I was at a place of great financial temptation leafing through the impressive Spiritual Formation Bible, a Protestant version but with Catholic-friendly Dallas Willard among its editors. I read the introduction to "The Song of Songs" and was a bit disappointed with Dallas.
The editors wrote that this book celebrates the physical love between a man and a woman only, end of story. They said it shows how this shows that the Church was wrong to hate the body and hate sex and wrong to allegorize this book for a thousand or more years. Either/or, not and/both. Compare and contrast to Ronald Witherup in The Bible Companion:
The origin of some of the text might well be in secular love poetry from the ancient Near East, but its preservation in the Bible assures us that there is also a deeper meaning to appreciate...Interpreters through history have always appreciated deeper levels of the text. Rabbinic interpreers saw in this love relationship the symbol of God's covenantal love for Israel as his bride. Christian interpreters picked up on this deeper symbolism, seeing in the book the allegory of the relationship of Christ to his church.
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