Aside from the weekly Bible studies, we will add this series so I can get another book ready for publication.
Among King Solomon’s many talents we can include poet and playwright. This book is pure fiction. To the degree it might resemble the real life experience of any particular individual, it would not be Solomon himself, but someone he knew. In modern terms, it is a musical stage play. There are a handful of roles and scholars have worked out who said what, which saves us a lot of confusion.
We know too little of Hebrew culture. Unlike most biblical literature, this is more about presenting the ideal without any pointed correction of known problems. We cannot guess how much of this drama addresses issues of Solomon’s day, but we can easily discern how it varies greatly from our Western social mythology. This book is a presentation of romance done right. The primary reason it is included in the Scripture canon is because Hebrew moral wisdom addresses the whole of human existence, and romance is too important to be left to chance and mythology.
Consistent with what would be the pinnacle of Hebrew art and literature, this work is loaded with parabolic symbolism. The imagery would represent devices easily recognized by anyone who watched the original performance. That we are often greeted in modern Western commentary with silly nonsense about it being some kind of allegory between Christ and His Bride, the Church, is typical of the corrupt Western moral view. The Hebrew people would snicker at our vestigial Victorian foolishness about human sexuality, preferring their own no-nonsense, matter-of-fact Eastern approach. Those who follow Christ should be quick to discard their own twisted and perverted world to discover the rich heritage of God’s revealed moral perspective. This play reveals how God intended people to build a lasting romantic love, the foundation of social stability.
