By Jonathan Kaplan /The Dialog

Many Individuals have heard the expression “I’m my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” – actually, a fast Google search turns up myriad web sites providing wedding ceremony bands inscribed with  the much-loved line . Search Etsy for Valentine’s Day presents, and also you’ll see jewellery, T-shirts and low mugs printed with the phrase. However maybe not all the citation’s admirers know that its origins lie in a biblical textual content: the Track of Songs, which has created difficulties for readers for two,000 years.

Often known as the Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles, the Track of Songs stands out within the Bible due to its in depth and candid sexual content material. It’s a work of sensual lyric poetry that portrays scenes of precise and imagined trysts between the poem’s feminine protagonist and her lover.

Graphic descriptions of each female and male our bodies pervade the work and are definitely titillating, even bordering on pornographic. Sensual metaphors reminiscent of “ grazing among the lilies ” and “ingesting …  from the juice of my pomegranates ” counsel sexual practices which can be something however vanilla.

It’s not simply the emphasis on intercourse that makes the textual content uncommon. The Track of Songs is the one work within the Bible that focuses solely on human-to-human love, not human-to-divine – no less than on the floor degree of the poem.

Historical Jews and Christians have been troubled by the inclusion of such a graphic love poem within the biblical canon and got here up with their very own methods to treatment the dilemma.

Barely a point out of God

The Bible consists of different references to intercourse – together with graphic depictions of  sexual violence . And different books definitely comprise depictions of human love, reminiscent of that of the patriarch Jacob, who labored for 14 years to win  his wife Rachel  within the Ebook of Genesis.

However when different biblical books speak about love and marriage, they primarily use this language to depict God’s relationship with individuals – particularly, the individuals of Israel, who’ve a particular covenant with him in keeping with the Torah. In distinction, the Track of Songs could probably allude to Israel’s God solely as soon as, in  chapter eight .

But historical interpreters of the Track of Songs didn’t interpret this poetic work as an outline of human-to-human love. In reality,  while researching  my book  about early rabbinic interpretation of the Track of Songs, I seen that no such interpretations – Jewish or Christian – survive from earlier than the trendy period.

As a substitute, the sooner commentators “reread” the Track of Songs solely as a portrayal of divine-to-human love, God’s relationship with a beloved particular person or neighborhood.

Covenant with the Divine

Other scholars and I have argued  that the earliest interpretations of the Track of Songs seem in late first-century works, reminiscent of allusions within the  Book of Revelation  – the ultimate e book within the New Testomony, which describes prophetic visions of Jesus’ second coming – and  4 Ezra , one other apocalyptic work included in some variations of the Bible.

Within the first few centuries, rabbis started to interpret the Track of Songs as a part of their commentaries on the Pentateuch, the primary part of the Hebrew Bible. The Pentateuch describes the creation of the world and consists of tales in regards to the Israelites’ ancestors and their epic journey from Egypt to Israel. Over the course of a number of books, the Pentateuch exhibits them fleeing slavery, receiving revelation from God at Mt. Sinai, wandering within the desert for 40 years and eventually coming into the promised land.

These early rabbis envisioned that narrative as an prolonged, intimate story about God’s relationship with the individuals of Israel. And though they shied away from the extra erotic dimensions of the Track of Songs, they used its language to depict God’s relationship with the individuals of Israel as greater than a easy contractual association. In  my 2015 book, “My Perfect One ,” I argued that the earliest rabbis characterised these bonds as deeply affectionate and marked by profound emotional dedication. For example, in a single passage, they interpret  Song of Songs 2:6  – “His left hand was beneath my head, and his proper hand embraced me” – as describing God’s embrace of Israel at Mt. Sinai.

A Lover’s Craving

Similarly, Christian students averted the carnal dimensions of this poetic work. Fairly than seeing the Track of Songs as an announcement of God’s love for Israel, early Christians understood it as an allegory of Christ’s love for his “bride,” the church.

Minstrel taking part in earlier than King Solomon. Illumination for the opening verse of Track of Songs, the Rothschild Mahzor, Manuscript on parchment. Florence, Italy, 1492. ( Public Domain )

Different allegorical readings have additionally emerged all through historical past. Origen, as an example,  a third-century Christian writer , proposed that the Track of Songs may very well be interpreted because the soul’s craving for God. Just like different interpreters, Origen related the soul with the feminine protagonist, and the divine along with her male “beloved.”

One other Christian  approach to the Song of Songs  was that the poem described God’s loving relationship with Jesus’ mom, Mary.

These various interpretations may additionally have influenced medieval Jewish mystics. In Judaism, the divine presence or “Shekinah” is usually  thought of as feminine  – an concept that grew to become vital to those mystics, who relied on the Track of Songs to explain the Shekinah.

Studying the poem immediately

Within the trendy interval, much more understandings of the poem have emerged, together with some about human-to-human love. For example,  feminist readings  have highlighted the feminine character’s energy, autonomy and sensuality. Conservative Christians, in the meantime, typically  approach the poem  as a really perfect expression of acceptable love between a husband and spouse.

From the primary few centuries as much as immediately, these many meanings spotlight readers’ creativity – and the evocative energy of the Track of Songs’ poetic language .

High picture: ‘Track of Songs’ illustrated by Florence Kingsford/Southern Methodist College. Supply: Public Domain

This text was initially revealed beneath the title ‘ Why is a love poem full of sex in the Bible? Readers have been struggling with the Song of Songs for 2,000 years ’ by Jonathan Kaplan on The Conversation , and has been republished beneath a Artistic Commons License.