Christian History Home > Issue 80 > Too Racy for Bible Study
Too Racy for Bible Study
Origen could not believe the Song of Songs was a hymn to erotic love. So what did it mean?
Warren Smith | posted 10/01/2003 12:00AM
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out. … How beautiful are you, my love, how very beautiful. … Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down the slopes of Gilead … your lips are like a crimson thread and your mouth is lovely. … Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle."
The words are not from a cheesy romance novel but from the Old Testament, specifically Song of Songs (1:1-2; 4:1, 3, 5). If these words are not familiar, it is because Song of Songs is one of the books contemporary Christians rarely read or study. Few pastors preach from the Song. The erotic language is off-putting and the metaphors ("Your hair is like a flock of goats") strange. What moral insight can lie within a text that is so explicitly sexual? How can a book that celebrates sex but never explicitly mentions God edify the Christian?
Christ's love song
The early Christians found the Song just as ...
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