuries after King Solomon to whom it is traditionally attributed . It has parallels with Mesopotamian and Egyptian love poetry from the first half of the 1st millennium , and with the pastoral idylls of Theocritus , a Greek poet who wrote in the first half of the 3rd century ; as a result of these conflicting signs , speculation ranges from the 10th to the 2nd centuries BCE , with the language supporting a date around the 3rd century . </P>
<P> The Song offers no clue to its author or to the date , place , or circumstances of its composition . The superscription states that it is `` Solomon 's '' , but even if this is meant to identify the author , it can not be read as strictly as a similar modern statement . The most reliable evidence for its date is its language : Aramaic gradually replaced Hebrew after the end of the Babylonian exile in the late 6th century BCE , and the evidence of vocabulary , morphology , idiom and syntax clearly points to a late date , centuries after King Solomon to whom it is traditionally attributed . It has parallels with Mesopotamian and Egyptian love poetry from the first half of the 1st millennium , and with the pastoral idylls of Theocritus , a Greek poet who wrote in the first half of the 3rd century ; as a result of these conflicting signs , speculation ranges from the 10th to the 2nd centuries BCE , with the language supporting a date around the 3rd century . </P>
when was the book song of songs written
when was the book song of songs written
late 6th century BCE
late 6th century BCE