Conjunctions

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Song of Songs 1:5a (NRSV)

I am black and beautiful

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She was black as the night
 Louie was whiter than white

"Brother Louie" by Errol Brown and Tony Wilson and originally recorded by Hot Chocolate. The American hit version of this song was recorded by Stories on their album "About Us".

This song caused a stir in the early 1970's. It's ad must have also caused a stir since it followed the song perfectly. The scene in the ad where the white man and the black woman shared a bite from a cotton candy was probably as close they could get to an interracial kiss in a TV ad in 1973.

The racial issues in this song are as old as eternity. Abraham was told by the Lord not to let his sons take brides from the other tribes he meets along the way. Of course God had reasons. What they were had nothing to do with "ethnic purity," it had to do with worship of the Lord. The Lord did not want Israel to worship other Gods, so staying within the tribe kept them from exposure to other's idols.

In the Song, the woman says to the reader "I am black and beautiful." I imagine at the time, this was a scandal too. So much of a scandal, that many English translations do not say "and beautiful." They say "I am black but beautiful."

One little conjunction makes a ton of difference.

As a text critical issue, the conjunction in Hebrew can be translated either way, but more often than not, it is transalted as "and," not "but." So why the choice?

The first English translation, the King James Version, uses "but" instead of "and." First published in 1611, this was during a time of colonialism. The European slave trade to the Americas wasn't known yet. Still the scandal of the time, placing Solomon with a black woman would have been scandalous. Placing him with one who was confident enough to say she was beautiful would have only increased the scandal. "Make her less confident and it will be better" might have been the logic of the translation.

The scandal exists today. It exists to the point that many pictures of Jesus show him with European features, a remnant of the European icon makers. Jesus was Palestinian. He would not have looked like many pictures we have today. His nose would have been broader and his skin an olive tone. Solomon even more so, and the object of the Song of Solomon probably darker than the woman in "Brother Louie" we imagine today.

As the song goes, "Ain't no difference if you're black or white, Brothers you know what I mean?"