What is the Song of Solomon?

This is a slightly less common thread than those I usually see, but I think this is the right place for it.Bible fundamentalists are usually anxious to tell us that the bible is an inerrant document - the word of God passed down to Man. As such, Man must obey its instructions and believe its history as a matter of faith. It is the divine direction for a good life.I can see that a book of history and law is internally consistent with this belief. But what is an erotic love poem doing in the document?Usually fundamentalists say that this must be understood allegorically. But if this is the case, why can't we read Genesis allegorically? And if we must read it literally, what does it mean, and why is it so important?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
[B]I just read it again.It is clearly a narrative of an interaction between a man and a woman. [/quote][/b]Yes - I think that comes over rather well! [QUOTE][B]
It is also very clear that it is left open as to who they are!But Christians recognize it as propheic of Chrsit and his bride, the church, whether or not Solomon experienced these things in real life himself. [/quote][/b]And I heard that Christians recognised it more recently as prophetic of the love of God for Mary. Cite below:http://www.wsu.edu:8080/...love-in-the-arts/songofsongs.htmlBut given there is no indication of any of this in the text you have to pedal very hard to come to this conclusion. For an inerrant bible there seems to be a lot of human interpretation going on here.Is it just a rule that you have to look at it this way? I, of course, simply see it as a series of erotic and sensual love poems.

quote:

---

If you choose to make an analogy of Song to the accounts of creation or the flood in Genesis then you must have an awful lot of trouble watching TV. "When is it real, when is it a story? I can't tell!" We can - easily, as can agnostic Bible scholars.

---

Hang on a second - this sounds confusing! What do you mean by 'make an analogy of Song to the accounts of creation..'? I am just saying that if I read Song and look at the internal evidence of the document I get an erotic love poem, describing a relationship between a man and woman which is, frankly, very believable, resonates with effective imagery, and has no trouble being interpreted by any 18 year old in love a few thousand years later. You tell me that really it is a prophetic allegory.Then I read an account of the creation of the world, which was not believable a thousand years after it was written, let alone now, and has a lot in common with the story-type we call myth. You tell me that this one is literally true. The problem I have is that you are contradicting the internal evidence of the writing, presumably on the basis of external pressure to make it conform to some pre-set ideals.Why? I can see no difficulty with the bible containing the word of God and also containing myth. I have no trouble with myth being the word of God - remember Lewis saying that 'sometimes a fairy-tale is the best way of putting over something you want to say' (I paraphrase). If you want to compress multiple and complex meanings into a sentence you are often better off to use myth or similar circumlocutions, like the Delphic oracle. Creationist interpretation looks like a vain attempt to lock understanding of this document down to narrow cultural limits, which will fail to transcend a period of a few hundred years.Incidentally, though I watch little television, I have little difficulty determining its accuracy. It is a 'story' most of the time, particularly when a politician is speaking! Anyone who thinks there is much reality on television needs to improve their critical faculties.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ Solomon was probably describing a real event that was also prophetic. Just as the Pharaoh of Moses' killing all new borns was real and yet also prophetic of (i) Herod going after new borns at the time of Christ's birth and (ii) Satan going after the 'manchild' born of the woman (= church) in Rev 12/13.

​

Creation and the flood on he other hand are:

​

On the first day I created X, on the second day I created Y etc and then in other parts of Scipture it states that 'God made the heavens and the earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th'. Same with the flood. Details of days, years, cubits, gopher wood, pitch, animals, food, 8 saved, retreat of waters below highest mountains etc.

​

Genesis is simply not comparable to the generic poetic imagery of Song or Revelation.

​

[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 09-03-2002]

---

Your key point seems to be that rich, poetic imagery should be interpreted as prophesy, while direct factual statement should be interpreted as literal truth. Then you claim that direct factual statement - the new-born story - can also be prophetic, while even the poetic imagery is 'probably real'.Where is the consistency in this position? Anything now can be real or a vision, or both. Why can't I interpret the Genesis story as a prophesy of a world flood to come when we have polluted our planet and started global warming?And the prophesy is not up to much either. Someone or something is going to love someone or something. Why must it be Christ and the Church? Which Church? I presume each sect believes it refers to them - they cannot all be right. Does this make the prophesy wrong? It certainly makes it useless. Why can't it refer to man's love for the truth, or a child's love for sweets? How can this be an accurate and inerrant word of god? It could mean anything.You appear to be applying interpretations to the Song which are not supported by any internal evidence, but purely for your own convenience. The precise details of the Genesis story read exactly like the use of detail, sometimes called 'spurious precision' after the statistical problem, applied to enhance storytelling. Sometimes the numbers have mystic significance, like 40, 7 or 3. A retelling of many folk tales will illustrate this. That is the way it seems to me. Yet to you they are real, and not prophetic.An often-used argument by creationists is that when they read Genesis it immediately strikes them as obviously true - the obvious first interpretation is that creation took place in a week and there was a flood. Why can we not apply the same argument to the Song? Do you really immediately see it as a depiction of Christ's love for the church? Why, then, is there all this sensual and erotic language, not the kind of thing I usually associate with love of an institution? Why can't it be a collection of love songs, and nothing else?