Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [124]
Your breasts are like clusters.
I say: Let me climb the palm,
Let me take hold of the branches;
Let your breasts be like clusters of grapes,
Your breath like the fragrance of apples,
And your mouth like choicest wine.
Let it flow to my beloved as new wine
Gliding over the lips of the sleepers. (7:8-10 JPS)
Black and beautiful?
One line in this book has created some translational difficulties. Here are three versions of a single verse:
“I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the currants of Solomon.” (1:5 KJV)
“I am black and beautiful…like the curtains of Solomon.” (NRSV)
“I am dark, but comely…like the pavilions of Solomon.” (JPS)
The King James Version says the heroine’s skin is black as “currants,” or raisins—which seems a very plausible translation in light of the sensuous food imagery found elsewhere in the poems. The other two translations are probably closer to the original Hebrew. “Curtains” and “pavilions” make sense considering the reference to the “tents” of the preceding line.
But was this woman black? Certainly the typical Hollywood image in which ancient Israelites always looked like fair-skinned, fair-haired American starlets with veils is way off the mark. The people of the Bible were Semitic and would have been darkskinned. The racial enmity and the equating of “black” with evil was an unfortunate development in later Europe, devised in part to justify African slavery. To be precise about the Song of Solomon, however, the young woman explains her dark complexion a few lines later. She was required to watch the vineyards and got very tan in the sun. This should not be taken to mean that the Bible is opposed to sufficient sunblock.
Bob Jones, the late fundamentalist Protestant preacher and founder of Bob Jones University, may not have read Song of Solomon. One of his campus rules prohibited interracial dating. But in the Song of Solomon, the Bible offers us a beautiful black or dark woman whose lover has a “belly of ivory,” which sounds pretty white. If interracial dating was good enough for Solomon, why not for Bob Jones?
MILESTONES IN BIBLICAL TIMES IV
573 BCE-41 BCE
573 Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar II captures the port city of Tyre after a thirteen-year siege. He invades Egypt in 568.
565 Daoism (Taoism) founded by Chinese philosopher Lao Zi (Lao-tse) in Honan province. He sets down principles in Dao De Ging (Tao Te Ching). This liberal philosophy teaches that forms and ceremonies are useless; it advocates a spirit of righteousness but later degenerates into a system of magic.
562 Nebuchadnezzar II dies after a reign of forty-three years. He is succeeded by his son Evil-Merodach (the biblical Marduk), who rules for two years.
559 Cyrus becomes King of Persia. He unites the Medes, Persians, and other tribes and rules for twenty years.
539 Babylon falls to Cyrus of Persia.
538 Cyrus permits the Jews to return to Jerusalem after their fortynine-year Exile.
530 Cambyses II, son of Cyrus, becomes King of Persia after his father dies in battle near the Caspian Sea.
528 Buddhism has its beginnings in India, where Siddhartha Gautama, a thirty-five-year-old prince who has renounced luxury, has found enlightenment in the wilderness.
521 A soldier related to Cyrus takes the throne of Persia and reigns as Darius I.
516 Jerusalem’s Temple is rebuilt seventy years after its destruction.
495 The Chinese philosopher Kong Fuzi (Confucius) resigns as prime minister and spends the next twelve years as a teacher of morals.
490 The Battle of Marathon marks the beginning of the long wars between the Greeks and Persians continuing until 479 BCE.
458Ezra, a Hebrew scribe, goes to Jerusalem to restore the Laws of Moses.
457 Under Pericles, the Golden Age of Athens begins, a twenty-eight-year era in which the city becomes preeminent in architecture and arts while preparing for a conflict with Sparta that will be known as the Peloponnesian Wars.
c. 400 The “Five Books of Moses” receives its definitive form.
399 Greek philosopher Socrates