Holy of Holies: Returning to Eden 4 - Song of Songs, Celebrating Sex & Egalitarian Women

“Sex becomes a search. A search for something we are missing. A quest for the unconditional embrace. And so they go from relationship to relationship. The search is about that need.

But sex is not the search for something that’s missing. It is the expression of something that’s been found. It’s designed to be the overflow, the culmination of something that a man and a woman have found in each other.  It’s a celebration of this living, breathing thing that’s happening between the two of them.” (Rob Bell, Sex God, p. 123)

“KISS ME, make me drunk with your kisses!

Your sweet lovemaking is better than wine.

You are fragrant, you are myrrh and aloes.

All the young women desire you.”

(1.2-3, my translation)

Links to Previous Studies in this Returning to Eden Series:
1 - Song of Songs, Sexuality & Spirituality 
2 - Song of Songs & The History of Denying Sexuality
3 - The Song of ALL Songs or Just a Silly Little Love Song?

A Neo-Platonic Nightmare: Celebrating Sex!

Modern Evangelical and "Church of Christ" Christians have, at times, imbibed a worldview that is on many counts not simply unbiblical but anti-biblical.  As noted in the second of these studies (see Song of Songs & the History of Denying Sexuality here) in the second and third centuries Christianity drunk deeply from the Platonic culture surrounding it. This influence is seen in two ways: 1) the Gnostic rejection of creation and the Jewish Creator god with its denial of the goodness of that creation; 2) the denigration of sexuality, sexual urges, and the denigration of women as the agents of Satan for tempting men.  Sex became a “necessary evil” for the propagation of the race. The Song of Songs was a clear problem.  To fix that perceived problem allegory was resorted too. 

Plato in his Symposium, has Socrates waxing eloquently on the status of “love” (for the non-Greek reader the love in the Symposium is eros).  At the end Socrates offers the highest form of “eros” in which we get our notion of “platonic love” from.  None of the love(s) celebrated in the Symposiumis remotely like the biblical notion.  Women for Plato were worse than the animals (he says so in another Socratic dialogue Timaeus).  The greatest love was the pursuit of wisdom as understood by Plato. The appetites of the body were to be denied for that pursuit … indeed in Platonic salvation the “immortal soul” would one day be set free from the cage of the degrading body.

Modern Christians have, even unawares, often reflected that Platonic outlook.  Even as the rest of the world has become “liberated” so to speak the church has remained Victorian.  To associate Sexuality and Spirituality is virtually unheard of.  The impression that is granted to the world and even to many of our own members is that sex is tolerated (even though everyone does it!) but it is not to be celebrated as a good in itself.  And it is a faux paux to let others know you actually enjoy it!

The Joy of It All

How different is the Hebraic worldview from that of many in modern Evangelical Christianity.  The Proverbs declare

Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

May her breasts satisfy you at all times

may you be intoxicated always by

her love!

(5.18-19, BV)

The worldview of Song of Songs is not confined to the Song.  Rather the worldview of Song of Songs is the worldview of ancient Israel.  The vision of Israel, expressed in the Song of Songs is the redemption of relationships.  Rather than being antagonistic to humanity as Gen 3 prophesies, creation is the setting for shalom in the Song for the love of the couple that is as unabashed as in the Garden.

If we believe in the canon of Scripture then the Holy Spirit is not shy about sex. Sexuality is a dominant theme in the Song.  It oozes sexuality!  This is sometimes obscured because of our Platonic lenses and unhappy English translations.  The Hebrew word ‘ahaba is a word that means love.  We read in 7.6 (v.7 in Hebrew)

mah yapit u-mah na’amt ‘ahabahba-ata’anugim

How splendid and how sweet you are, O Love among [all] the delights!

Love is an abstract noun here. But ‘ahaba is a fairly rare word in Song of Songs. But even in 7.6 it is the woman’s physical charms that elicit such an exclamation.  But the word that dominates Song of Songs from the vocabulary of “love” is dodim.  We encounter this word in the second verse of the book quoted above where I rendered it “lovemaking.” The root dd occurs a total of 36 times in Song of Songs.  That this word is explicitly sexual in nature we need only read Proverbs 7.18,

Come, let us take our fill of love until morning;

let us delight ourselves with love. (NRSV)

Or the explicit Ezekiel 23.17

And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they

defiled her with their lust …(NRSV)

Though the word may be rendered “love” in Hebrew it is always sexual love.  For other examples of dodim in Song of Songs see 1.2, 4; 4.10; 5.1; 7.13; etc [1]

Here a biblical book literally begins with a description of sexual desire and it is boldly stated.

Equal Opportunity Sex in the Song of Songs

Hers. The Song of Songs has dialogue present between the woman and the man; the woman and the daughters of Jerusalem, and the woman and the night guards.  The distribution of this dialogue is far from equal. The woman is far and away the primary speaker approximately 70 percent of the words coming from her mouth.  The woman is the primary “actor” in the book.

It is true the man does speak his praise for her in 1.9-11, 15; 2.2; 4.1-7; 6.4-9 and 7.2-10.  Yet he disappears (as far as a voice is concerned) completely in chapter 8.  Even when he comes to “his garden” it is only at her invitation (4.16-5.1a).

This woman is no passive lady! She does not let him set the agenda so to speak. For example she outdoes his praises for her by bragging on him (1.16-17; 2.3). She begins the Song and she ends the Song. She is the one who speaks its refrains.  She is the one who calls on her lover to do things – draw her after him (1.4), be like a gazelle (2.17), to come out to the fields with her (7.12-14), set her as a seal on his arm (8.6) and to flee with her (8.14).  She seeks him (1.7). She “seizes” him to bring him into the chamber of love (3.4 & 8.1-2).  She is such a powerful presence that in the middle of the Song he confesses to be driven mad by just one of her glances, with but one strand of her necklace (4.9)!!

She is hardly shy or even "polite" about her public praises of her man.  Her friends, perhaps tired of her continual bragging about his traits, finally say exasperation (5.9)

mah dodek mi(n)-dod se-kakah hisba’tanu

What’s so special about your lover, that you make us swear in this way?

This is no private conversation the woman is having.  She boldly declares “He Rocks!!” Of course that is a loose paraphrase but it captures the meaning quite well. She responds to her "critics" with a gushing report on his uniqueness.  To these friends/critics(?) she mentions his gorgeous head (v.11), his eyes (v12), his facial features (v.13), how she loves his puckered lips (v.13b), how hot his body is (v.14b), his legs and voice (vv.15-16). Finally she declares he is simply her “friend” (v.16b).  Such discourse was proper for God’s People in Israel.  One can hear Plato groaning ... and perhaps not a few church people too! She repeats this public praise of her man to the watchmen.

To say that Song of Songs smolders with sensuality is to make the proverbial understatement.  But here is the reality of the situation.  This is how God desires our love to be! In the song mutuality is the atmosphere that is breathed between the man and the woman.  She is not a passive entity but is the driver behind the entire book.

His. The man is not as articulate in the Song as the woman. However he is not shy about saying things about his isha.  In chapter 4.1-7 he erupts like a volcano about her. He unashamedly celebrates (as God directs in Proverbs) the “goods” of his “babe.” The poetry is exquisitely graceful. It is sensuous and replete with erotic imagery and allusions and wonderful word plays.  Here is a man who had indeed savored his woman and become “intoxicated” (to use Proverbs 5.18f). He begins with the particle hinneh (2x!).  He says

Wow! You are so beautiful, my love

Wow! You are so beautiful! (4.1)

The man is literally arrested at this moment - stopped in his tracks - by what he perceives to be her beauty [2]. She is not just any beautiful woman but his.  He takes delight in her beauty.  Twelve times in the Song her beauty (Heb, yapa) is proclaimed (1.8; 15 [2x]; 2.10, 13; 4.1[2x], 7; 5.9; 6.1, 4, 10).  What the man’s poem revels in is the beauty, the allure, sensuality, and delight he has for his woman’s body.  He even praises her breasts no fewer than four times (4.5; 7.3, 7-8. they are mentioned a total of 8x in the Song, 1.13; 4.5; 7.3, 7-8; 8.1, 8, 10).

This last point is more important than we might think. I find this “naked” admiration of the “Shulammite’s” physical beauty refreshing.  It reminds us that at the bottom God has created us as embodied creatures, biological creatures. Our bodies Matter! How anti-Platonic and anti-Gnostic.  The man’s admiration of his woman’s body leads to the valuation of her [3].

Wrapping Up For Today

The Song of Songs is powerful medicine in the Word of God for the warped views regarding sexuality both in and out of the church.  The Jewish worldview that God created us and made us by intent to be creatures in relationship – even intimate ones – is foundational.  The Song is the antidote to perversions of Sexuality whether that is asceticism or what might be called the Porn world. 

Sexuality is more than sexual intercourse but intimacy is celebrated as wholesome before God.  In the Song sex is good in and of itself.  It is not justified on the grounds of procreation but for delight and pleasure.

The Song reminds us of what God had longed for in the Garden of Eden.  In our marriages we can participate in and mirror a world that is creational and even redeemed.  The Song gives a balanced relationship between the sexes. In our culture in which wives are often treated more as property than partners, the woman is shown here by the Spirit’s intent as the more active partner.  It is an egalitarian relationship that exists in this relationship.

The Song has to be used to become effective in counter acting the corrosive effects of a history of misapplication in Christianity.  We must become comfortable in reading the book. In our own relationships we should “practice” using exotic metaphors to communicate the wonders and uniqueness of our spouse. What a gift. 

Notes:

1] For more on dodim see Daniel Grossberg, “Nature, Humanity, and Love in Song of Songs,” Interpretation(2005), 229-242.

2] See the excellent article by F. W. Dobbs-Allsop, “The Delight of Beauty and Song of Songs 4.1-7,” Interpretation(2005), 261-277, especially p. 262.

3] See the delightful discussion of this and similar “flavors” in Carey Ellen Walsh, Exquisite Desire: Religion, The Erotic and the Song of Songs (Fortress Press, 2000), 105-132.

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Holy of Holies: Returning to Eden 3 - The Song of all Songs or Just a Silly Little Love Song

"For in all the world there is nothing equal to the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings [i.e. Scriptures] are Holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies." (Rabbi Akiba, Mishnah, Yadaim 3.5)

"You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs. But I look around me and I see it isn't so ... Love isn't silly at all." (Paul McCartney)

Read Returning to Eden 1 - Song of Songs Here
Read Returning to Eden 2 - A History of Denying Sexuality

How Important is this Song?

When was the last time you read through that small book of 117 verses called the Song of Songs? Have you ever actually studied it? Are you a preacher, when was the last time you preached through (or even from) the Song? When you have an important biblical question how often to you turn to the Song? Ever?

I must confess! I have attended Churches of Christ all of my life and have ministered among them for half of my life and I have never heard a sermon from this book and I have never preached one. I designed a class once called Spirituality and Sexuality from the Song but was not allowed to teach it. I have heard that the book needs to be studied by the newly married or used in premarital counseling. I don't deny its utility in either of those settings but there is nothing in the Song that suggests it was intended for the young or the newly married.

How important is the Song of Songs in the canon? Has our theology been skewed because we do not take it seriously as the Word of God ... I mean when churches actually forbid reading it then it is clear that it is not valued as the Word of God.

An example is J. W. McGarvey one of the greatest biblical scholars to come out of the Stone-Campbell Movement. McGarvey published a small Guide to Bible Study near the end of the 19th century. The book is, in my opinion, largely useless (I know I am being harsh). The notes are lacking and unhelpful. However the book was used by McGarvey in training preachers and church leaders. It was important to JWM to pay careful attention which “dispensation” a book or text is in. McGarvey at times simply does not know what to do with the “Old Testament.” He is bewildered by some of the books. I call attention to his comments on the Song of Songs:

“The Song of Songs. The title which this short poem assigns itself is, ‘The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s’ (i.1). If there is any book in the Bible which found a place in it by a mistake or misjudgment of those who put the inspired book together, it must be this; for it is so totally unlike all the rest that it is difficult to see what connection it can have with the general design of the whole. Many interpreters have affected to find in it a parabolic meaning, and even a foreshadowing of the love of the Church of Christ; while others have regarded it as nothing more than a love-song with a very obscure connection of thought. According to either view it has afforded little edification to the great majority of Bible readers; and unless some significance can be found in it hereafter which has not yet been pointed out, it will continue to be but little read, and of but little practical value.”

This is McGarvey’s entire interpretation of the Song and it is wholly negative. In fact the book is probably in the Bible by accident! But this is in line with his evaluation of the OT as a whole.

Another Point of View

The Bible itself calls our book shir ha-shirim. The Song of all songs. The most excellent song. Was Rabbi Akiba correct that the Song is worth all the other scripture? Clearly we have not read it that way in our modern setting. But interestingly the church has historically read it that way!

Bernard of Clairvaux (AD 1090-1153) was without a doubt the most influential churchman of the twelfth century. A complex man who became a monk after a secular life. He spent 18 years studying and preaching the Song. He does not attempt to explain the words of the Song rather he tries to explain and experience life through the Song.

For Bernard there nothing accidental about any portion of the Bible. If it is there the Spirit had a reason for putting it there. For this reason the Monk of Clairvaux took with the utmost seriousness the title of the book. Before one could enter into the Song one must first have mastered the doctrine of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs ... their order in the Bible being of divine appointment. The book is profound because it is the "artistry of the Spirit."

"So what shall we do? Shall we by-pass the title? No, not even one iota may be omitted ..." How does Bernard proceed to exegete the title? I quote at length

"the title is not simply the word 'Song,' but 'Song of Songs,' a detail not without significance. For though I have read many songs in the Scriptures, I cannot recall any that bear such a name. Israel chanted a song to Yahweh celebrating his escape from the sword and the tyranny of Pharaoh, and the twofold good fortune that simultaneously liberated and avenged him in the Red Sea. Yet even though chanted, this has not been called a 'Song of Songs'; Scripture, if my memory serves me right, introduces it with the words: 'Israel sang this song in honor of Yahweh." Song poured from the lips of Deborah, from Judith, of the mother of Samuel, of several of the prophets, yet none of these songs is styled a 'Song of Songs.'" ...[1]

For Bernard our book is called the Song of Songs precisely because that is what it is. It is, in the words of Akiba, the Holy of Holies. Bernard would be appalled at McGarvey's failure to grasp the profound Spirituality of his sermon text of eighteen years.

Bernard was Right; McGarvey was Wrong

What if we take the Song seriously? What if it really is the Word of God? What happens? Several things actually. The Song forces us to take with absolute seriousness the fact that God created humans as embodied beings, it forces us to take seriously that creation - including the body - is not simply a necessary evil but a holy Good! The Song forces us by smacking us between the eyes that neo-Platonic "spirituality" leads to the worst sort of aberrations possible and that biblical Spirituality is embodied.

The Song of Songs, beyond the mere words of the text, forces us to wrestle with fundamental worldview issues. Bernard instinctively knew that to grasp the Song one needed to wrestle with Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. While I disagree with the why of wrestling with them I agree that the Song of Songs shares a profound connection with those two books. What I mean is the Song is the melody of the profound biblical doctrine of creation that is the very ink used in writing Ecclesiastes and Proverbs.

Contrary to pagan forms of Spirituality the Song of Songs does not simply speak of bodies it celebrates even naked bodies! Platonism would have us believe that our bodies and the "material" they are made of are something we long to be delivered from. The Song says the life God intended, and intends, is the good life in the good body he made.

Creation matters. Beauty matters. Sexuality matters. The Song connects to creation, it connects us to beauty, it connects us - at the deepest possible level - with fellow creatures, it is God's vision of what relationships should be. The prophets dreamed of a day when the new heavens and new earth would come through God's final redemptive act. The Song envisions that the experience of that Edenic love should be ours in our marriage in the here and the now.

So I end where I began: How important is the Song OF Songs ...? Flame of Yahweh? or just a Silly Little Love Song ...?


Notes:

1] All quotations from Bernard come from The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux: Song of Songs I, translated by Kilian Walsh with an introduction by M. Corneille Halflants (Kalamazoo, MI:: Cistercian Publications 1971), 4

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Holy of Holies: Returning to Eden 2 - Song of Songs and the History of Denying Sexuality

"While the king was on his couch,
my nard gave forth its fragrance.
My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh
that lies between my breasts."

Most of us reading the quotation from Song of Songs 1.13 probably did not know that it is really not talking about a woman's perfumed body with her lover lying on top of her. Rather this text is really about the "grace of baptism." Yes baptism! Or at least that is what one of the greatest scholars in the history of Christianity believed. Origen argued for this interpretation in his massive 10 volume commentary on the Song of Songs [1]. As strange as it may seem but readings from the Song of Songs were frequently part of baptismal liturgies in the early church. How can a text that appears to be plainly about the physical desire and intimacy between two lovers in covenant "really" be about baptism? In a word: allegory! For much of its history in the Christian era the Song of Songs has been the victim of allegory. But why?

Ancient Pre-Christian Interpretation

Allegory is the invention of Plato. In the fourth century BC, Plato raised questions about the worthiness of the Greek gods as Homer had portrayed them in the Greek "Bible" - the Iliad and Odyssey. Allegory became the vehicle by which platonic philosophers were able to salvage their legacy and save the gods. In the second century AD both Christian and Jewish scholars employed allegory in interpretation of the Song of Songs. But the question remains, why? Allegory is rooted foundationally in a worldview that is alien to the Creator God of the Hebrews at its very core.

It is easier to raise the question than answer it. It seems clear that allegorical readings of the Song do not pre-date the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. If Plato invented allegory to "save" the gods because he was embarrassed by them we may be able to make a parallel that Christian allegory of the Song was likewise an attempt to "save" a sacred text because the interpreters were embarrassed by it. This embarrassment says more about the interpreters however than it does the God of the Bible.

The earliest interpretation of the Song of Songs by Jews is actually the translation we know as the Septuagint. The Song had been translated into Greek by the second century BC and displays little if any interest in allegory or "spiritualization" of the Song. In fact the translators often bring out an even more blunt and erotic sense than the Hebrew original. For example in 1.2b the text reads "for your love is better than wine." The LXX renders the text "for your breasts are better than wine." This same phenomena is followed in the LXX at 1.4; 4.10; 5.1; & 7.12. [2]. Breasts replace love, certainly a heightened sense of sexuality rather than a distancing from it.

Origen (AD 184/5-253/4), and the early rabbis, were well aware that the Song had a more historical and literal beginning. Origen knew the Song was in fact a "wedding song." Keel, likewise, points to three rabbinic texts from the first and second centuries AD to show that the literal meaning of the Song was understood and widespread in Judaism. Most interesting, for my purposes, is Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel (AD 140ish) who ties the Song to an ancient dancing tradition in Israel that goes all the way back to the time of the Judges (Judges 21.20ff). The Rabbi says

There were no days better for Israelites than the fifteenth of Ab [in August] and the Day of Atonement [in October]. For on those days Jerusalemite girls go out in borrowed white dresses – so as not to shame those who owned none. All the dresses had to be immersed. And the Jerusalemite girls go out and dance in the vineyards. What did they say? “Young man, lift your eyes and see – choose what you want! Don’t look for beauty, look for family.” … “Go forth you daughters of Jerusalem and behold King Solomon with the crown with his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart” (Cant 3.11)” (Mishnah Ta’an 4.8)

Origen and Rabbi Yohanan

It is almost certain that the allegorical approach to the Song began among the Jews after the destruction of the Temple. Again the question is why? The Jews appropriated allegory for reasons the church did not but for the same purpose. Both "Judaism" and "Christianity" were facing serious and world shifting crises in the period of AD 70 to beginning of the third century. First, Judaism (if it were to survive at all) had to come to terms with the question of identity. Second, Judaism had to define itself against the "upstart" group that laid claim to the historical heritage of Israel - the church.

For the church's part it likewise had to deal with the issue of identity - 'we" are "Israel" not 'them". We are the Bride, not them. God divorced them and married us (are you getting the feeling that Song of Songs might be useful for this kind debate). The church also had an internal battle going on. In the second century there were those that not only wanted to say God had divorced the Jews, but that their entire heritage was of no value - this included the "Scriptures" the church had appropriated. So the rabbis are doing 'exegesis' on two fronts and so are the Church Fathers. Both are reading in the context of polemics against the other group - we cannot miss how important this is.

This historic battle defined Christianity as we know it. Song of Songs and its interpretation was one of the battlefields. We see this in Origen and one of the great Jewish exegetes of the day, Rabbi Yohanan. Both men set the course for interpretation for centuries. Both flourished in Palestine in the 240s, both were the leaders in their respective communities, both were giants of learning, both spent a great deal of time in Caesarea. Origen wrote/preached his Commentary on the Song in the 240s and Yohanan did too. These men probably heard each other speaking publicly but at the very least we know they knew each other's arguments. Each is engaging the Song through polemics against the other and not simply reading the Song itself. In a very enlightening study Reuven Kimelman notes that one can parallel Origen and Yohanan using the same arguments, on the same verses, to undo the others exegesis. The issues are complex: the oral law literally takes on the function in Judaism that the NT does in Christianity. That is the teachings of the oral law interpret and apply and at times supersede the written Torah, Jesus functions that way in Christianity. Here is a short list of the issues as they are hammered out:

1) Covenant mediated by Moses versus one negotiated by him
2) NT versus the oral Torah
3) Christ versus Abraham
4) The heavenly versus the earthly Jerusalem
5) Israel being repudiated versus Israel being disciplined [3]

For the rabbis the tool of allegory became the way they could argue that God had not cast off his people but that the Song tells the story of his continuing love for Israel. Israel has been disciplined but not divorced and the Song, allegorically understood, assures Israel that the Messiah will come and redeem her. The rabbis are not Platonists but they use a platonic tool.

The early church had the same struggle as Judaism. Christians had to justify their own existence in the world and did so in opposition to Judaism. Christianity claimed to be the legitimate heir to the people of Israel prior to the destruction of the Temple.

This justification, I remind you, took place after the destruction of the Temple and for the most part in the second century, continues to shape and mold how people think about a myriad of issues. Origen, and others, told the same story as the rabbis from the Song but about the church! The church is now Israel, the church has replaced Israel. This view, hammered out in the midst of severe struggle - often with the blood of martyrs near by - where extremes are often proclaimed, cannot be reconciled with the NT view shared in the first century that Gentiles are grafted by the grace of God into Israel, they did not replace Israel.

Two other considerations shape Origen and most of these early Church Fathers. The rabbis were not platonists. Origen, I am sad to say, was. His cultural worldview was platonic. Like Plato before him he found some things "objectionable" in his sacred text and through allegory was able to "save" the text by finding the "true spiritual meaning" in the text.

Origen, likewise, had to do battle with the Marcionites - that internal front I mentioned above. The Marcionites were true Platonists, like Origen, but their solution was to simply cast the Scriptures of Israel aside. Reject them altogether!

Origen knew that could not be done so he needed a method to remove what the platonic world found objectionable. We actually owe Origen and many other Church Fathers a debt of gratitude - though thoroughly children of their times (as we all are) they saved the Scriptures of Israel for the church from the Marcionites. This is a historical fact and we are and have been shaped by their legacy in ways that most Christians simply, and quite literally, have no clue [4].

It is often difficult to be calm when the parties involved are struggling for their very lives. In circumstances like that perspectives and positions are taken that likely would not be in the calm noon-day sun. But Origen did not live in that noon day sun neither did Rabbi Yohanan. Sadly many still embrace their rhetoric in far less trying times.

Neo-Platonism and the Song of Songs

In reference the Song of Songs, the objectionable material was precisely its content: sexuality. When the message of Jesus and the Kingdom of God crossed into Gentile fields many people embraced the faith that were culturally Greek and essentially Platonic. The church would struggle with this on multiple levels. Platonic thought, as good a story teller Plato was, however is fundamentally anti-biblical.

Platonism is anti-biblical because it is anti-Creation. This worldview asserts that physical matter and the physical body, with its needs is by nature, base, unspiritual, and ultimately evil. True spirituality, in the Platonic worldview, is liberation from the body and its degrading "needs." This worldview was at the root of the denial of the physical incarnation of the Word of God to be literally flesh but only "seemed" to be flesh. This worldview lay at the heart of the Gnostic denial of the physical bodily resurrection of not only Jesus but of all the saints. This worldview rather promotes the immortality of the soul and the pure spiritual state all Greeks longed for rather than a resurrected and renewed earth. This worldview is pagan to the core. Sex is a very physical function that Platonic love wishes to eschew. It is sad, very sad, the church embraced this pagan notion that has haunted Christians ever since. C. S. Lewis notes quite well the impact of this view on sexuality even within marriage in the Christian faith. His focus is on the medieval period,

The views of the medieval churchmen on the sexual act within marriage ... are limited by two complementary agreements. On the one hand, nobody ever asserted that the act was intrinsically sinful. On the other hand, all were agreed that some evil element was present in every concrete instance of this act since the Fall.

Perhaps it was not the act itself but ...

the emotion which is the efficient cause [of sex], remains guilty. But the concrete sexual act, that is, the act PLUS its unavoidable efficient cause [i.e. the desire for sex], remains guilty. [5]

It isn't difficult to see how, or why, one enmeshed in a Platonic worldview would have a nightmare reading the Song of Songs. The Song does not simply talk about the things of the body ... it celebrates them! While it is true that the Bible condemns lust for another person's wife or husband the Bible never describes sexual desire as evil - rather sexual desire is good!!

For centuries the church, because of Platonism, promoted virginity and celibacy as spiritual ideals. The heroes of faith were those who renounced the body and its sexual desires (monks, priests, nuns, etc). The Desert Fathers fled to the remotest parts of the world to seek refuge from the female body - but separation from women hardly delivered these men from the power of sexuality.

These ideas swirling around about the Song of Songs, Platonism and sexuality are hardly harmless ideas that cause Christians to have unbiblical views regarding creation, the body and sex. There are profound day to day ramifications not least of which has been the demonization of the female members of the human race by those who claim to be disciples of Christ. "She" becomes the very symbol of the evil from which the chaste monk wishes to flee! Not only will Platonism bear fruit in outright doctrinal heresy but its pragmatic fruit is the legacy of women being the target of oppression, as the handmaids of Satan, and all manner of such stuff.

The Persistence of Allegory

Origen's commentary, forged in a life and death struggle for survival and identity, set the agenda for Christian exegesis of the Song for all practical purposes till the modern period. The polemic against the Marcionites became a forgotten memory, the debased nature of sexuality became an assumed maxim, and the cross fertilization with Judaism continued even if often unrecognized. The greatest expositor of the Song in the medieval period was Bernard of Clairvaux (AD 1090-1153)[6] and I plan to treat him alone in a separate blog.

By the high middle ages Rashi, the Jewish theologian, had tweaked an interpretation of the Song that reflected a historical narrative of Israel. Nicholas of Lyra (AD 1270-1349) one of the few medieval churchman who knew Hebrew became heavily influenced by Rashi and basically took his interpretation of the Song and Christianized it. In his rewriting of Rashi the "narrative" in the Song looks like this

1) The Exodus of the Jews from Egypt (1.1-10)
2) Journey through the Desert (1.11-4.6)
3) Entry into the Promised Land (4.6-16)
4) God's Love for the Wayward People (ch's 5-6)
5) The Coming of Christ (ch 7)
6) The Early Church till Constantine (ch 8)
Concluding with a brief look to the conversion of the "synagogue to Christ." [7]

Nicholas' understanding was carried into the infant English language through John Wyclif who authored two commentaries on the Song and gave the English their first version of the Song (for more on Wyclif and his Bible see HERE).

Wyclif and his disciples disliked the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Allegory was termed "goostli vndurstondyng" in their writings. In the Song of Songs, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate into "English" between 1370 and 1390, rides a very fine line between allegory and literal understanding of the book. It is through the Wycliff Bible that the word "spouse" became an English word and lent itself to a more allegorical interpretation. On the whole, however, Wyclif's Bible leaves it to the reader to interpret the text and in the words of Mary Dove, "the Wycliffite Bible Song of Songs ... is more literal than any English translation made during the Reformation" [8].

The most common reading of the Song has come to English readers through the King James Version and allegorization of the Song through hymnody based upon that version. The KJV continues, sadly, what I have come to call "sanctified Platonism" by misleading the reader of the Song through the use of headings. Throughout the KJV the Song never refers to the historical woman or the historical man rather Christ and the church are the only voices that are heard in the Song. "The church's love unto Christ," "Christ awaketh the church," "Christ's love for the church," and "Calling all Gentiles" are among the interpretive headings that mislead the reader of the text. One of the hymns I can remember from my earliest days shows both the power of allegory and its ability to cause the disciple of Christ to miss what the Holy Spirit actually wrote. "Lily of the Valley" is based on Song of Songs 2.1 where the female lover speaks. The Song unambiguously identifies the female lover as the speaker of these words who identifies her as "the rose of Sharon," yet the hymn identifies "lily of the valley" as Jesus. Some may object and say this is rather innocent but if we never actually hear what the Spirit said then there is a real problem.

Wrapping Up

The Song of Songs was, until the modern period, one of the most popular and important works in the canon. It cannot be denied that it furnished many Christians with deep Spiritual insights and a basis for lectio divina. This is simply the Holy Spirit blessing us and working within our flawed understandings and ever flawed hermeneutics. In the modern, post-Enlightenment period, many Christians have continued to surrender creation (and the body) for some form of semi-pagan piety mistaken for Spirituality. Biblical Spirituality is, without exception, creation affirming. Yet several things the modern period has forced upon us as disciples of Christ are

1) the recognition that many interpretations were never grounded in the actual biblical text rather they were grounded in the existential situation the readers brought to the text

2) the recognition that there was a "history" to the Song of Songs before the history of allegory and it seems to have entered the canon without allegorical help.

3) the recognition that even as the early church struggled with the issue of sexuality on its blind side, it confessed that the Scriptures of Israel are in fact the Word of God and that creation was "good" thus the continued rejection of Gnosticism as heresy.

4) One of the great theological values of the Song of Songs, as God gave it, is that it quite literally forces us to wrestle with the question of the goodness of the physical. If forces us to see the physical as actually Spiritual! That is creation issues forth from the creative work of the Triune God and filled with the Holy Spirit's glory.

The Song of Songs is about the things the Platonist regards as degrading, embarrassing and evil. It is about the the joy of physical beauty. It is about kissing. It is about desiring our mate. It is about the bliss of sexual union. It is about passion and communion. The Song of Songs declares that these things, far from being embarrassing, degrading or evil, they are holy, Spiritual, and of God himself. They are very good.

The monks did not completely miss the boat they understood that the "this" is about "that." The problem is that they failed to see the Flame of Yahweh (8.6c) himself imaged and mirrored in the passionate love of the wife and her husband - this is the glory of the Song of Songs.


NOTES:

1] See Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 411.

2] Weston W. Fields, "Early and Medieval Jewish Interpretation of the Song of Songs," Grace Theological Journal 1 (1980), 223-224. See Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs (Minneapolis: Fortress 1994), 7-6

3] Reuven Kimelman, "Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: A Third-Century Jewish-Christian Disputation," Harvard Theological Review (1980): 567-595.

4] A very readable introduction to these momentous issues is Ronald E. Heine's excellent book Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2007) especially the chapter "The Struggle concerning the Law in the Second Century," pp. 47-74. For a broadly illuminating look at the struggles of the "elder brother" and the "younger brother" see Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP 2002), 225-274.

5] C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 14-15.

6] See the sympathetic overview by Wm. Loyd Allen, "Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs: Why they Matter," Review and Expositor 105 (2008), 403-416.

7] Mary Dove, "Nicholas of Lyra and the literal senses of the Song of Songs," in Nicholas of Lyra: the Senses of Scripture, ed. Philip Krey and Lesley Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 129-146.

8] Mary Dove, "Love ad litteram: The Lollard Translations of the Song of Songs," Reformation 9 (2004), 1-23. Quote from p. 22.

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Holy of Holies: Returning to Eden - the Song of Songs, Sexuality & Spirituality

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
Your love is more delightful than wine;
delicate is the fragrance of your perfume ..."
(Song of Songs 1.2, Jerusalem Bible)

"For in all the world there is nothing equal to the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings [i.e. Scriptures] are Holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies." (Rabbi Akiba, Mishnah, Yadaim 3.5)

"Holy love is the only subject treated in this Song. We must remember that love reveals itself, not by words or phrases, but by action and experience. It is Love which speaks here, and if anyone wishes to understand it, let him first love. Otherwise it would be folly to read this song of love, because it is absolutely impossible for a cold heart to grasp the meaning of language so inflamed." (Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 70.1)

Song of Songs: Entering the Holy of Holies

The Bible. Sexuality. What word comes to mind next? Very few people I know, Christian or otherwise, would exclaim "Spirituality." Indeed though, as Richard Davidson has massively shown, "Sexuality is writ large on the pages of the OT" [1] the church, long infected with virus of Platonic dualism, has often made the assumption that Spirituality and sexuality are polar opposites. Because the church has viewed it this way the world has no reason to disagree!

The Song of Songs has always been a dangerous book for many precisely because it so viciously attacks any notion of dualism and is so unabashedly ... erotic. Erotic is the correct word - not pornographic - but erotic. And it is in the Bible. Which by its very nature demands we examine our, often, not only unbiblical, but anti-biblical assumptions about Spirituality and sexuality. Those are two notions that lie at the very core of being a human. Churches, and the world, are hurting deeply for the lack of witness of the Song of Songs.

Though many churches/Christians act as if they are embarrassed by the Sublime Song of Songs (echoes of the notion that sexuality is somehow tainted or less than holy - dualism!) it has historically been one of the most important books in the Christian canon. In another post I will give a brief overview of the history of the book, but for now we can say that during the medieval period the Song was viewed as a sort of Fifth Gospel! There are more surviving Latin manuscripts of the Song of Songs than any other biblical book. There are more medieval sermons from the Song than any other biblical book except the Psalms. Origen produced a massive 10 volume commentary on the Song. For comparison purposes there are 32 surviving Latin commentaries on the Song from the 6th to 11th centuries while Romans is represented by 9 and Galatians by 6. Bernard of Clairvaux (of whom I will say much more later) spent eighteen years studying, singing, praying and preaching through the Song ... and only made it to the beginning of chapter 3. The Jews have historically affirmed a very high view of the Song as witnessed by Rabbi Akiba and that the Song is read publicly as the text for the holiest worship day of the year - Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

Today the Song is, honestly, practically ignored among Christians. It is true that much of the history of interpretation of the Song has been allegory but the church was not afraid to read and preach the Song. However as Roland Murphy has pointed out, with Bernard specifically in view, "it is paradoxical that Bernard, for all his allegorical flights, often captured the literal meaning of a passage ON THE LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE" [2]. The monks understood on an intuitive level that God was in the mix - even in sexuality.

Yet it was the cancer of Platonic dualism drove many to view sexuality itself as nothing more than a "necessary evil." Thus the Song could not actually be celebrating something that was merely a necessary evil - that is needed for procreation. It was believed that to be truly "spiritual" one had to transcend the body, its functions and its needs/desires. This same worldview, and doctrine, moved some early Christians to deny the reality of the physical incarnation of the Logos and the Gnostics to deny the physical bodily resurrection of Christ and  of believers. The Song is a neo-platonic ascetic nightmare! It had to be "fixed!" For many that solution was allegory but we will see that Bernard though he embraced allegory never de-sexed the Song.

Modernists with a "modern" worldview often claim the Song is "secular." This is even the view of many Christians who radically misunderstand their own faith and worldview. These readers fail to grasp the worldview of ancient Israel - NOTHING WAS SECULAR in ancient Israel! These Israelites did not walk around dividing their days into sacred and the secular as the heirs of the Enlightenment do. They did not have "spiritual" time and "secular" time. Instead they viewed life holistically. Love is a human passion that is God inspired. Those readers who do not see "God" in every line of the Song have a malady that is largely self-inflicted. For the Israelite every moment of life was "infected" by God and this included sexuality. There are many "echoes" in the Song of other biblical stories so much so that ancient Israelite would in fact have seen sexuality, marriage, and burning desire for you mate as sacred. There is no dichotomy: Sexuality is Sacred precisely because it is from God ... and because that passionate intimacy mysteriously mirrors God's own Trinitarian passion. More on that later too.

Returning to Eden

There are many connections between the Sublime Song and the first three chapters of Genesis and I will argue for these as my blogs move forward [3]. In the Garden of Eden, the Bible remembers a paradisaical world. It was a world of love, a world of shalom, a world of mutuality, a world lacking shame. The Fall, Genesis 3, reveals that this world of beauty has been vandalized, even raped. The world in which Israel actually lived, that you and I live in, is a post Genesis 3 world. A world full of sub par relationships on every level. The "symphony of love" begun in Eden becomes the "cacophony of abuse" in the Fallen world. But I submit to you that the Song of Songs pictures the redemption of that symphony of love ... the Song is God's call for a return to Eden in the most holy relationship known to humanity - that between a husband and a wife. In the sexual relationship the Song loudly and proudly proclaims Paradise Regained. Even in the Fallen world we can experience Eden in our relationships - that is the vision of the Sublime Song. As we will see the Song does not see the couple as the "first couple" from Genesis. The Song is deeply aware that we live in a Fallen world but it shows the the woman and the man rediscovering Edenic values in even the most intimate area of their relationship. They relish one another.

In light of my conviction that Akiba was right, that the Song of Songs is inherently Spiritual, and inherently theological, I offer the following seven themes as a mini-Song of Songs theology of Sex as we move into these blogs. I believe these are all the Edenic values that God desires to be in our marriages. Each of these could be expanded greatly but for now I offer just brief commentary.

First, and this is so important, Sexuality is GOOD. Underlying the Song of Songs is the same profound Doctrine of Creation that permeates all of the Hebrew Bible. It is this high view of creation that biblical Spirituality will revel in. The Song of Songs is the verbal photo commentary on Ecclesiastes 3.11 that God "has made everything beautiful in its time." The Song extols and exhibits the creation of sexuality by God in Genesis 2.

Second, Sexuality is for Couples. Some have proposed various roles for Solomon, the shepherd and the woman. I have doubts that Solomon has any real role in the Song at all rather I see the woman calling her man "Solomon" is ancient flattery like a woman today bragging on her husband saying he is hotter than Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or even Batman. This kind of ancient flirting is actually paralleled in the Ancient Near East as seen vividly in Egyptian love songs. In a return to Eden this couple is utterly "in to each other" and they make no Platonic apologies for it. May more wives and husbands embrace this biblical Spirituality.

Third, Sexuality, contrary to the Fall, is egalitarian. The Sublime Song represents a complete reversal of the values of the Fall. The woman in Song of Songs is hardly a passive docile "lady" in the Victorian Ideal. The egalitarian note is sung in 2.16 "my beloved is mine and I am his!" In fact the Woman Lover is the dominant personality in the Song. She carries on the majority of the dialogue (81 verses to 49). She initiates the meetings for lovemaking, she extols his "beauty" passionately ... in fact the man has no extensive voice until chapter 4. One of the most interesting questions in the Song is whether or not 7.10, "I am my lover's and his desire (tesugah) is for me" is a commentary of sorts on Genesis 3.16, "your desire (tesugah) will be for your husband." In the relationship, as God created it and as God desires it and the Song pictures it the man and woman in a mutual joyful love.

Fourth, related to the above theme, Sexuality is about wholeness. We are not creationally "whole" by ourselves. This theme is graphically shown in the Song by the anxiety the lovers feel during periods of the mate's absence (3.1-3; 5.6). Absence brings out the meaning of "presence" for the lovers. Lovers need each other to be whole. Each is capable of being independent but they have become "one flesh."

Fifth, Sexuality is multidimensional. Perhaps we can see the passionate love in the Song as a "live performance" of Genesis 2.24-25. The man is free and unfettered in the Song, and so is the woman. The woman and the man are in a free and spontaneous relationship. Within the Song they are in love for the sake of love. They find joy in mutual physical attraction with unapologetic, and sensually explicit, praise for one another as well as inward qualities of one another. Their relationship is total. After making him feel like he is Mr. Universe she turns and says "this is my beloved and he is my friend" (5.16). The Song reveals fidelity, loyalty and devotion to ones lover. The relationship is God's creational gift in its totality.

Sixth, Sex, is by God's design and intent, Pleasurable. Christians with a biblical worldview (as opposed to a neo-platonic, even neo-Gnostic, worldview) should not shy away from this. But sexuality is not simply intercourse but we need not be platonically ashamed or embarrassed of the goodness and "fun" of sex in our covenant relationship. Too long have we in the Church given the impression that a husband or wife are somehow less than Spiritual, holy, or godly if they are sexually excited by their spouse. They are supposed to be!

It is overlooked often so it needs to be stated forthrightly ... and in light of what many have claimed in the past ... sexuality is not by God's design fundamentally about procreation. That belief is a concession to Platonic dualism. The Song of Songs contains not a single reference to the procreative function of sexuality. As in Genesis 2, the sexual relationship between the Lovers is not linked to any utilitarian agenda. Sex in our covenant relationship does not need any justification to a "superior" end. The union of the lovers - the intimacy - alone is the joy and purpose of sexuality. The Song is not hostile to babies coming but that is not presented as the purpose of sexual intimacy. The Oneness, the intimacy, points beyond itself and mirrors our union with God himself. No wonder it is rapturous!

Seventh, finally, Sexuality is beautiful. Sexuality itself is presented in the Sublime Song as wholesome, good, enjoyable, something that is desired, that is enjoyed without the slightest embarrassment ... it is beautiful! As in Genesis 2, the Lovers in the Song are "naked and ... NOT ASHAMED!" Far from shame they relish it!

In the Song of Songs, though we live in the Fallen world, we have returned to the Garden of Eden. Though in a sinful world Lovers, even after the Fall, can still bask in the beauty of Paradise. The vision of the Song of Songs for our marriage relationship is nothing short of breathtaking. It is a vision we need to teach, preach, proclaim ... and model.

God knew what he was doing when he gave Israel the Song of Songs ... Rabbi Akiba was right. Bernard was right! One will never understand such passionately, even erotically, "inflamed" language if he or she is not first a lover. The plain, literal, sense of the Song of Songs is fraught with Spiritual and theological significance. From the "Old Testament" perspective God is everywhere involved in the Song and his creatures are shown enjoying his good gifts. They are shown basking and demonstrating Yahweh's own passionate love. Their love is just a reflection of that divine love. At the climax of the Song we read

"For Love is as strong as death,
passion as fierce as the grave;
The flash of it is a flash of fire,
a flame of Yahweh (salhebetyah) himself!"
(8.6, my translation)

The passionate love of humans is actually a flash of God's own love. Our experience of Love, as Bernard correctly (inspite of allegory) suggested points to the Lord of Passionate Love! Such is the theology and the gift of the Song of Songs for the church so horribly mired in platonic dualism.

Now here is a thought to think upon: What if when Lord commanded us to "love him with all your heart, with all your soul and all your might" (Deut 6.4) he had something like the passion revealed in the Song of Songs in mind!? I think he did.

Blessings as we read the Song of Songs together.

NOTES:

1]Richard M. Davidson, Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 1. Davidson's study is far and away the most exhaustive study of sexuality in the Hebrew Bible measuring 700 pages of text and 150 pages of notes and bib. I disagree with Davidson on some particulars but this book is foundational now.

2] Roland Murphy, "The History of Exegesis as a Hermeneutical Tool: The Song of Songs," Biblical Theology Bulletin 16 (1986): 89

3] See especially Francis Landy, "The Song of Songs and the Garden of Eden," Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979), 513-528; Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 145-165; Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh, pp. 545-632

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