We're Finally Talking About the Song of Songs

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan This is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Rocking and rolling.

Dan McClellan Excellent.

Dan Beecher Enjoying life. You're back in town, which is always nice.

Dan McClellan Yep, the boy is back in town. And had a lovely time down in the Los Angeles, the capital of California. Always lovely to get out there to the City of the Angels.

Dan Beecher And the first person to write another wrong version of the capital of California in the comments doesn't win anything, but the 45th person does win something, so.

Dan McClellan Yes, and if you're not aware, I'm actually quoting Steve Martin.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan From a old stand-up, so.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher The only old Steve Martin I can quote is all from the movie "The Jerk," so.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Oh, older than that.

Dan Beecher Indeed.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, today we're going to be talking about something that we had promised before.

Dan McClellan It's been asked for a number of times.

Dan Beecher In an uncharacteristic move, we're actually following through on our promise.

Dan McClellan Yes. So, this is going to be a chapter and verse.

Dan Beecher It's going to be the Song of Something. I've heard it said two different ways, so we're going to sort that out.

Dan McClellan Yep. Let's dive into chapter and verse. And as I said, Dan- Mm-hmm ...

Dan Beecher it's the Song... Look, I grew up with hearing about the Song of Solomon.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And I have heard you many times call it the Song of Songs.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And I don't know what's going on, so talk to me.

Dan McClellan Well, the very first verse of this song is Shir HaShirim, which just means Song of the Songs, and this is a construction that is used hyperbolically, superlatively. So, King of Kings, God of Gods, Song of Songs. It's the song among songs.

Dan Beecher It's the best of all of the songs.

Dan McClellan Yes. And then the next two words are Asher LiShlomo, which means which belongs to, or is for, or is about Solomon.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan So, it is sometimes called the Song of Songs, sometimes called the Song of Solomon. Traditionally, people have attributed it to Solomon, like they have the Proverbs, like they have other stuff, the wisdom of Solomon. And there's a tradition that says that Solomon wrote 1,000 songs and all this kind of stuff. So, it might've been preserved precisely because, hey, this is one that has Solomon's name on it.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Maybe this is it. But this is definitely not written by Solomon. This is coming many centuries after- Yeah ... the life of any historical Solomon who may have existed.

Dan Beecher Okay. So, did he- Do we have a sense if a historical Solomon existed?

Dan McClellan I think there are critical scholars who would say there probably was somebody there who may have been named Solomon, who was an early king of Israel. Saul, Solomon, David, those are all folks where there are scholars who are like, "Yeah, there's something there," but it's definitely not the way they're represented in the text.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan So, yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And there are other scholars who will say, "No, there was never any historical Saul, Solomon, or David." So, we're a little split in that regard.

Dan Beecher Well, so what we do know is that we don't know for sure.

Dan McClellan Yeah. If there's anything that we can say for certain, it is that we don't know.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Awesome.

Dan McClellan But another thing that we can say for certain is that the Song of Songs was not written by anybody in that time period. This comes from much later, probably the Persian period, like 5th, early 4th century BCE, or the Hellenistic period.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Late 4th into the 3rd century BCE. So, this is a post-exilic collection of poems, and it is probably precisely that, a collection, where they were gathering this poetry over time, and it is erotic poetry.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It very much is. And very much not anything else, really.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher It's just erotic poetry. Is it eight chapters of it?

Dan McClellan Eight chapters of erotic poetry, yeah.

Dan Beecher And I read the whole thing. It's fascinating.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It doesn't feel like Bible, I'll say that.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and that was a contentious point in the opening centuries of the Common Era among Jewish folks.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan There were debates. End of the 1st century, beginning of the 2nd century CE, there were debates about whether or not the Song of Solomon was a text that defiled the hands, and that was basically a metaphor for is considered inspired.

Dan Beecher Mm. And so, you have- So, wait, defiling the hands was what made it good?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's counterintuitive. I'm just going to say that's counterintuitive.

Dan McClellan It is counterintuitive. The idea is that if you touch it, it defiles your hands, and you have to perform the requisite stuff- Yeah ... in order to repurify. But- And there's debate about exactly why that is the metaphor that came to be used to refer to inspired literature. There's a scholar named, I'm pretty sure it's Timothy Lim, who's written on this, that I think comes the closest to my own position, which is the idea that the text, because they have the divine name in them, they're not meant for profane contact. Profane in the sense of outside the temple.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So you've got the sacred and the profane, and because it has the divine name on it, it's like a divine image. It brings God's presence. And so in a profane context, if you handle it, you cause problems for yourself.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You get the zappy, zappy in the Hebrew Bible if you try to steady the ark.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so there's a sense in which it is inappropriate to touch it directly. Only it's not quite as strong as the old touch the Ark of the Covenant and you get buried. It's more touch the scroll of the Torah and you have to go purify the hand.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan That's my opinion on that. That is not what all scholars think about that, but there has been some stuff written on that. And even in my open access book, I talk a little bit about that. But you have this famous Rabbi Akiva, and there's a cool counterfactual history book called "As a Driven Leaf," which tells the story of Rabbi Akiva. It's a pretty cool bit of historical fiction. But anyway, toward the beginning of the second century CE, there's this debate, and he says, "Heaven forbid that anyone in Israel ever dispute that the Song of Songs is holy. The Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies."

Dan Beecher Whoa.

Dan McClellan So again, we have that thing where... And so there were some rabbinic authorities who seemed to push back against the questioning of the holiness of the Song of Songs by basically coming over the top- Yeah ... and saying, "No, it's the holiest."

Dan Beecher And- Was this like an extolling of the... What was the argument? Was it just like human sexuality is the holiest thing that can be done? Or what?

Dan McClellan I don't- It was probably understanding the text metaphorically as representing the relationship of God to Israel.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan That became the dominant way of interpreting the song.

Dan Beecher That's right.

Dan McClellan And you have some references to certain identity markers of Israel in there that hint at that kind of reading. So, there were a handful of texts. Esther was another one. And some people were like, "Esther's in, Song is out." Others were like, "No, Song is in, Esther's out." And so, it was a back and forth, but you do have some places where some rabbis decided to get pretty rhetorical about their love for the Song of Songs.

Dan Beecher So, in that idea, the idea that it's not about two human lovers, but rather about God and Israel- Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Here's the thing.

Dan McClellan Raises questions about some of God's anatomy.

Dan Beecher We're going to get to it.

Dan McClellan What we should probably do is just go back and sort of discuss what it is and how it sounds and stuff- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher before we get too deep into the weeds on how people interpreted it.

Dan McClellan Because- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher here's the thing. As I was reading it, I knew that there had been these theories put out, that it's God and Israel, or that it's Jesus and the church or whatever.

Dan McClellan Right. That's the Christian renegotiation of God and Israel.

Dan Beecher Right. And I got to say, look, I'm pretty good at metaphor. I get poetry. I was raised by an English professor.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I know what's going on.

Dan McClellan You've done Shakespeare.

Dan Beecher I've done a lot of Shakespeare and ooh, you're stretching. Let's see how you do it boy. You are stretching on that one.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It is quite a thing. So let's just talk about what it is.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Just sort of nuts and bolts, because when we say it's erotic poetry, it is literally the opening line after the first verse, which is the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It says, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." That is explicit.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That is not saying a kiss of- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan something- It's not some bashful little like, "This is a metaphor for love."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's pretty explicit.

Dan Beecher It dives right in. Now- And it gets, I'm not going to say nasty- ... because I don't think sex is nasty, but it gets overtly sexual.

Dan McClellan Yes. Oh, there's definitely a part I want to read about the lover at the door.

Dan Beecher Oh, yes.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Absolutely. But before we get to that, there is something very interesting going on in chapter one, and it starts in verse five. This is something that's been debated by a lot of folks. Says, "I am black and beautiful."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Yeah. "O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon, do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed upon me. My mother's sons were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept." And I think in the King James version, it actually says, "I am black but comely."

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And so, because the conjunction there is just a simple vav, and that could be and, could be but. And so that's a debate there. But the word there for black, if I recall, the idea is more black-end.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And in my opinion, there are folks who will suggest that... And the poetry is really going back and forth between a woman talking and a man talking.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And they're yearning for the love of the other.

Dan Beecher And can I just say, there are no easy ways to tell when we're switching from one voice to the other. And so I had to go through, and as I'm going, I'm pink highlighting- ... parts of it, and blue- Yeah ... highlighting, just so I can keep track, because suddenly she's talking, and then suddenly she's yearning for a woman, and then- Yeah ... you're like, "Oh, maybe that's him."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And in my opinion, what's going on here is this is someone who is at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum and must work outdoors.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Is required to work out in the sun. As a result, they have darkened skin because of that.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan So that kind of gives away their socioeconomic vulnerability.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so there might have been a negative stigma associated with that. That still goes on today. There are groups of people who cover themselves up so that they don't get tan, because that's associated with classism. And then there are other folks who understand this, the beloved, the woman, to be a Black person.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Who is not saying, "Look, I'm Black, but I think I'm beautiful," but is asserting, "No, I am Black and beautiful." So that's a passage that has some interesting scholarship behind it. I recommend looking up some of the stuff that has been done on that, if you're interested in more than just the blue- Yeah ... parts of the text.

Dan Beecher It is interesting. Especially people who are tuned into sort of a modern context, that Black and beautiful thing really pings. It really- Yeah ... stands out because it's just... Then it was probably, now we have racial constructions, we have the idea of race.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Then they didn't have the idea of race, but like you say, it was probably a socioeconomic marker, and that's just as interesting, but it is.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It rings interestingly to a- Yeah ... modern ear.

Dan McClellan And there's something in chapter 6 I want to talk about when we get there that actually has to do with the Shema.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. The "Hear, O Israel."

Dan McClellan But I want to get to this part of chapter 5. See if you can pick up on some of the imagery that is being used here.

Dan Beecher Yeah, you might be able to figure out what the metaphor is- Yeah ... if you're careful. So another dream- I'm guessing you're going to verse four.

Dan McClellan Well, I'm going to start in verse two.

Dan Beecher Okay. "I was sleeping, but my heart was awake.

Dan McClellan The sound of my beloved knocking, 'Open to me, my sister.'" And by the way, sister and brother are used to refer to the other throughout. And I'm actually going to share an Egyptian erotic poem- Okay ... that does the same thing, because this is- Because- ... actually in keeping with a prominent convention in this time period. Well, actually- Because- ... some people say before ...

Dan Beecher the incest things start to happen. Like sister, brother, my mother's thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It becomes this weird... I was getting uncomfortable, I'll be honest.

Dan McClellan So, "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one. For my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.

Dan Beecher I..."

Dan McClellan And now we're back to the woman talking. "I had put off my garment. How could I put it on again? I had bathed my feet. How could I soil them? My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh upon the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him but did not find him. I called him, but he gave no answer." So, there's a lot of the person is just out of reach.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan There's a lot of yearning from a distance. There's a lot of, "I missed you." A lot of ships passing in the night going on in this.

Dan Beecher I take this to be a dream sequence. "I was sleeping, but my heart was awake," is like- Yeah ... to me, this was just an erotic dream.

Dan McClellan Yeah, which maybe there's a reason that for... Things were dripping all over the place, but- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher Literally.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher When he thrust his hand into the opening, it's just like- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan "Okay.

Dan Beecher All right."

Dan McClellan Okay. I get it.

Dan Beecher So here- Bible. Calm down, Bible.

Dan McClellan Here's an ancient Egyptian poem. I'm just going to read a portion of it.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan There are like eight, nine stanzas to this, but- And this is from the same era, you think? No, this is actually from almost 1,000 years before.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan So this is- Okay ... from the late second millennium BCE.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan And the Egyptian erotic poetry is probably what set the standard that- Okay ... centuries later, the authors of these poems are following. And there are parts of the Song of Songs that are no doubt earlier than the final form of the- Sure ... of the text, but definitely not, at least in Hebrew, all the way back to this time period. Hebrew didn't even exist when this Egyptian poem was written. So, here we have stanza number one of this Egyptian love song. "One alone, a sister without her peer, comelier than all mankind. Behold, she is like the star goddess arising at the beginning of a happy year. Of sheen surpassing, of radiant skin, lovely of eyes wherewith to gaze. Sweet are her lips wherewith to speak, she hath not a word too much. Long of neck, radiant of nipple. Of true sapphire is her hair, her arm surpasseth gold, her fingers are like lotus lilies. Drooping of buttocks, firm girt in her midst, her legs show forth her beauty. Fair of gait she treadeth upon the earth, she hath captured my heart in her embrace. She maketh the necks of all men to be turned away dazzled at the sight of her. Joyous is whoso embraceth her, he is like the chiefest of lusty youths. One regardeth her going forth abroad even as hers yonder. The only one." And then the next stanza is, "The brother troubleth my heart with his voice, he maketh sickness to lay hold on me." So we're doing the same back and forth- Mm ... man, woman, talking about the other as a sibling, going into lots of metaphors about this, that in some places gets really, really close to what's going on here. But he begins and ends that stanza with "one alone" and then "the only one." Mm-hmm. And this brings up what I wanted to talk about in chapter six- Okay ... where we have this statement, this is Song of Songs 6:9.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And don't read anything into that. And don't say 6:7 either. But anyway- Oh, man.

Dan Beecher Now you've got me thinking about, there have got to have been moments where some poor pastor or church person got up and said, "This is something-" Yeah, something 6:7 ... chapter 6 verse 7, and some kid went, "Ah!" All the youth lost their minds.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, it says here, in verse nine, "My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the darling of her mother." And, the Hebrew here is actually very, very similar to what we have in the Shema- Okay ... where it says, "Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad." Here what we have is "Achat hi." So she is one. And then we also have, "Achat hi le-imah," which means she is one to her mother. And this is widely understood by interpreters not to mean that she's the only woman that exists, because we just got done talking actually about 60 queens and 80 concubines and maidens- ... without number, and then it says, "My dove, my perfect one, is the only one." And so this "Achat" or "Echad" idea is not saying the only one in existence, but the only one for me.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And even when it's referring to her mother, it's probably not saying that she is her mother's only child or even necessarily her mother's only daughter, but this is the most important one.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan This is the one who has that exclusive relationship. And Nathan MacDonald, he's got a book called "Deuteronomy and the Meaning of Monotheism" where he goes into this idea of covenantal love in Deuteronomy, reflecting what we talked about a few weeks ago with the vassal treaties of Esarhaddon- Mm-hmm ... and that whole crowd. But, the idea that you love someone as the only one, I think we see reflected here in this erotic poetry, and I think that's related to the way that the authors of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history understand Adonai to be one, the idea being there is an exclusive relationship. It's not an ontological exclusivity. It's not that God is the only god. But for you- Right ... God is the only one that matters.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Just like the dove, the perfect one, is the only one that matters to the beloved.

Dan Beecher Right. And- That dove thing, man, I tell you, the metaphors.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Dove is one of those ones that sort of has continued- Yeah ... Shakespeare has used- Still feels relevant. Shakespeare used the term "my dove" or whatever for a lover. But man, there's a lot of fruit and veg- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan metaphors. There's a lot of- A lot of agricultural stuff going on here ... a lot of agricultural stuff.

Dan Beecher There's- Yeah ... at one point, "Your hair is like goats coming down a hill."

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher That one- ... felt a little sketchy.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And then your teeth are like ewes, so okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Sheep. You got sheep teeth. Congratulations on your sheep teeth.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I guess they're white. I guess that's a good thing.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But yeah. But one of the things that's really weird is can you explain why boobs are gazelles? I couldn't figure out what her breasts are like gazelles thing was.

Dan McClellan And then there's the part where the beloved's brothers are like, "She's flat as a board."

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Towards the end.

Dan Beecher "What are we going to do with her? She got no boobs."

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher There's a lot of breast talk in this.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I think maybe, gazelles, what do gazelles do? They jump. So maybe you got to think- Jerking?

Dan Beecher ...

Dan McClellan boing, boing, boing, boing. You got to get- What is the thing when male authors write- Oh ... romances, like she breasted boobily down the stairs or something like that.

Dan Beecher Right. Yeah, exactly.

Dan McClellan So maybe you got gazelles going boing, boing, boing. Maybe that.

Dan Beecher I don't know.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But there's also something famous in verse 3. Chapter 6 verse 3, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah.

Dan McClellan Which is in Hebrew, it's . And I've seen people get this tattooed on them.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan But that's a famous passage from here.

Dan Beecher But- And it points out actually a really interesting thing. When you say it in English, the translated version- Mm-hmm ... you miss out on a poetic element of it- Yeah, absolutely ... that's there in the Hebrew. Will you say the Hebrew again for me- Yeah ... just so I can hear it? And- I think that's one of the things that's so... I think it was Robert Frost who said that poetry is what's lost in translation.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher I'm guessing that there are lots of poetic elements that I can't appreciate- Oh, 100% ... because I can't read the Hebrew.

Dan McClellan Yeah. There's absolutely a lot, and it's different kind of poetry. It's not the iambic pentameter kind of stuff.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan It's not the kind of rhyme schemes that we have in English poetry, but there are absolutely ways that they use a lot of different features of ancient Hebrew poetry.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And I'm blanking on some of the words. Alliteration is big.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Right. And they'll use a lot of your buhs and your puhs to give you kind of a sense of roundedness.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Or you can use your c and your ts for more sharp-pointed kind of stuff, just kind of give you a flavor of these general kind of- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher senses. Just splashing around in the sounds of language- Yeah ... is one of the things that's important in poetry that- Yeah ... you can't get in a translated version.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And here's something, as we get to the end of chapter 8, which kind of draws things to a conclusion. We talked about her brothers. Her brothers have a concern, "We have a little sister and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build upon her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar." My brothers have never said anything like that about- ... any of our sisters. But then the beloved says, "I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers." Which I guess she's denying the claim the brothers, the concern.

Dan Beecher Then- Okay. What I thought was happening, I didn't catch that this was the brothers, because it never says, "And then the brothers say blah, blah, blah." So I thought it was the woman in the thing concerned for her little sister and being like, "Ugh. I've got these gazelles on my chest, and poor girl, she doesn't have any-" "... boobs at all." So I don't know. I'll tell you what, it's hard to interpret a lot of this stuff.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I think there's discussion of brothers elsewhere. They give her a hard time elsewhere.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But she says, "My breasts were like towers. Then I was in his eyes as one who brings peace. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He entrusted the vineyard to keepers. Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is for myself. You, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit, 200." And elsewhere, I don't remember off the top of my head where the brothers come into play, but there's a sense in which the brothers still assert some kind of ownership- Mm ... or authority over her. And this is where people have said this seems to be talking about premarital sex.

Dan Beecher Because- Oh, sure ...

Dan McClellan if she's in a position where the brothers have authority over her, she still lives in her family's household. She is not a part of another man's household. But she does seem to be going out at night to try to meet up with this paramour.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And they are engaging in a lot of thrusting hands and openings- Yeah ... before, it seems, they have tied the knot.

Dan Beecher I'm remembering a moment where it says something like, "If I saw him, I would kiss him outside, and no one would complain."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher The idea being that he's so handsome that nobody can be mad- ... that we're kissing out in the open, because who could blame me?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I feel like one of the things that I wanted to get to about this, and one of the things that I find remarkable about this, and you can sort of tell me if this is just obvious or whatever, but the woman's voice is not only possibly more present than the man's voice. It goes back and forth, but my feeling of it was that I was reading from the woman's voice more- Yeah ... than from the man's.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And the woman seemed fully sexualized. But no, I mean like she was- Empowered ...

Dan McClellan empowered- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher of herself, fully owned her own sexuality.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And she objectified the man every bit as much as he objectified her, it feels shockingly equal.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And that is something that, there's a wonderful book by Jennifer Knust called "Unprotected Texts," which is one of the cleverest titles for a book.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Great. But the subtitle is "The Bible's Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And I highly recommend this book. It is a phenomenal book, but the discussion of the Song of Solomon is wonderful because there are hints at this kind of more liberated approach to sexual desire. It's definitely not the holiness code, it's definitely not later Christians.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Right. And she even shares a quote from Origen of Alexandria, this guy who, he might have castrated himself, but he says, "For this reason, I give warning and advice to everyone who is not yet free of the vexations of the flesh and blood and who has not withdrawn from desire for corporeal nature, that he completely abstain from reading this book." So, the Christians are warning to stay away from that smut.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And who knows if the fact that the woman seems to be in possession of her own sexuality and to be okay with it, and who knows if that may be part of why it gave the ick to a lot of men throughout history.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Well, one of the things that it did for me was make me suspicious that maybe it was written by a woman because it is so positive when it's coming from the... It's so non-stereotypical when it's coming from the woman's perspective- Mm-hmm ... that I just thought, this does not feel like so many of the other biblical authors that I've read.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And- It feels very different.

Dan McClellan Yes. This is a different type of author penning this prose than what we normally get.

Dan Beecher And- Is anyone out there proposing that this could've been written by a woman?

Dan McClellan I'm sure there have been. I don't know that we can know for sure, but it's certainly a plausibility.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Again, these are collections of poems that probably circulated independently before being brought together in a single volume or on a single scroll, and so who knows who composed some of these poems.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we have the ancient Egyptian stuff, which also goes back and forth between a man talking and a woman talking, so we get both perspectives. And so that's just part of the genre as well.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan So we can't know for sure, but I have no doubt that there are folks who have suggested that.

Dan Beecher Well, yeah, I did.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I just suggested it. Well, I'm not going to be dismissive, but- Well, oh, because I don't have a PhD and haven't studied it, and I only just read it this week?

Dan McClellan Sure. And you don't publish on it, but- Yeah. Yes, what I meant was published in- Yeah ... peer-reviewed venues.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But yeah, I think it's certainly plausible. The first known named author is a woman- Mm ... who wrote "The Princess and Priestess," Enheduanna, who wrote in Sumerian.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan So yeah, it would not be outside the realm of possibility, plausibility, but yeah, we can't really know.

Dan Beecher We need to wrap this up, but I do have one more question, and that is- Okay ... was this a song? Was it set to music?

Dan McClellan I don't know about being set to music, but I'm sure that parts of it at different times would've been sung, and in their original circulation, yeah, they would've been sung, acapella or accompanied by music.

Dan Beecher I don't know. To the lascivious pleasing of a lute, perhaps?

Dan McClellan There definitely were musical instruments- Yeah ... going back long before this book, so it's certainly plausible. I just don't know why it's called a song as opposed to- Well, it's not a song in the contemporary sense of song, but shir in ancient Hebrew didn't necessarily mean something that you- That was sung?

Dan Beecher ...

Dan McClellan sang accompanied by music. The idea of a poem has probably got an awful lot of semantic overlap with- Okay ... the idea of a shir. I'm going to call it poem of poems then. Poem of poems, all right. I'm not going to get in your way.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, that's it for this one. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you would like to become a part of keeping this show going, and potentially also if you would like to listen to the after party that we do every week, which is a lot of fun, this week we will be talking about Joseph going and whether or not the story of Joseph as Pharaoh's right hand prefigures or sort of sets the stage for the exodus. That's a fascinating question from one of our patrons. Go over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and give us some of your money. That would be awesome thing to do. If you can't do that, totally understandable, but like, subscribe, do all those things. Comment in the... Write some erotic poetry in the comment section. I don't care. That'd be kind of fun. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show. Thanks to JJ for being our producer. We'll talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye everybody.