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Allegory makes the Song of Songs Weird

In and of itself, the Song of Solomon is not particularly weird. It's a wholesome erotic poem, mostly told as a dialogue between two young lovers. Sure, some of it sounds odd to modern ears. The man sees some analogy between fawns and his girlfriend's breasts, and he apparently thinks this is terribly sexy. But I have faith it made sense at the time. Will your steamy texts make sense in three thousand years?

This text only seems weird because it made its way into the Bible. The Bible is not where most of us would go looking for erotic poetry, especially not about premarital sex.1 More popular parts of the Bible would disapprove of such things. Many exegetes do too, and this creates a problem. They cannot let the Song of Songs be what its author intended it to be, or at least not just that. There must be some deeper meaning which negates the plain sense of the text.

Typically, this means interpreting the text as an allegory about Christ's love for the church.2 And this is where the Song of Songs becomes deeply strange and uncomfortable. I'm happy to say that Jesus loves me, but does he really love me like that? I'm happy to say that the church is the Bride of Christ, but we should not extend this metaphor so far that it has gory details. That's just weird. And not in a cute or funny way. Theologians have often allegorized offensive content in the Bible. I cannot think of another case where this has made it more offensive.


  1. Come on, they're obviously not married. The woman is consistently presented as living with her family. And if they aren't doing each other, what on Earth are they doing?

  2. I believe some Jews have similarly interpreted it as an allegory about God's love for the Jewish people.

#Bible #religion