Throughout Quaker history, the Bible has been prominent among the literary sources from which Friends, like others in the Jewish and Christian traditions, have sought spiritual nourishment. All who read the Bible as Holy Scriptures are selective in their use of it, but Friends are more self-consciously so than most. Because the final authority for Friends is not the written page but the Light within and because of their commitment to nonviolence and equality, they find it comparatively easy to learn from the Bible's wealth without struggling with "difficult" passages that affirm violence.
Making use of ideas from biblical criticism, psychoanalysis, and feminist and liberation theology, this essay seeks insight into this ambivalent process by tracing the biblical imagery of a violent Sacred Marriage, noting the images' religious roots in the conception of God as a dominant and possessive male. In contrast to this disturbing theme is the egalitarian Sacred Marriage described in the Song of Songs. The contrast leads to reflections on the importance of a naming of God that is free of language of caste, especially the caste of gender. A few words of practical application are added.
