King Solomon. Admire him? Despise him? Neutral. Do you think he existed, was truly the wisest man who ever lived...

King Solomon. Admire him? Despise him? Neutral. Do you think he existed, was truly the wisest man who ever lived, or his empire was as grand as described.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele#.22House_of_David.22
nytimes.com/1990/02/22/world/believers-score-in-battle-over-the-battle-of-jericho.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Dating_the_Exodus
youtube.com/watch?v=oNK655iUtr0
youtube.com/watch?v=8kNJxuBCM9k
youtube.com/watch?v=1a94Kpkku94
youtube.com/watch?v=o43_1Ccjvt4
biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/05/Did-the-Israelites-Conquer-Jericho-A-New-Look-at-the-Archaeological-Evidence.aspx
youtube.com/watch?v=U9uEspZpYlo
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

How do we know that Soloman even existed?

He was a Muslim.

Like Jesus?

At this point he is more a myth than a man.

We have some evidence his father was a real person so perhaps we can assume he was as well, but his empire was probably just an up and coming city state which received ambassadors from all over, he certainly did not rule them.

The fact that they were moving from tent complexes to palaces and temples says alot about their level. They were just starting to transition from Bedouins to urbanites.

Of course the most interesting and bizarre stories of Solomon are the claims he could bind and control demons. At one time this was seen as a purely medieval tradition but there is now some proof that the idea of Solomon as a master of the occult goes back at least as far as the 1st century.

>Of course the most interesting and bizarre stories of Solomon are the claims he could bind and control demons. At one time this was seen as a purely medieval tradition but there is now some proof that the idea of Solomon as a master of the occult goes back at least as far as the 1st century.
He was said to be incredibly wise and to have gotten involved with the occult due to his foreign wives. Even went as far to erect temples in the honor of these deities.

Considering the neighboring peoples like the Egyptians haven't heard of this Hebrew empire the way the Old Testament describes it, it's more a case of Jews WE WUZing.

I mean you read everyone else's histories about that place like the Hittites, Egyptians, and Assyrians, they just tell you that the Levant is filled with petty kings whose writ ends as soon as you cross over the next hill or leave the city walls.

Tbf even at its height Israel was a small nation and was later thoroughly raped over the years by the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, and Babylonians. Also had their land occupied by a followers of a hostile foreign religion for hundreds of years. It's a miracle that anything is left.

occult isn't idol worship. jewish apocrypha has solomon using magic it being condemned

>empire

Most Chirstians do not realize that Jews had an occult tradtion of their own passed down through priestly lines. No where in the legends does it imply he was sinful for indulging in the occult or that it backfired on him, at least not untill he started indulging his wives pagan practices.

Of course back to real history, at the time most Jews were not yet monotheist, it was the central court that was beginning to push the idea of Yaweh being the one true god, or at least the only god of Israel.

So the idea that Solomon was betraying Israels one true god by indulging in heno or polytheism is probably a fiction made up by later rabbi

Why does the existence of objects dedicated to other deities lead people to the conclusion that Jewish monotheism came late in the game when Scripture itself provides an answer for that? Israel was surrounded by pagan cultures and were apparently easily influenced by said neighbors. It's nothing that the Bible hides and fighting off polytheism is a constant struggle throughout the latter half of the Old Testament. Note nothing is mentioned about King Solomon's devotion to pagan practices until after he got involved with foreign women (as was heavily frowned upon at the time).

Neutral. Who cares, Gandalf the Grey doesn't exist yet I still enjoy LotR.

I think the binding and controlling demons lore came from third party saboteurs. Or maybe that was how he controlled his many wives. Come to think of it, that is genius! Just brand your wives like cattle with strange symbols.... tatoos?

First, the mysticism attributed to Solomon is not pagan, but based in Jewish invocations and rituals. While much of the stuff about demons probably was an medieval hoax we do know that this Jewish tradition exists and was connected with Solomon. And even in the later works he uses he knowledge of God to control the lessor spirits, which would still be regarded by most Christians and Jews today as evil, but was not portrayed as such in the tradition.

I am not claiming any of the deeds attributed to him are real, but they are not described as pagan.

>Why does the existence of objects dedicated to other deities lead people to the conclusion that Jewish monotheism came late in the game when Scripture itself provides an answer for that?

For one those explanations were written long after the fact, in historical terms that alone makes them open to questioning. The second is that even in those books there are suggestions that the idea of one God was not always the case.

the use of the word Elohim, have no other Gods BEFORE ME.

third there is substantial archeological evidence that Yahweh was a Canaanite deity among many, And that his assent first to the supreme god of the region, then to the only god was a gradual process.

For many Christians its a matter of faith that the biblical account is true but from a historical perspective it would be a massive error to assume that it is.

“I am the LORD, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me” - Isaiah 45: 18

Couldn't the Elohim be a confirmation of the Trinity or referring to the angels? The latter were mentioned quite a bit throughout the Old Testament. And isn't having "no gods before me" about idolatry. Virtually anything could be made an idol.

> third there is substantial archeological evidence that Yahweh was a Canaanite deity among many
What substantial evidence might this be?

> And that his assent first to the supreme god of the region, then to the only god was a gradual process.
Well the region was originally inhabited by various groups with various deities. Before the Israelites arrived on the scene there was the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites. And also keep in mind that the Israelites did not completely conquer the land as they were instructed so some of these groups were still around after the Israelites established themselves.

Also there were already religious disputes within the Israelites fresh out of Egypt. They fell into worshiping the Golden Calf.

"A bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of the one who gives it; wherever he turns he prospers."

wouldn't the Elohim be a confirmation of the Trinity or referring to the angels?

It could be, but that's a pretty big stress and the only reason you would privilege that answer over the more likely idea that it refers to a pantheon is if you had some religious stake in it.

And isn't having "no gods before me" about idolatry. Virtually anything could be made an idol.

Its the "before me" part that is relevent. He does not say in that passage there are no other Gods, just that they cannot come before him.
and keep in mind Isaiah comes after the exodus, at least in the bible's internal chronology. That is plenty of time for the theology to change.

>What substantial evidence might this be?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh I know its wikipedia but you can browse the citations and it has pictures of various archeological finds.

>Well the region was originally inhabited by various groups with various deities. Before the Israelites arrived on the scene there was the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites. And also keep in mind that the Israelites did not completely conquer the land as they were instructed so some of these groups were still around after the Israelites established themselves.

>Also there were already religious disputes within the Israelites fresh out of Egypt. They fell into worshiping the Golden Calf.

Most historicans dont take this conflict very seriously as what records we have at the time mention no such war of conquest. There are a few records that might refer to some ancestor tribe of the Hebrew making trouble in the Levant, but they are talked of more as an annoyance than a serious threat.

Deuteronomy 17:3 "And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven ("the heavenly bodies"), which I have not commanded;"

1 Kings 22:19 and 2 Chronicles 18:18 "And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left."

2 Kings 17:16 "And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal."

And again, those were written by monotheists long after the events they describe. Things like "No gods before me" are likely left over scraps of an older theology from which Judaism as we know it grew from.

Siting the bible as proof the Jews were monotheists ignores the whole argument that the bible misrepresents early Hebrew theology, putting events into the monotheist narrative in a ahistorical manner

19 Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’

“One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’

22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.

“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.

“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’

23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”

>And again, those were written by monotheists long after the events they describe.
Weren't Genesis and Deuteronomy written by the same author?

>Siting the bible as proof the Jews were monotheists ignores the whole argument that the bible misrepresents early Hebrew theology, putting events into the monotheist narrative in a ahistorical manner
Your argument largely relies upon two or three lines which then depend on a particular interpretation of those lines. Everything else in scripture supports the monotheistic view.

The reason I brought the other tribes in the Eastern Mediterranean earlier was to demonstrate how it makes sense for there to be copious amounts of polytheistic memorabilia found in the region.

As has shown, references to a monotheism occur at least as early as Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch is believed by Bible scholars to be written by Moses.

What was his plan if both women were willing to give up the child to save its life?

"You have both proven you're the mother. Thus you must be married so both can take care of it"

one of the richest kings and people of all time adjusted for inflation in modern value

Nothing more than a myth intended to give some tinpot Semitic tribes an air of legitimacy. Self-sabotaging, considering the stories of his later immorality by the standards of the Jews.

Umm... no sweetie.

And Solomon is a fictional character from the Bible & Quran.

29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

> Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch is believed by Bible scholars to be written by Moses.

few scholars, even most christian ones, believe this. Most believe they were written at the time of the Babylonian exile or shortly before.

My argument does not rely on just the bible but on archeology and surviving records from neighboring principalities

How many detailed records do you expect to have been 1) taken and have 2) survived from that region and moment in time? We're lucky to have what still does exist. Assuming for a second that the biblical account is an accurate description of history, there wouldn't be too much of anything remaining as the Israelites completely wiped many of these tribes out. Almost everything about these cultures broken into pieces and sent up in flames.

Also nothing in the Wikipedia article about Yahweh really contradicts the biblical account minus the conclusion that Elohim and Yahweh are separate deities. As stated earlier, Israel's unfaithfulness to God is duly noted.

Remember when the experts dismissed the Bible's credibility due to the lack of evidence for the Hittities, Edomites, King David, and the other things it mentioned?

>I know its wikipedia but you can browse the citations and it has pictures of various archeological finds.
I browse most of the citations, and I've read them, still not convinced. Now, the consensus is being challenged and many arguments have been put forth on how Ancient Israelite religion was formed and how it connected with the cult of YHWH. And these aren't confessional scholars but also secular scholars too.

Also the format here is getting messy

> And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon. For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks. So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom. And all the earth sought to Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. - 1 Kings 10
wth Israel was loaded during King Solomon's reign

Admire. Why on earth would you despise him?

Thoughts on Solomon having possibly worshiped El, instead of Yahweh?

The House of David is corroborated by the historical record:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele#.22House_of_David.22

Genesis wasn't even written by the same author. Do you even J and P sources bro?

It is correct to be skeptical with a lack of physical evidence. Things like cities and kings did not exist in a vacuum.

At the time of the "destruction" you mentioned the Levant was under the control of Egypt, and all those cities were their vassals. Do you think a tribe of nobodies coming in and carving a piece of Egyptian territory would go unnoticed, unrecorded, and without a military response? The idea is absurd. that is only the start of the problems with the narrative.

As it is we have no reason to give the old testimant any more credit than we give a work like the Iliad, parts of it are probably true but its filled with anachronisms and exaggerations. The line of David exists but they were not holders of a major kingdom or empire.

>Genesis wasn't even written by the same author. Do you even J and P sources bro?

It depends, J keeps being found in P and P in J. Also you forgot E. E makes up the patriarch story but yet keeps overlapping with J. P is most definite by the list of the kings and ancestors, there is no dispute in this. Why J and E make the narrative, the blessing of Abram by Melchizedek is none of them.

No

>At the time of the "destruction" you mentioned the Levant was under the control of Egypt, and all those cities were their vassals. Do you think a tribe of nobodies coming in and carving a piece of Egyptian territory would go unnoticed, unrecorded, and without a military response? The idea is absurd. that is only the start of the problems with the narrative.
What happened to Egypt preceding the conquest of the Holy Land according to the Bible? And didn't the Egyptians have a habit of deleting unflattering information from their archives? Also are you familiar with the Ipuwer Papyrus or the theory that Moses was actually Amenmesse?

>And didn't the Egyptians have a habit of deleting unflattering information from their archives?

Like most ancient civilisation they either take credit or deny that a defeat ever happened during the king's reign.

>What happened to Egypt preceding the conquest of the Holy Land according to the Bible?

is not credible, but even if it was it happened 40 years before hand, plenty of time to rebuild an army. Egypts vessels in the region were certainly still scared enough to show them respect.

>And didn't the Egyptians have a habit of deleting unflattering information from their archives?

they had a habit for changing the events to be flattering to them, but they were not the only power in town. A massive loss of Egyptian vessels in the Levant would not go unnoticed by the Hittites.

> Ipuwer Papyrus

Its been mentioned here before, few besides Christians associate it with the Exodus account.

>Moses was actually Amenmesse

This I have not heard, but if true it would pretty much invalidate the biblical account as he died and was buried in Egypt.

Yeah. There's forty years between emancipation and the alleged conquest, however, isn't it a possibility the Egyptians were hesitant to get involved with the Israelites a second time after such a crushing defeat? Again -pretending the Bible is a credible source for a moment- Egypt had to be left devastated by the events of Exodus. Most if not all of their cattle had perished, crops were destroyed by locusts, an entire generation of children gone, military was lost at sea, a huge source of free labor just left taking precious jewels, serious damage was probably done to the architecture during the hailstorm, and the water of the Nile River turning into blood probably wrecked their way of life for quite some time. They're in the desert. Water is critical. Maybe they were busy dealing with their own problems. And I'm sure rivals in the region would have caught word of this and made attempts to conquer the empire in its weakened condition. According to the biblical account, the other tribes and city-states did notice Egypt's series of unfortunate events.

>his empire was as grand as described
>his empire
>empire
Holy Hasbara!

Empire might not be entirely accurate. Yet he was no push over. King Solomon oversaw various construction projects (Temple of the Lord, House of the Forest of Lebanon, altars to other deities), owned slaves, had a fleet, and "made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone." His reign was the most peaceful period in Israel's history. It all fell apart after his death though. So it was a very short era of prosperity.

And if all that were true we would expect someone to have exploted it besides the Hebrews. Yet we here not a mention of that, not a whimper. no records, no archeological evidence, nothing to make us believe Egypt was having any trouble in that period save their occasional squabbles with the Hittites.

If not for the bible we would have no reason to believe that there was any sort of trouble happening in Egypt around that period.

and so weighting all that in one hand and the bible in the other....

You know it's totally possible the Egyptians managed to defend themselves against the opportunists?

How reliable was Egyptian record keeping? We seem to be working under the assumption they kept objective and complete records. Have you ever considered that the commonly accepted Egyptian narrative could be wrong? Aren't large chunks of time unaccounted for and records incomplete?

Like what if tomorrow it was announced something was discovered that corroborates the Bible on some of these matters? Time and further investigation might be a good friend to the Bible. Isaiah was once questioned due to the lack of evidence for King Sargon. Scholars didn't believe peoples such as the Hittites ever existed. It wasn't until the 1990s that a solid reference of King David, the Tel Dan Stele, was discovered. Cities, like Megiddo and Gezer, described as belonging to Solomon, have been located and verified. Unfortunately the Temple Mount is off limits because of oversensitive desert dwellers.

You might be right. The bible could primarily be fiction or wild exaggerations. Though I don't want to treat it like an open-and-shut case. It has earned a fair shake.

I'm not really fond of it. Why do we doubt Mosaic authorship?

6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, 7 and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

5 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another. 6 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ’

I am saying a combination of Egyptian records, records of other nations and archeology would have yielded something.

I am not saying at some point we might not find proof of a battle of some sort involving "Hebrews" in the Levant, but that would be totally separate from the biblical account. We've dug up Jericho, no battle happened there in the period described.

>Though I don't want to treat it like an open-and-shut case. It has earned a fair shake.

And at one time we believed Troy was fiction until we dug it up. That doesn't prove Homer's account, it proves he was probably working off a very old tradition which contained a kernel of truth, but was turned into myth long before his time.

The torah was written based off an older oral tradition, and like all oral traditions of that sort it occasionally contains some historical truths, but its simply not reliable for events that far back before it was written.

> builds a golden calf to worship almost immediately after leaving Egypt
> attempts to overthrow the person who led them out of slavery
> constantly complains about literally everything
> "we need a king because other nations have one"
> despite confirmation that their God is real they worship other gods because everyone else is doing it
Why did the ancient Israelites seem to have the mentality of children?

>We've dug up Jericho, no battle happened there in the period described.
nytimes.com/1990/02/22/world/believers-score-in-battle-over-the-battle-of-jericho.html

> I am saying a combination of Egyptian records, records of other nations and archeology would have yielded something.
What records by other nations of the Ancient Near East are still around from that period?

"'You wicked servant!' the king roared. 'Your own words condemn you. If you knew that I'm a hard man who takes what isn't mine and harvests crops I didn't plant,

THat article which is over twenty years old, describes one study published in an academic journal. The arctile includes the line:

"Such an interpretation, if it survives critical appraisal,"

It goes on to cite skepticism by other experts.

If a twenty year old article did not not change the current consensus, we can assume their were problems with its conclusions.

>What records by other nations of the Ancient Near East are still around from that period?

The hitties would be one answer, its because of them we know Egyptian records on the battle of Kadesh were bullshit. They had a serious interest in ruling the Levant as well. That's pretty much why Kadesh happened.

According to Wikipedia there are not many surviving records of the Hittites around the 15th century:
>The last monarch of the Old kingdom, Telepinu, reigned until about 1500 BC. Telepinu's reign marked the end of the "Old Kingdom" and the beginning of the lengthy weak phase known as the "Middle Kingdom". The period of the 15th century BC is largely unknown with very sparse surviving records.

Another important matter is this paragraph from the Wikipedia article of Thutmose II:
> Thutmose II is one of the more popular candidates for the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Alfred Edersheim proposes in his "Old Testament Bible History" that Thutmose II is best qualified to be the pharaoh of Exodus based on the fact that he had a brief, prosperous reign and then a sudden collapse with no son to succeed him. His widow Hatshepsut then became first Regent (for Thutmose III) then Pharaoh in her own right. Edersheim states that Thutmose II is the only Pharaoh's mummy to display cysts, possible evidence of plagues that spread through the Egyptian and Hittite Empires at that time.

If you accept the 15th century BC dating for Exodus there's nothing that directly contradicts it or prevents it from having occurred. Just have to find some archaeological evidence.

The lack of evidence for the battles described int he bible and the fact that they would have been fleeing from Egypt to in Egyptian territory is enough to shed serious doubt.Even if all the records were destroyed, you would still expect such a campaign to leave a easily identifiable mark in the archeological record.

Is it possible we might find something at some point that throws the current consensus into question? of course, but we should not just assume that will happen or that it will validate the biblical account. that would be grasping at straws.

And while the 15th century is roughly the numbers given in Jewish tradition it is suspect. indeed the description of events does not seem to sinc perfectly with any time period.

>The lack of evidence for the battles described int he bible and the fact that they would have been fleeing from Egypt to in Egyptian territory is enough to shed serious doubt.Even if all the records were destroyed, you would still expect such a campaign to leave a easily identifiable mark in the archeological record.

"You shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.” - Deut. 7:1-5"

This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” - 1 Samuel 15: 2

"However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God." - Deuteronomy 20: 16-18

Between the cruelty of time/environment and the attempted annihilation of these peoples, what evidences and much of it do you expect to have survived this long. I've already shown that the Egyptian and Hittite record is pretty spotty during the time Exodus likely occurred, so their silence on the matter isn't exactly a strong argument for it having not happened. Why do you consider the 15 century dating suspect?

> Solomon is a fictional character from the Bible & Quran.

Explain pic related then go back to containment board >>/r/eddit

smashing things tends to leave evidence. especially when your smashing stuff on the scale of cities.

In this case the absence of positive evidence is more telling that the absence of negative evidence. This would have been a major conflagration in the Levant, destroying Jericho, other cities and changing the culture and inhabitance in ways that do not appear in the subsequent historical or the archeological record. That is, at the very least, highly unlikely.

the reason the date is suspect is because its based on an oral tradition that seems to incorporate symbolic time lengths

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Dating_the_Exodus

>Attempts to date the Exodus to a specific century have been contentious and inconclusive.[38] There are major archaeological obstacles to an earlier date: Canaan, also known as Djahy, was part of the Egyptian empire, so that the Israelites would in effect be escaping from Egypt to Egypt, and its cities were unwalled and do not show destruction layers consistent with the Bible's account of the occupation of the land (e.g., Jericho was "small and poor, almost insignificant, and unfortified (and) [t]here was also no sign of a destruction".[39]

>William F. Albright, the leading biblical archaeologist of the mid-20th century, proposed a date of around 1250–1200 BCE, but his so-called "Israelite" evidence (house-type, the collar-rimmed jars, etc.) are continuations of Canaanite culture.[40] The lack of evidence has led scholars to conclude that it is difficult or even impossible to link the exodus story to any specific point in history.[41] 1 Kings 6:1 places the event 480 years before the construction of Solomon's Temple, implying an Exodus at c. 1446 BCE, but it is widely recognised that the number in 1 Kings merely represents twelve generations of forty years each.[42][43][44]

> 1 Kings 6:1 places the event 480 years before the construction of Solomon's Temple, implying an Exodus at c. 1446 BCE, but it is widely recognised that the number in 1 Kings merely represents twelve generations of forty years each.
It is largely agreed King David reigned in 1000BC and if we trust 1 Kings at its word it would be a biblical confirmation of the earlier date.

But at the moment any date is suspect. The earlier date seems the likeliest though. Extra-biblical historical record is largely silent about this point in history. We seem to know so little about the Ancient Near East of the 15 century BC that it would be massively unfair to dismiss the biblical account. At least until the land is thoroughly excavated and we have examined all possible leads.

Do you have any sources on the archaeological record of the Levant and detailed information about Egypt's activities in the 15th century?

>It is largely agreed King David reigned in 1000BC and if we trust 1 Kings at its word it would be a biblical confirmation of the earlier date.

The first paragraph notes that archeological facts make an early date suspect.

>Do you have any sources on the archaeological record of the Levant and detailed information about Egypt's activities in the 15th century?

Only bits and pieces I have seen translated from time to time. I have some interest in biblical archeology and history but its not my specialty, so I try to keep my speculations in line with the academic consensus

However I disagree with you, its most likely happened at no date, and was largely a historical fiction created from exaggerated legends and ancestral memories of fighting in the Levant.

>I have no sources at all, but I can tell you it was all made up.

You're just an enormous fucking asshole, you know?

Guy makes a good point, and instead of dealing with the point, you fantasize that everything humanity has known for 3500 years was just "made up".

I love how in the story of pic related, pretty much every bible translation bowlderizes the hell out of it, omitting the fact that the two women are in fact prostitutes and that there's an implication that Solomon is at least a potential father for both babies.

>Abrahamic mythology

If you are European you should be ashamed of yourself.

Who knew? the torah isn't 3500 years old. and most historians who specialize in the field don't take its claims seriously, for the same reason we dont take the Iliad, or even Greek and Roman histories at face value
and as far as I can tell, having a degree in history, their logic is solid.

I think our modern academic methods and standards are more reliable than the bible. I dont know if that makes me an asshole.

Bible clearly states they were both harlots.

Bible says nothing about Solomon being involved with either of them. If you had a triple digit IQ, you'd note that Solomon was not concerned that either baby was his.

The torah is 3500 years old.
Nobody gives a shit what godless people say about the bible.
That you would conflate the bible with works of fiction is laughable.
Your arrogance about your "modern methods" has made you unaware of just how foolish you are.

>I dont know if that makes me an asshole.

It really does.

>The torah is 3500 years old.

it is not

>Nobody gives a shit what godless people say about the bible.

Many people working in that field consider themselves Christian but even if they were faithless it should not bare on their work.

>Your arrogance about your "modern methods" has made you unaware of just how foolish you are.

Your opinion is shared by fundamentalists of all faiths but has little bearing on the real world

Oh, because a pair of random prostitutes can just walk in on the king and demand a private audience and an immediate solution to their baby stealing case. And of course, it was just pure chance that the Hebrew used to describe how they stood before him וַתַּעֲמֹדְנָה לְפָנָיו carries with it sexual connotations, which is why you see the same phrase (except of course adjusted for singular) in Leviticus 18:23, when forbidding bestiality.

Nope, there's no indication at all.

forgive me, I am still adjusting to this new world where disagreeing with your "oh so special" opinion makes someone a bad person.

>King Solomon. Admire him? Despise him? Neutral.

The writings attributed to King Solomon portray him as one of the few Jews I like. I think the Jews deliberately slandered him with their stories about cutting babies in half.

Also, it sounds like the Jews might have betrayed him:

"I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands." - 2 Samuel 7:14

What on Earth could this verse mean? How could anyone in Israel be charged with laying a hand upon the King?

>He was said to be incredibly wise and to have gotten involved with the occult due to his foreign wives. Even went as far to erect temples in the honor of these deities.

Paganism isn't "occult" - stoning people to death for talking genocidal burning bushes with no witnesses is occult.

youtube.com/watch?v=oNK655iUtr0

>I think the Jews deliberately slandered him with their stories about cutting babies in half.
How to tell someone has never read the Bible.

>How to tell someone has never read the Bible.

No I've read the Bible, extensively. And I've rejected most of it as blasphemy by terrorists who were angry that they weren't real prophets of God.

Moses has long been proven a fraud - that was true when the Pentateuch was written, it's true today, and it'll be true in 2000 years.

Enjoy hell!

youtube.com/watch?v=8kNJxuBCM9k

Forget academic consensus for a second and think about this objectively and with as little bias as possible. There's a suitable gap in all the historic records from that region where Exodus can comfortably fit into and it being there conflicts with no established modern records to date. There's a pharaoh who we can verify existed in said time period that 1) had a short reign and sudden unexplained death, 2) didn't have a son to succeed him, and 3) suffered from unusual ailments that are consistent with what he should have if the ten plagues have some basis in reality. As for the oft-mentioned Hittites, according to Wikipedia they were constantly fighting off invasions around the same time Exodus happens if you accept the earliest date. Until it's proven with absolute certainty otherwise, rejecting the entire bible as complete fiction is wrongheaded.

Then please, show me where Solomon cuts a baby in half.

>As for the oft-mentioned Hittites, according to Wikipedia they were constantly fighting off invasions around the same time Exodus happens if you accept the earliest date. Until it's proven with absolute certainty otherwise, rejecting the entire bible as complete fiction is wrongheaded.

Obviously the entire thing isn't fiction - but everything from the Pentateuch definitely is.

Keep trying to justify your raping, plundering, terrorist Moses - nothing you say will ever make him a true prophet and you'll just go to hell for following him.

youtube.com/watch?v=1a94Kpkku94

>Then please, show me where Solomon cuts a baby in half.

There's the story about his "great wisdom" being ordering a baby cut in half to determine who is a real mother. Obviously Ecclesiastes and Proverbs show the author to be a much wiser man than the person portrayed by the "cut the baby in half" story.

The story is in 1 Kings 3:16-28.

Kings is one of the books most hostile towards Solomon.

>until it's proven with absolute certainty otherwise, rejecting the entire bible as complete fiction is wrongheaded.

You have it backwards, until we have collaborating evidence something happened anything written in the sytle of the bible should be treated as myth.

That you could considerably wedge an alleged event into a certain period, and I am not sure I agree with you that it could, does not constitute proof.

At the time period we are talking about the Levant was not like what the bible descirbes, Jerico was not a major walled city, the area was under eypain suzerainty (so feeling there makes no sense) and a Pharaoh dieng to disease and without a heir (dieing young and and dieing without an heir are often related) is not evidence of the kind of mass destruction of Egyptian society the bible describes.

If I am looking at it with as little bias as possible I might say that the exodus and conquest account are mythologized exaggerations of historical memories. That is a possibility. it isn't fact, and there is only speculation to back it up.

You'll notice that he doesn't ACTUALLY cut the baby in half, or order anyone to do so, the entire thing is a plot to smoke out who the real mother is, which is why he orders in Kings 3:27, to NOT kill the kid and give it to the actual mother.

Which is again, how I can tell you haven't actually read this.

>You'll notice that he doesn't ACTUALLY cut the baby in half, or order anyone to do so, the entire thing is a plot to smoke out who the real mother is, which is why he orders in Kings 3:27, to NOT kill the kid and give it to the actual mother.

It sounds like a parody to me - the author of Kings was clearly a pro-Moses mass-murdering, raping terrorist who felt himself "righteous" enough to stand in judgement over the King of Israel.

youtube.com/watch?v=o43_1Ccjvt4

What is wrong with this thread!?!

All I see is terrible

>At the time period we are talking about the Levant was not like what the bible descirbes, Jerico was not a major walled city
This author offers an interesting counterargument to this claim. It's worth an honest read.
biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/05/Did-the-Israelites-Conquer-Jericho-A-New-Look-at-the-Archaeological-Evidence.aspx

How? Solomon is held in high regard. But he was a flawed man like other biblical characters.

>How? Solomon is held in high regard. But he was a flawed man like other biblical characters.

What's flawed about him? He didn't worship Moses? That's a perk. Moses will lead you straight to hell where you belong.

I don't believe someone bright enough to have Proverbs and Ecclesiastes attributed to him could be so stupid as to have his most famous ruling be "cut the baby in half" entrapment.

youtube.com/watch?v=U9uEspZpYlo

"Despite my disagreements with Kenyon’s major conclusion, I nevertheless applaud her for her careful and painstaking field work. It was she who brought order to the confused stratigraphic picture at Jericho. Her thoroughgoing excavation methods and detailed reporting of her findings, however, did not carry over into her analytical work. When the evidence is critically examined there is no basis for her contention that City IV was destroyed by the Hyksos or Egyptians in the mid-16th century B.C.E. The pottery, stratigraphic considerations, scarab data and a Carbon-14 date all point to a destruction of the city around the end of Late Bronze I, about 1400 B.C.E. Garstang’s original date for this event appears to be the correct one!

Was this destruction at the hands of the Israelites? The correlation between the archaeological evidence and the Biblical narrative is substantial:

• The city was strongly fortified (Joshua 2:5,7,15, 6:5,20).
• The attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring (Joshua 2:6, 3:15, 5:10).
• The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee with their foodstuffs (Joshua 6:1).
• The siege was short (Joshua 6:15).
• The walls were leveled, possibly by an earthquake (Joshua 6:20).
• The city was not plundered (Joshua 6:17-18).
• The city was burned (Joshua 6:20)."

King Solomon was a radical centrist

There is evidence in egyptian sources for a nation called Israel as well as a kingdom of David dating as far back as ~1000 BC

There is a reason why Wikipedia isn't allowed as credible sources.

Accredited professors have told me they check Wikipedia.

They would never allow it as a citation on a paper, but for looking up general information its fine as long as the claim is cited.

I also had this experience.

...

>Lemche
>Francesca Stavrakopoulou
>accredited
that's a reason why wikipedia isn't a good source, it's not even balanced by a wide range of scholars

Well I was not referring to the specific article. There are lots of bad articles on Wikipedia, but if you have a liberal education you should be able to tell the difference.

No one considers it a good source for academic writing or formal debate, but it is the most easily accessible source, and there are plenty of worse sources especially on the internet.

If you can pick something from an article that you think is poorly written or incorrect you should point it out, but going "hur hur Wikipedia" just shows you have no argument

You provide an actual argument backed with readily verifiable information for why King Solomon and his father aren't historical figures.

Later too busy

Here is a picture of the inscription with the Davidic portion highlighted from Wikipedia. Open your eyes man.

>references to a monotheism occur at least as early as Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch is believed by Bible scholars to be written by Moses