Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we finished our 13th book of the Bible. We just keep moving past these milestones,

you guys. Congratulations. We read through the whole book of Song of Solomon,

or Song of Songs, depending which version of the Bible you're reading. This book is incredibly

layered, and there's a lot of uncertainty about several aspects of it. For instance,

we don't know if Solomon wrote it or if it was written about Solomon, or if it was just

written during the time of Solomon. If it was written about Solomon, it would

have to be about his relationship with his first wife, because the book describes a monogamous

relationship, and he eventually had a thousand women in his harem, 700 wives and 300 concubines.

And we'll see how well that goes for him. And here's another confusing thing. People have argued for centuries over whether

it's a story about human love or if it's an allegory about God's love for his people. Personally,

I tend to think it's both, much like how David can write a song about his own personal misery

that is also a prophecy of the coming Messiah. But that's just my opinion. Most commentators believe the

ancient Jews regarded it as love poetry that belonged in the wisdom literature of Scripture. And in fact,

from what I understand, young Hebrew boys were even forbidden to read it because it was too risque.

For the sake of today's conversation, we'll look at it like the ancient Jews did, literally,

but it's also helpful to consider that there does seem to be lots of content that can serve as

an illustration for us. If you hold to the romantic interpretation of the book, you can see that

it follows the progression of the ancient Jewish relationship, from courtship to wedding feast

to wedding, then marriage. Much of the book is relationship, from courtship to wedding feast to wedding, then marriage.

Much of the book is a conversation, and there are four primary speakers,

The Shepherdess, Her Entourage, The Shepherd, and King Solomon.

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