Falling in Love With the Erotic Song of Solomon

Artist He Qi painted this 1999 depiction of the Song of Solomon, featuring a large Tibetan face. The little book in the Hebrew Bible is discussed more in scholarly circles than from pulpits because it deals candidly with sexuality. (Copyright He Qi)

Nelson said the book's passion can catch people off guard.

"When you start talking about a man and a woman's accountability to God in the home, and especially in the areas of sexuality and tenderness, you're about to get a real quiet church service," Nelson said.

"Because, the fact is, everybody struggles with this, but nobody talks about it."

Guy Bickel, vice president of Book 22, a recording label in Tampa, debuted the CD "The Original Love Song: Guidelines for Passion From the Song of Solomon" in November after an unsuccessful search for a similar product. After becoming a Christian in 2004, the former agnostic had tried to find a romantic anniversary present for his wife.

"We were just hoping that this would give everybody in the Christian world something romantic to listen to that isn't porno," said Bickel, a concert promoter who attends a nondenominational evangelical church.

Beyond Nelson's conferences and the new CD, this section of Scripture is also a topic for scholars. Richard S. Hess, an Old Testament professor at Denver Seminary, wrote an article in the winter 2005 issue of Bible Review magazine on the topic.

"It's one that's very difficult to preach from," said Hess, who has never heard a sermon on it.

He teaches about it in seminary classes on Old Testament and on human sexuality.

Those who pay attention to this biblical book have long differed on how to interpret it.

"Even as late as the second century A.D., Jewish rabbis debated whether or not Song of Songs should be considered Holy Scripture," reads an introduction to the book in the Learning Bible, published by the American Bible Society.

"Early Christian writings reveal similar debates. Eventually, however, many Jewish teachers said the book symbolized God's love for the people of Israel."

Benedict, in his encyclical, "God Is Love," issued Jan. 25, affirmed the stance "that these love songs ultimately describe God's relation to man and man's relation to God."

However the Song of Solomon is discussed, it tends to draw a crowd.

Hess found 40 people -- one-fifth of his small Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation -- turned out for Sunday school last fall when he taught a class on it.

Nelson said his church grew in the early 1990s when he started teaching on it. His Song of Solomon conferences increased in attendance from about 700 when he started in 1998 to an average of 2,000 today.

And, Nelson said, conferences around Valentine's Day are the most popular. "The church that we go to better have room for 3,000 people," he said.