Listening Is for Lovers

The “Song of Songs” might be the raciest book in the Bible, but can it offer some wisdom for better relationships?

This is a true story. It happened in a local high school in Toms River, New Jersey, in the early 1960s before the Supreme Court ruling that banned Bible reading in public schools.

Back in those days, the school’s opening exercises included a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, daily announcements, and a selection from the Bible read by a student over the PA system. According to school tradition, it was up to the student to choose the Bible reading.

Students sat sleepily at their homeroom desks most days, only half-listening as the opening exercises droned on — until one particular morning.

On that morning, one by one, the students in homeroom sat up, paying close attention to the words of the Bible reading from the venerable King James Version:

How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter!
The joints of thy thighs are like jewels. …
Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor;

thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with...