The Wealth of King Solomon

“Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold;” 2 Chronicles 9:13

“Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold.” 1 Kings 10:14

1 talent was the mass of water needed to fill an amphora, a standard sized two-handled vase with a long neck designed for pouring.  The Greek name for the vase, amphora, came from αμφι (“on both sides”) and φορεύς (“carrier”).  Talanton is a Greek word meaning “scale” or “balance.”

 1 talent (a measure of weight) = 3000 shekels = 60 minas = 34.3 kg = 75 US pounds.  On 20 September 2011, the price of gold was $1798.60 per ounce.  There are 16 ounces in a US pound, so one pound would be valued at $28,777.60.  75 pounds would be valued at $2,158,320.00.  666 talents, at today’s price for gold, would be approximately $142,449,120.00.   Remember, this was just his gold.  Solomon also received silver, jewels, animals, slaves, and wives.

Solomon’s wealth came from commerce, mining, and tribute (1 Kings 4:21) and from gifts brought by visiting dignitaries (1 Kings 10:25}  The Bible describes Solomon as being tremendously wealthy.  Obviously, he was.

Solomon and the Two Mothers

"Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him. And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house.  And this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it.  And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.  And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.   And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
  Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.   And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.   And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.   Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.   Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.   And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment." 1 Kings 3:16-28

Here is an animated version of the incident.

Where is the Ark of the Covenant?

A group of Torah-believing Christians in Arum, Ethiopia say that the Ark of the Covenant is safely held in their town where it has been guarded by a succession of individual virgin monks since the time of Solomon, who was King of Israel ca 973 - ca 933 BCE.

The Kings of Ethiopia all the way up to the last, Haile Selassie, claimed descent from Menelek, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The legend is that when Menelek went to Judah to visit his father, he returned with several prominent Israelites who secretly brought the Ark with them. When Menelek discovered that the Ark was in Ethiopia and that God had not struck him dead, he decided that God wanted him to protect it.

Torah-believing Christians use the first five books of the Bible (the Torah) as their primary scriptures and have a strongly Old Testament based theology. They view Jesus as the Messiah and follow the Old Testament dietary rules.

Book Comment: A Song for Lovers

A Song for Lovers, by S. Craig Glickman, is a new take on The Song of Solomon. There were over 500 known commentaries written before 1700 Ad/CE and no one has stopped yet. In 1657, The Westminster Assembly said that all the commentaries served mainly to increase the cloud of obscurity surrounding the book. Glickman says that this may be because most of the commentaries work overtime to avoid a literal reading of the book, which would provide a Biblical affirmation of sex.

The interpretations include:
1. The book is a collection of unconnected love poems, with no coherent story or moral teaching.
2. The book is a liturgy for an unknown fertility cult.
3. The book is a piece of dramatic fiction about Shulamith's faithfulness to her shepherd lover in spite of Solomon's advances..
4. The book is a spiritual allegory with God as the groom and Israel as the bride; this is the traditional view of Orthodox judaism. Christian versions of this view substitute the Church, the New Israel as the bride. A few have said that the book is a pagan allegory about the deities Baal and Astarte.
5. The Syrian Wedding Feast Theory says the book is a collection of wedding songs for a seven-day festival. One objection to this idea is that the groom is crowned but the supposed queen is not.

Glickman prepared a new interpretation of the Hebrew text and noted especially that that Hebrew has a clearly defined male "you" and a female "you" so that it is possible to tell who is speaking to whom. He says it shows a chaste but intense courtship, a marriage ceremony, and a consummation, described enthusiastically and without flinching.

As Howard G. Hendricks, a professor of Christian Education at the Dallas Theological Seminary says in his introduction to the book, "Sensuous love with erotic overtones is God's intent for the marriage relationship.'

So, is The Song of Solomon an affirmation of chaste but highly sexual married love or is it an allegorical description of the relationship between God and His people?
Maybe it is both. God's ways are not our ways and His mind dwarfs ours. Regular readers of this blog know that, while not convinced, I am at least open to the possibility of the existence of the Bible Codes in, at least, the Torah. This would require a mind able to imbed phrases in seemingly unrelated material using complex mathematical formulae which can best be discovered using super computers. Perhaps God thinks on multiple levels at once. I would be willing to say He does.

Book Comment: The Bible as History

"How can we understand the Word, unless we see it in its proper chronological, historical, and geographical setting?" Andre Parrot (1901-1980), archeologist, theologian, main discoverer and excavator of the Mari State (ca. 1800-1750 BC/BCE) site in Syria..

"Many events that previously passed for pious tales must now be judged to be historical. Often the results of investigation correspond in detail with the Biblical narratives." Werner Keller (b.1909, Germany).

In The Bible as History. A Confirmation of the Book of Books, Werner Keller piles on page after page after page of archeological and historical findings which point to the historicity of the biblical texts. Time after time lost cities and towns are found where the Bible says they were located. The names of people mentioned in the Bible are repeatedly found in newly unearthed sites. At Megiddo, the enormous stables of King Solomon were found. The Bablylonian astrological tables correspond to the probable date of The Star of David which shone at Jesus' birth. The Hittite Empire was "known" to be mythological until their capital city, Hatussas, was found at Boghas Koy, Turkey. The king lists found ther, of course, correspond to the Bible.

This is a fascinating book and one which is hard to ignore. When facts begin to pile up on one another, they begin to be overwhelming and soon require willful ignorance on the part of those who wish to ignore or discount them.

Solomon's Wall

Eilat Mazar, an Israeli archeologist has found what may be a fortification wall built by King Solomon in the 10th Century BC/BCE. She has called the wall "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel." She dated the wall from pottery shards found along the wall. Other archeologists, some of whom think David and Solomon are mythical, do not agree.

The segment of wall and a large gatehouse are located outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, near the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary.

While we should never base our faith on artifacts and relics, this may be yet another confirmation of the biblical records. Just think of the Hittite Empire which was "mythological," and mentioned only in the Bible, until the capital city, Hattusas (or Khattusas), was found in Turkey by Hugo Winckler in 1906-1907. Over ten thousand tablets were found which entirely corroborated the Biblical record.