Adelaide Chapter

Date/Time
Date(s) - 22/10/2026
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Categories

• Biblical Issues
• Experience
• Morality

The next Reasonable Faith Adelaide (RFA) meeting for 2026 will be

“The Song of Solomon”, by Kevin Rogers

This meeting will start at 7-00 pm on Thursday, the 22^nd of October. You can participate in RFA meetings via ZOOM. Please click on the following link to join the meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/78515108298?pwd=ma6A3gTzF6FbREsgtLSyojNgRedn5P.1

Here is my summary:

The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) is one of the Bible’s most unusual books. It celebrates romantic love, physical attraction, longing and mutual commitment, yet it hardly mentions God (except 8:6 “Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD” (ESV).

Its eight chapters explore the relationship between a woman and her beloved through poetry, dialogue and vivid imagery.

Major themes

1. Love and desire: Romantic and physical attraction are portrayed positively.
2. Mutual affection: Both the woman and the man express admiration and desire.
3. Marriage and commitment: The relationship raises questions about courtship, sexual intimacy and enduring love.
4. Authorship is traditionally associated with Solomon. This is problematic seeing that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. However, much of the poetry is spoken from the woman’s perspective and it is possible that this is the only Book of the Bible written by a woman.
5. Interpretation: Should the book be understood primarily as human love poetry, an allegory of God’s love, or both?

During this talk, I will provide AI generated pictures and explanations for each verse from chapter 1. This provides pictorial consistency and avoids copyright issues. It is also interesting and aids understanding.

Is the song easy to understand? Not necessarily. The meaning of the Hebrew is often uncertain and so translations vary. When was it written? Was it prior to the split between Judah and Northern Israel. A lot of these issues are impossible to resolve definitively.

It is enigmatic. It is what it is, but we can still extract a clear message that it is relevant to us.

Dr Kevin Rogers is the director of Reasonable Faith Adelaide. He has a wife, 4 children and 8 grandchildren. After a 40-year engineering career, he was a Research Fellow and lecturer with the University of South Australia but is now mainly retired. He is a member and former elder at Ingle Farm Baptist Church, where he plays the guitar and preaches occasionally, often based on material presented at RFA.