 Herder’s theoretical commitment to strict secularism and to non-allegorical readings in biblical interpretation led him to interpretive discoveries concerning the Bible that were themselves of great importance. For example, concerning the Old Testament, his commitment to applying normal interpretive methods enabled him to distinguish and define the different genres of poetry in the Old Testament in a way that was superior to anything that had been achieved before. The same commitment, and his consequent readiness to find falsehood and even inconsistency in the Bible, also allowed him to make such important interpretive observations as that the ancient Hebrews’ conceptions about death, the afterlife, the mind, and the body had changed dramatically over time. (For both of these achievements, see especially On the Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.) Again, as was just mentioned, his rejection of unwarranted allegorical interpretations allowed him to substitute for the traditional interpretation of the Song of Solomon as religious allegory an interpretation of it as simple erotic love poetry that is now generally accepted.