Romance in the Bible
Someone recently asked me what the Bible says about romantic love. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know what to tell him. I know that Song of Solomon is supposed to be one of the greatest love poems since the invention of the written word, but I've never really studied it. To tell you the truth, it confuses the heck out of me. I have no idea what it means. (A study could make a good series of posts, though. I think I will do that some day.)
I thought even if the Bible doesn't say much about romance, maybe it would have a good example. Some time ago, my friend Rey gave me a list of all the marriages mentioned in the Bible. There didn't seem to be much romance in any of them, at least from what I could tell. Two exceptions stood out to me, however.
If true romance means focusing on each other as if no other man or woman exists, as if you were made for each other, as if you have found the one person in the world who is absolutely right for you, then the marriage enjoyed by Adam and Eve defines romance. By necessity and lack of any other option, they related to each other exactly the way God meant for them to. I can feel the passion in Adam's words, "This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." The Bible says that the sexual consummation of a marriage is a reflection of the relationship shared by the first couple. Even though God didn't fashion her from one of my ribs, my wife is as much a part of my body as my own arm or leg is. She is mine, and I am hers. She exists for me and I for her, and together we are one body.
The other marriage that I think demonstrates romance is that of Jacob and Rachel. He met her, he fell in love with her, and he worked for her father for seven years in exchange for her hand in marriage "and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her." (Gen. 29:20) Even after his father-in-law cheated him out of another seven years and tricked him into marrying his other daughter as well, his passion was for Rachel. He treasured her for his entire life, and even after she died he continued loving the two sons she gave him (Joseph and Benjamin) more than his other ten. He was certainly not a perfect husband, nor she a perfect wife, but his tender, lifelong love for her is a wonderful picture of biblical romance.
Any Bible scholars aware of other romance in the Bible?
