Rival Lovers?

Gordon H. Johnston of Dallas Theological Seminary has some devastating criticisms (in an article in Bibliotheca Sacra ) of the still-popular notion that the Song of Songs represents a love triangle involving Solomon tangling with a young shepherd over a beautiful shepherdess.  He argues that ”All three-character versions play with smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of a love triangle. Nowhere does the Song have a poem in which more than two main characters appear or speak. The only direct mention of a shepherd figure occurs in 1:7–8, but this is hardly adequate to create a full-fledged character around whom to reconstruct an elaborate dramatic love triangle. Many speeches that are most naturally read as uttered by Solomon must be assigned to his alleged rival; otherwise the so-called “shepherd-lover” would have no more than one verse of speech.”

This approach turns “many of the Canticle’s most beautiful lyrics into little more than seedy pick-up lines,” and since there is no obvious way to distinguish the voice of “Solomon” (villain) from the voice of the “shepherd” (hero), “evaluation of male speeches becomes arbitrary.”  Depending on the assignment of speaker, a single speech can be interpreted as “ardent and admiring” or as “leering and manipulative.”