There's a book in your scriptures that Joseph Smith flagged as "not inspired," that Elder Bruce R. McConkie once called "biblical trash," and that the Come Follow Me manual skipped over entirely. It's also quoted three times in the Doctrine and Covenants — including in the Kirtland Temple dedicatory prayer. So what exactly is the Song of Solomon doing in our canon?

Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot work through Dana Pike's chapter on the Song of Solomon in From Wilderness to Monarchy: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU — a volume of essays walking through the Old Testament from a Latter-day Saint perspective.

===Informed Saints Credits===

Produced by The Ancient America Foundation

Producer: Spencer Clark

Hosts: Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye

In this episode:

What Shir Hashirim asher lishlomo actually means, and why the lamed preposition (le) makes the authorship question harder than it looks
Why biblical scholars date the Hebrew — including its Persian loanwords — well after Solomon's reign
How the book traveled into the canon: the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, and Rabbi Akiva's insistence that it is the holy of holies
Why the Song of Solomon is one of the few Old Testament books the New Testament never quotes, alongside Judges, Esther, and Ecclesiastes
The striking parallels with New Kingdom Egyptian love poetry — including calling the beloved "my sister"
Dana Pike's three-point case that the song didn't originate as inspired scripture
Tremper Longman III's alternative: that its place in the Bible testifies that God cares about our most intimate relationships
Joseph Smith's JST notation, what it tells us about the nature of the Joseph Smith Translation, and what "not inspired" most likely meant
Song of Solomon 6:10 in D&C 109:73, "Rose of Sharon" as a title for Christ in Elder Holland's teaching, and the little foxes in the Nauvoo Relief Society
The bigger question: what do we do with uninspired writing inside an inspired canon — and why Leviticus raises the very same problem

Read Dana Pike's chapter in From Wilderness to Monarchy: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration from the BYU Religious Studies Center: https://rsc.byu.edu/book/wilderness-monarchy

Joseph Smith Papers Source: www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/old-testament-revision-2/104

Subscribe for more faithful scholarship on scripture, history, and the ancient world.

Study deeply, believe boldly.

===Discover===

If any of our thoughts resonated with you, consider learning more about the single most influential book in our lives.

https://www.discoverbookofmormon.org/

===Content Disclaimer===

The views expressed represent ours alone and do not necessarily reflect the official position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

#SongOfSolomon #SongOfSongs #OldTestament #ComeFollowMe #LDS #LatterDaySaints #BibleStudy #ScriptureStudy #JosephSmith #JST #DanaPike #HebrewBible #BiblicalScholarship #DeadSeaScrolls #Septuagint #RabbiAkiva #Solomon #DoctrineAndCovenants #InformedSaints

The Most Wanted Olympian | S39 Trailer

The Most Wanted Olympian from Uncover

Outro

The AI-powered Podcast Player