5 Minute Bible

short | crisp | provocative

Browsing Posts in Song of Songs

When I searched for "my beloved among young men" (Song 2:3) this photo by Steve Punter turned up.

Gender is not (only) a Feminist issue!

I ended my double post Proverbs as a gendered text and Proverbs as a gendered text: Proverbs 31:10ff. with the question of where reading such (strongly) male texts left women readers. Sadly it has had little response, (though thank you Judy :)

So I’ll end this podcast with a reverse of the question with which I ended the one on Pr 31, and suggest there are parts of the Bible that heterosexual men can only read with the help of a little creative gender bending.

Let’s see what you make of my (literal) reading of Song 2:1ff.?!

More on gendered texts: Turning the tables

A literalist reads the Song of Songs (from Dean & Laura of Acts 17-11)

If you ever want to provoke laughter in church in the 21st century, just read a chunk of the Song of Songs, of course it works better if you get a couple to read to each other! The imagery is just so strange to our culture that almost any passage will achieve laughter in moments. But this does not mean that the book is intended to be funny.

So my difficult problem in this podcast is to try to convince you that there is humour, as well as poetry and sex, in this very best Song.

It won’t be easy or quick, indeed this is the longest ever “5 minutes” at way over 6 minutes :( on the other hand, I’m convinced that looking seriously at the topic of humour in the Song is a great way to get closer to its heart…

Here is the audio: Humour in the Bible: 22: Song of Songs