The Bible in the News: The Bible’s Book of Love

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In a recent column I reported the happy news that our older daughter was pregnant with twins—of at least equal importance, with our first grandchildren. The babies were born, and they are doing well, as is also the case with their mother, father and grandparents.

In keeping with custom, the babies’ names were not announced until the bris (circumcision) and baby-naming. The boy’s first name is Gefen, meaning “vine”; the girl’s, Shoshana, which refers to the “rose” or “lily.” Prior to these events, they were known simply as Baby A and Baby B. We were given a clue, however: Both of their names come from the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) and relate to nature.

Their names appeared in a birth announcement in local media. Outside of these references, the popular press locates the Song of Songs in a variety of other contexts.

It is, not surprisingly, the book’s erotic content and context that feature in many articles. There is, for example, a story in the Washington Post, titled “Falling in Love with the Erotic Song of Solomon.” It begins in this way: “When Denise and Roger Friesen planned a Valentine’s Day dinner for their Omaha church, they immediately knew their theme: the Song of Solomon, sometimes called the Song of Songs, the most romantic book in the Bible … The Friesens, both 47, credit the little book in the Hebrew Bible with improving their 23-year marriage.” On the other hand, as the Post correspondent observes, “In other circles, [the Book’s] poems are hardly ever read, in part because they make believers blush.” As someone who has called Omaha home for almost 20 years, I am glad the Friesens demonstrate that we Midwesterners are made of heartier stuff!

A more recent Newsweek account introduces us to writer Jennifer Wright Knust. Among her conclusions, as elaborated in a tome titled Unprotected Texts, is this: “The Song of Solomon is a paean to unmarried sex, outside the conventions of family and community.” Be that as it may, I am relieved—actually exhilarated—that our daughter and son-in-law have chosen to remain firmly inside familial and communal conventions. In so doing, they have in their own way confirmed the observation made by the famous Jewish sage Akiva (as reported in the Jerusalem Post): “All of Torah is holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

Given its subject matter and the poetic context in which the two lovers are placed, many creative artists have used the Song as the basis for their work, not always avoiding controversy. Not so very long ago the Royal Shakespeare Company “steamed up the stage with the amorous antics [of a new play] based on the Song of Solomon from the King James Version.” This play, like its Biblical model, is “unashamedly erotic.” In fact, the ancient text (if not its modern adaptation) “was described by Robert Burns, Scotland’s national bard, as the ‘smuttiest sang the e’er was sung.’” From my perspective, the most intriguing element in the entire production was not its erotic content, but the Company’s well-publicized avowal that this production “will be completely devoid of religion.” Oh come on now! (This paragraph combines stories from the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Mercury.)

In earlier times also, the Song of Songs was capable of shaking things up, as reported in a Globe and Mail feature with this hefty title: “Was Nothing Sacred? Think Today’s Rockers Have a Corner on Profanity? Check Out the Pop Stars of 17th-Century Italy—the Baroque Church Masters.” After such a descriptive title, there may be little to add beyond this nugget: Musical publications of that period “contain a surprising number of settings from the Song of Solomon, that book of the Bible that a friend’s grandmother thinks lewd enough to have merited its exclusion from the Big Book.” Fortunately (at least in my reckoning), there are—and in all probability always have been—many grandmothers (and grandfathers) for whom the Song’s exclusion would greatly diminish the Bible’s overall impact.

I conclude with a paraphrase. The Daily Star reports on the launch of “a new Bible … that can be read in 100 minutes … This means things like The Song of Solomon have been greatly edited. A line like: ‘I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots’ now reads: ‘Oy, horseface!’” Oy, indeed! May none of my grandchildren, present or future, ever come into contact with such a text.

In a recent column I reported the happy news that our older daughter was pregnant with twins—of at least equal importance, with our first grandchildren. The babies were born, and they are doing well, as is also the case with their mother, father and grandparents. In keeping with custom, the babies’ names were not announced until the bris (circumcision) and baby-naming. The boy’s first name is Gefen, meaning “vine”; the girl’s, Shoshana, which refers to the “rose” or “lily.” Prior to these events, they were known simply as Baby A and Baby B. We were given a clue, however: […]