Amazon’s (author’s) Description:
The Song of Solomon,” is God’s engagement, marriage, and lovemaking manual. Marriage and love-making are so important to God that he gave us a whole book about them. The Song of Solomon is the only book in the Bible written entirely from a woman’s perspective, Shulamith’s, even including some of her thoughts by inspiration of the Spirit of God, though it was written by her husband. I present her story in the form of a play, adding a few comments, but mostly just helping the reader understand each scene and who is speaking.
My Personal Review:
Right off I disagree with the author that this book’s intent is to be a “sex manual” for marriage, and that anything otherwise is an “abuse” of understanding. Immediately that saddens me. Putting the “point” of this book on sex and marriage is like lighting a candle from a raging bonfire, and then huddling around the candle to get warm. The candle provides light, and maybe a bit of warmth – but it’s so pale in comparison to the wild fire of spiritual passion that this book wants to lead us to!
I do agree with the author that believe that the text is very raw, and even more so in the original language than what was somewhat sterilized for us in our current translations. But again, sex and marriage is not the end all, to end all.
(Both Jesus, and Paul, make this clear in many places of the Bible, but I’ve written about this elsewhere)
But anyway, with all that being said, here are a few things that I appreciate about this little book (and I do mean little – it’s VERY short):
- He describes some of the passages in some highly suggestive/erotic ways. While I believe the original language was not so brazen, I did find some of it rather beautiful to read.
- I also found Wayne to be very astute in geography! When I get to studying those portions in the Song, I will definitely be going back to his book to get some good background on names of places, etc. that he already did the legwork on.
- Also, I have to give him credit for first introducing me to a “chiasm,” and where one is in the Song! I wrote an article about it here: Joy Unspeakable and the Discovery of a Chiasm
And oh, it was rather shocking to read his take on the passage in chapter 5, where Solomon disappears after he is knocking on her door, and she supposedly “delays” in opening the door. The author says Solomon was “mad” at her and left. *Sigh.* While the majority of views on this passage does put the blame on the woman for not getting up fast enough (which I don’t agree with) to say he was “mad” at her is unfortunate, and just so wrong.
Recent Comments