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If you grew up Jewish in a certain time, there was a forbidden fruit in your Bible. You knew this book was in there. You whispered about it with your friends. You probably snuck a peek when you were sure dad and Rabbi weren't looking. It was as canonical as any other book. In fact Rabbi Akiba had said, "If all the sacred writings are holy," then this one was "the holy of holies" (Mishnah, Yadayim 3:5). But you wouldn't be allowed to read it out in the open (some sources say) until your thirtieth birthday.

In her Spring 2003 Marriage Partnership article, "In the Mood," Jill Savage tops her list of 19 ways for married couples seeking to "kick up your sexual desires a notch" with this suggestion:

"Read Song of Songs. If your spouse is willing, read it together out loud. … This is God's sex manual!"

The picture is irresistible. Pete and Paula are sitting up in their four-poster together, the family Bible propped on a few pillows. Opening it to the Song of Songs (the book is also known as "Song of Solomon" or, from the Latin for "song," "Canticles"), Pete begins:

"Your waist is a mound of wheat" (7:2). "Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon" (7:4).

Paula picks up the refrain:

"My beloved is dazzling and ruddy … His hands are rods of gold set with beryl; his abdomen is carved ivory inlaid with sapphires" (5:10,14, NASB).

OK, granted, it's hard for us to "get into" some of the imagery. But the theme is unmistakable, and it still holds our fascination after all these centuries:

"Your stature is like a palm tree, / And your breasts are like its clusters, / 'I said, "I will climb the palm tree, / I will take hold of its fruit stalks." / Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, / And the fragrance of your breath like apples, / And your mouth like the best wine! / It goes down smoothly for my beloved … '" (7:7-9, NASB)

I recently picked up the proofs of a forthcoming Eerdmans translation and commentary by Judith Ernst: Song of Songs: Erotic Love Poetry. American novelist David James Duncan writes the introduction. As he relates the history of the Song's interpretation, he says what many readers still feel—isn't it something of a miracle that this bodice-ripper is actually still in the biblical canon? I nodded, and read on:

"The survival of these openly erotic and mystical songs in the same text touted by generations of Puritans, Conquistadors, Inquisitors, misogynist priests, and fundamentalist book burners is an outright miracle of fidelity to holy writ."

Here I came to a grinding halt. The Puritans? Song-of-Songs haters?

I don't think so.

First of all, let's please get over this twentieth-century canard about the Puritans being afraid of sex and bent on making sure no one enjoyed it. As the Yale Puritan expert Harry Stout put it, "They certainly did not have sexual hang-ups. They were not prudes. … For husband and wife, sex was important, and Puritan families were routinely large. A spouse could be punished by the authorities for withholding sex from his or her partner. … They were intense lovers."

For these "intense lovers," the Song of Songs was the perfect lens on the church's—and the individual believer's—communion with Christ. Though only one of many ways in which the Song has been interpreted in Christian History, this allegorical one has a long pedigree in the church. The second-century exegete Origen (ca. 185-254) pioneered the view, which identified the song's male lover as God or Christ and its female lover as Israel, the church, or the believer. The Fathers through the medieval period followed Origen's lead, with the mystics emphasizing the personal, subjective side of the interpretation.

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February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47