Backing Up My Assertions
August 15, 2008
In a recent post Gay? Okay! Sex? No Way! I wrote
Were the prohibition against premarital sex a decree of God’s the inclusion of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament becomes a problem. While it’s often been interpreted as an allegorical depiction of the relationship between God and Israel (as husband and wife) it’s a story in poetic form that unfolds between two unmarried lovers. In graphic imagery it describes their courtship, their sensual appreciation of each others’ bodies and of their passionate consummation. Though brief passages from the Song of Songs are often read at Christian wedding ceremonies, interestingly enough there’s no mention of marriage or an intention for a future marriage within the book, and yet the human body and the physical expression of sexuality between the two lovers is celebrated free of judgment. The mutual love, affection, and yearnings between the young lovers, if originally intended as an allegory at all, was considered more than appropriate enough to represent the relationship between God and God’s people. How could this be the case if premarital sex was considered immoral behavior by God?
By this I’m not suggesting that premarital sex is just fine because of the inclusion of unmarried lovers within the biblical text; only that their presence creates a tension with an absolute divine prohibition against premarital sex. The presence of unmarried lovers in the Song of Songs offers, at the very least, room for Christians to engage in a meaningful and open conversation on the question of premarital sex that adds a new dimension beyond the tradition response. With that said, I made an oversight in my original post when I failed to offer any evidence to support my foundational claim that the couple in the Song of Songs are unmarried lovers rather than husband and wife. I was made aware of this in a comment recently offered by Peg that read in part,
I was just curious why you think the man and woman in the Song of Solomon are unmarried throughout the book. I ask as a lesbian (with a partner) who also has an advanced biblical degree (and not a fundamentalist one LOL). I just don’t see the evidence there that sex outside of marriage was taking place here or anywhere else in the Bible.
I really think I look at the Bible with an objective eye. I’ve had lots of revelations about scripture since studying it for so many years, and they’ve sometimes been surprising and hard-to-accept ones. I say this to say that I don’t think I’m closing a blind eye to Song of Songs. If I am, may my mind be opened! But for now, I think my scholarship has to conclude that there is no sex outside marriage in that book. When he calls her his bride, I think there’s every reason to believe it literally.
I appreciate Peg raising the question, a question I would imagine might well have crossed the minds of a few others and I consider such questions important as they allow both you and I to engage with each other and in the Word together. For that reason I’ve chosen to respond to Peg’s comments within a blog post rather than tucking it away somewhere in the bottom of a comment section where it might be missed in the shuffle.
So to Peg and anyone else who hasn’t abandoned their blog trolling for their summer time Slip-N-Slide, here’s some of the evidence I find compelling within the Song of Songs that leads me to conclude that the man and young woman are unmarried lovers.
First, there’s the absence of marriage language in the entire book. The words husband, wife, marriage, wedded, or betrothal never appear in the text, with the exception at the end of chapter 3 when the woman refers specifically to the wedding of King Solomon. Neither is so much as a passing word given to their future life together; of establishing a family and having children, or referring to any matters of day to day life. There’s no concern or motive expressed for their relationship outside of love for love’s sake alone.
As Peg accurately mentions, in chapter 4 the man addresses the woman repeatedly as “my sister, my bride” but unlike Peg I don’t take his use of bride any more literally than I take his use of sister. Lovers in ancient love songs (many examples still exist from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Assyria) often addressed each other as sister and brother as an expression of their deep bond to the other, not as a literal description of a familial relationship. Likewise, in chapter 4, the male lover is speaking to the one he loves, describing her body in sensual detail and as his impassioned words build toward the intimately erotic he calls her “my sister, my bride” (literally, sisterbride) as a term of loving endearment rather than actual identity. It’s also significant to me that the young woman never refers to her male lover as “my brother” or “my bridegroom.”
Additionally, in the closing chapter, Song of Songs 8, the young woman speaks for her brothers saying,
We have a little sister and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for?If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver,
but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
She then goes on to say
I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers;
then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace.
In her own words her brothers intention is to keep their little sister chaste until she’s spoken for in marriage. If she is a wall they will build a fortification of silver around her. If she is a door, they will seal the door with cedar bonds. But in her own words it’s too late for that because she was a wall but her lover has found his way in. There would be no sense if these two were married that her brothers would speak of a future date when she would be spoken for. There would be no concern with keeping her chaste if her virginity had already been given away to a bridegroom. The two lovers are unmarried and while the watchmen and maidens are privily to their words and displays of love, her big brothers seem clueless to their sister’s love life.
And finally, then there are words exchanged between the lovers throughout the song that simply make more sense to me held within the framework of unmarried lovers than as words between a husband and wife. Here are a few examples.
Oh that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me. - chapter 8
From what we know of the ancient world and their social norms it seems more reasonable to argue that she was despised for kissing her lover than for a bride to be kissing her bridegroom.
Like a lily among the thorns is my darling among the maidens. Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men. - chapter 2
The woman compares the man among other unmarried men and the man compares the woman among other unmarried women.
I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone. My heart leaped up when he spoke. I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen who went about the city found me. They struck me, they wounded me; The keepers of the walls took my veil away from me. - chapter 5
The lovers have a sexual encounter (door locks and myrrh are more than just door locks and myrrh…trust me on this) and then immediately after, he leaves. When she goes to look for him she’s beaten by the watchmen and disgraced by being unveiled. Why would a husband leave their marriage bed in the night? Why would a wife be beaten and dishonored for searching for her husband?
By night on my bed I sought the one I love; I sought him, but I did not find him. “I will rise now,” I said, “And go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I will seek the one I love.” I sought him, but I did not find him. The watchmen who go about the city found me; I said, “ Have you seen the one I love?” Scarcely had I passed by them, when I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go, until I had brought him to the house of my mother, and into the chamber of her who conceived me. - chapter 3
She is in her bed and once again in the night he’s not there and so once again she goes out to find him and when she does she takes him to the house of her mother. Were they husband and wife it would seem they would either return to their home or to the home of his family as the wife customary left her family to belong to the husband’s family.
This is some of what leads me to the conclusion that the young woman and her beloved were unwed lovers. Within the framework of the narrative, unwed lovers seems far more consistent with the storyline and by the same token, there are places where as a bride and bridegroom, the passages would make little sense to me.
That’s the long answer to your question Peg, offered not to sway, woo, or cajole you to hold the same view but simply to explain what’s led me to mine. I invite you and others to offer more of your own thoughts.
And by the way, did you know that the Song of Songs was sung in taverns in first-century Palestine? It was misused used was so frequently as a drinking song (you can only sing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” so often) that Rabbi Akiba (50-135 C.E.) gave the following warning: “Whoever trills his voice singing the Song of Songs in a banquet hall, regarding it as a common song, has no part in the world to come.” I threw that fact in free of charge. No shipping. No handling. No trilling.
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Posted in Sexual Ethics
August 16th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Very interesting exposition - I need to go back and read it more carefully…
I have to wonder about the question of who is “speaking” (in Song of Songs), and “when,” as well as “why.” I’m not able to read the Hebrew text (unfortunately), but AFAIK, isn’t there some uncertainty about this in the text itself? I know that I’ve seen the various monologues and linking sections divvied up between various “speakers” in a number of English translations, and they don’t all match up. [runs to pull copy of Tanakh from shelf ;)]
Also, I wonder if perhaps certain aspects of the text (like the relationship between the lovers and what kind of “status” they had in society) were very clear to early readers but are opaque to us? Kinda like the bafflement that some people experience re. Esther (in that God’s name is never mentioned) - to me personally, that’s a narrative masterstroke, in that we (well, “I”) see him as brooding over the events discussed… while others wonder if the writer even acknowledged him.
Literary devices can and do (I think) often trip us when we’re dealing with any text coming from another culture/country.
—–
After a quick re-read (probably too quick) of S of S + your post, am thinking that I’m of Peg’s opinion myself… partly because of the garden imagery at the end of ch. 4 and following that seems to related directly to the woman… Also because of some of the poetic imagery *and* (my trump card, as if there is such a thing here!) the notion that the writer(s) didn’t need to spell things out for their original readers. (As in Esther.)
Am looking forward to other comments on this!
——
One last thought: like anita, I do think “bride” is metaphorical rather than literal here.
[Anita, please feel free to crunch my posts together...!] [Anita to e2tc: Done deal!]
August 16th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
OK, just for fun, check this link.
I once worked on a project where I was dealing with translated text (from Portuguese to English) and even though the literal translation aspect of it was relatively simple, the rest of it (the meaning) was anything but.
So I’m inclined to think that there are (as stated in the link I just posted) many ambiguities in the SofS. If I were to propose my personal take (only a guess), one thought that comes to mind is: a secret marriage; something/someone preventing the lovers from being together publicly.
Q. for Anita and Peg: are there any other texts (not biblical) dealing with marriages that can be referenced here? Something makes me think that there are all kinds of things happening in the SofS that are just outside our 21st c. American frame of reference… but of course, that’s all speculation on my part.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Anita-
I appreciate the way you write and the spirit in which you challenge us to think outside the box. You’ve made an interesting case that Solomon and the Shulamite were not married at the time they were intimate.
I’ve always believed that a marriage in the Bible is when flesh joins flesh, Genesis 2:24. That also seems to be the view of Jesus when He cites Genesis 2:24 in Matthew 16:5-6 and Paul in I Cor 6:15-16. If a Biblical marriage is when flesh joins flesh, then Solomon and his beloved were married, albeit, without the ceremony aspects and according to your reasoning, without others being officially aware of their union.
Reading your interesting articles about premarital sex for Christians raised several questions for me. You stated:
“As it happens, the Greek term “porneia” (also translated as fornication) that’s been translated as sexual immorality refers to particular activities of extra-marital sex, such as adultery and prostitution rather than any and all sexual activities that take place outside of marriage.”
It appears that scripture uses porneia in I Cor 7:2 with the meaning of unmarried individuals having sex without being married.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/c.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=7&verse=2&version=KJV#2
A man is to have his own woman and a woman is to have her own man to avoid porneia/fornication. According to I Cor 7:2, the sexual relationship in marriage is licit while sexual relationships outside marriage are viewed as porneia/fornication or illicit.
Scripture presents an interesting metaphor in I Cor 11:2 and Eph 5:27, presenting the church as a chaste virgin to Christ, without spot or blemish.
The metaphor of church as a virgin being presented to the Bridegroom (Who like His virgin bride, would not have been sexually active with anyone else) seems to argue against Christian women or men engaging in sexual relationships outside the committed, faithful partnership we call marriage or holy union.
I am not writing to argue but simply to ask, How do you reconcile I Cor 7:2 referring to the sexual activity of unmarried men and unmarried women as fornication/porneia and contrasting that with the sexual relationship in a marriage?
Rick Brentlinger
http://www.gaychristian101.com/Mission.html
August 18th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
e2tc–>Thanks for the link to the commentary by Marcia Falk on the Song of Songs. I appreciated her perspective and in particular her thoughts on the young woman’s mentioning of her “blackness.” That’s an interesting discussion by itself. You noticed accurately that there’s not a standard on assigning individual passages to particular speakers. Just another example of the dubious nature of the most carefully researched and knowledgeable translation work. I agree with you E, that the song would probably have been less opaque to ancient readers/hearers. They were also familiar with similar love songs, the familiar plot lines and elements of the stories that were more common, the use of imagery from everyday pastoral life to express eroticism, etc. There’s much of Song of Songs that remains a mystery to us and it was most certainly included into the canon based on the allegorical layer of God’s relationship with Israel, and then Christ’s with the church as emphasized by the early church fathers. One of the most stirring Christian books I’ve read that refers to the Song of Songs is by John Eldridge and Brent Curtis, “The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God.” LOVED it! But in the end, however one chooses to interpret this book, it would seem one would first need to acknowledge it fundamentally as an erotic love song and a passionate one at that!
Rick–> Your comments are more than welcomed and be assured I don’t someone sharing a different perspective or raising valid questions is after an argument. I greatly appreciate the diversity of thought and belief.
With that said, I’m going to respond somewhat briefly to the points you raised, but only because they head into some areas that I think will be addressed when I get into Jesus’ love ethic as the touchstone for Christian sexual ethics. Because my previous posts have appeared to break down the traditional prohibitions/considerations around our sexual behavior it might at first appear that I’m saying there are none or that the lines are lax. Nothing could in fact be further from the truth and I trust that will be apparent as I move forward in addressing the topic. For now however, let me respond to a couple textual questions you raised:
I absolutely agree with you Rick on becoming one when flesh joins with flesh and I’ll definitely be addressing that more in future posts as I told about the notion of casualsex. With that said, even in acknowledging that I would have some problem still with the fact that the young woman’s own brothers didn’t know, given that marriage in ancient Israel was a family (tribal, communal) event. The other problem I have with their relationship being as a married couple is the total lack, as I’ve already mentioned, of any mention of a future life, of children, and all those considerations that were so tightly connected to being married in an ancient culture.
Presuming you’re correct, that the male lover and the young woman were married, then I would of course have to acquiesce my original argument that their presence as unmarried leaves room around the whole conversation of the biblical attitude around pre-marital sex. Even doing so however, would then make a wider case for gay relationships, removing the notion that society has to approve a relationship or cultural norms for it to be valid since this couple certainly didn’t have the blessing of their community based on 5:7 and 8:1, since a union based on love alone, rather than on the exchange of property, child-bearing, tribal alliances, etc., was a radical idea in the ancient world. [Side note: Solomon is mentioned in the text but there's much debate as to whether he's actually the male lover.]
I see how you got there Rick but I don’t agree for several reasons. First, 1 Corinthians 7:1 begins with these words: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote,…” which means Paul is responding to a specific issue(s) that had been brought to him in a letter from the Corinthian community that has been lost to us. What was the matter they wrote about? Did they write that unmarried men and women were having sex with one another in the church? If so, then yes, porneia could include pre-marital sex. The problem is, I think it’s a stretch to reach that conclusion given what we know of Corinth, where worship to Aphrodite (goddess of love, lust, and sex) was prominent and its influence was no doubt something they encountered in daily communal life. The majority of their neighbors were worshipers of Aphrodite, as were many of their Corinthians converts to Christianity. They were living under the shadow of the Temple of Aphrodite with all its temple prostitutes. They witnessed the yearly festival that took over the city and the regular rituals that played out in the city square. Given all this, I just don’t see the question as being limited to a matter of simply pre-marital sex but of sex outside marriage that was influenced by the immoralities and behaviors uniquely associated with their immediate environment.
Without leaping into a whole other discussion, I think it’s also imperative to be familiar with Paul’s culturally bound understanding of what it meant to “burn with desire/passion” as he instructs those who can’t “control themselves” to marry. Dale Martin addresses it well in his chapter, “Paul without Passion” in his book, “Sex and the Single Savior”.
Rick, I’m uncertain in both these passages how it’s being stated that the wife is a chaste virgin. Nothing is said of her life before being her husband’s wife just as nothing is said of the church before it’s union with Christ. That we (the church) are presented to Christ “without spot or wrinkle” has nothing to do with us and who we once were but is a direct result of Christ giving himself for us and sanctifying us and that is who we are now. What we were before becoming Christ is over and done. The past is the past and now we are joined with Christ, faithful and devoted only to him who made us anew.
And I said I was going to answer briefly….
August 18th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
anita -> I’m really liking the fact that there’s a good discussion going on here, in a very non-dogmatic way!
There’s much of Song of Songs that remains a mystery to us …
Absolutely. I’m leery of “definitive” interpretations of the SofS partly because it seems that so many Christians (throughout history) have used it as an argument for - or even an instructional manual for - all kinds of things, from what’s now referred to as “the bridal paradigm” to a Marian tract to… I was going to say “an eroticization of our relationship with Christ” (and i guess I still am saying that! ;)) a la John and Stasi Eldredge’s more recent books, to a sex manual to… only
God himself knows what all else. All of that makes me want to look at the book as a love poem first and foremost, and not speculate too much on doctrinal matters per se, other than noting that clearly, sex is a gift from God, seeing the respect and regard the lovers have for each other (not just focusing on their passion), etc.
I’m also amused by the way that we Christians don’t rush to these kinds of conclusions (in general) over books like Ecclesiastes or Job. Only the SofS seems to elicit such (err…) “passionate” responses.
And I like the idea that there’s “mystery” attached to this book, because in some ways that whole idea echoes the fact that there are “mysteries” in our faith. (Not meaning Gnostic-style views, but the simple fact that our human minds cannot figure out everything there is to know about God’s love for us, his nature, etc. etc.)
BTW, I ordered a copy of Marcia Falk’s annotated translation of the SofS yesterday, thinking that it’ll be a fun read! (Weird, I know, but hey, I’m geeky that way. :))
August 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
e2tc–> Hey, after 38 years in fundamentalism, about the only thing I’m going to get dogmatic about these days is God’s love! Like you I shy away from allegorical interpretations or any for that matter because of the dubiousness of the text itself. The reason I loved Eldridge’s book on the Sacred Romance was because it enhanced and gave a beautiful metaphor for what I already believed about our personal relationship with God but it’s not what I consider the intention of the writer, if that could ever be known. Honestly, when it comes to the Song of Songs, what I love best to imagine is all those religious old men sitting around a huge rough hewn table discussing whether to include the Song of Songs or not into the canon. Okay, I’m grinning just thinking about it. I love the mystery element of our faith too….which seems a natural outcome of it being a faith based on faith.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
anita -> Well now, this makes me smile more than the idea of the guys at the rough-hewn table:
“Whoever trills his voice singing the Song of Songs in a banquet hall, regarding it as a common song, has no part in the world to come.”
I always had the idea that Rabbi Akiba was A Good Guy, but now I know for sure!
August 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Here is an easily accessible reference for Rabbi Akiba’s quote.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Rick–> And a much more readily accessible reference than my Survey of the Old Testament class notes from seminary! Thanks!
August 24th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Rick, many thanks - that commentary is on my (very long) “to Read” list now.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 am
OK, I’ve got my copy of Marcia Falk’s annotated translation of the SofS now, and I find her approach (after a fast skim; need to read more) to be very interesting. She consulted all sorts of manuscript copies (more, maybe, than some previous translators have been able to) and her overall take is that the SofS is an anthology of lyric and narrative poems. To me, that sounds quite plausible, though without having her linguistic and critical skills, all I can say is that it seems like a valid supposition.
One thing I really like is her take on ch. 3:1-ff (I don’t have my copy of her book handy, so I can’t give you the exact citation of where she thinks this particular poem ends.) She vies 3:1 as referring to the woman being asleep and the subsequent verses (including the section about the watchmen) as being dream imagery. (In fact, her rendering of the opening of vs. 1 is “While I slept, my heart was awake . . .”) To my mind, this all makes sense - there is a kind of surreal quality (I think) to the night wandering, encounter with the watchmen, etc. - and I’ve sometimes wondered if vs. 1 refers to being asleep.
In all, it’s really a joy to see someone taking such a close look at the poetry - not that Falk is unique in this. (And I doubt she’d make any claims to that, or to having an authoritative interpretation of the text/book.) It helps a *lot* to have our chapter/verse numbers pushed off to one side.