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Most disturbing of all, for good middle-class church-going people, the lovers in this Song don’t appear to be married! If they were, why would they need to sneak away for a
romp?
We people of the book, over the generations, have consistently found this Song of Songs to be a source of embarrassment. And frankly, more embarrassing still, from my
point of view, than the book itself have been those who have sought to defend it, always on the basis of allegorization.
The early Jewish Rabbis took the Song to be an allegory of the love between the Lord and Israel. Likewise, most Christians who defended the book regarded it as a song of
love between Christ and His church.
This allegorical approach was standard from the medieval period right through the Reformation:
The man is taken to be Christ. The woman is the church. His kisses (1:2) are the Word of God, the girl’s dark skin (1:5) is sin, her breasts (7:7) are the church’s nurturing
doctrine, and her two sweet lips (4:11) are law and gospel! (no doubt the top lip was sweeter than the bottom!)
The most curious part of the historical allegory, I think, has been the popular identification, made originally by St Ambrose, of the woman with the virgin Mary! Not only is
there no independent reason to think that the women in this Song is Mary, but the woman in question is certainly no virgin!
Most modern scholars regard the allegorical interpretation is indefensible, which brings us back to our original question: what is this book doing in the Bible?
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