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Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
#26

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
You could apply the same logic to Zeus or Odin. The stories evolve. They don't have to be the same ones or agree, they just have to include recognizable touchstones. The final story wins by a lottery process in which the final story is the one that outspread and outlasted all the others. It's an organic process. Thinking that there had to have been some coordinated conspiracy just underscores a general lack of understanding of culture. No hegemony of black rap artists convinced young black men to expose their underwear and wear their pants around their ankles. It just happened organically. The dangerous hitchhiker story wasn't penned by some secret cabal of Marchen writers and spread through indoctrination. A bloom of similar stories burst forth from the landscape, eventually coalescing around the most salacious and popular elements. Culture just doesn't work the way you seem to think it does, Aliza.
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


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#27

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Whether or not Solomon existed in some form, he will always be the Wilt Chamberlain of the OT to me.

However, as far as I’m aware, there’s no evidence supporting or refuting a fabulous and influential king of Israel at around the time that Solomon is supposed to have existed. Also, though, this isn’t my field or specialty.
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#28

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Quote:If the story is faked outright, it makes more sense that there existed a Jewish king that the story was based on, and that it was embellished slowly over multiple generations.

The problem there is that leaves you right back with the dilemma faced by jesus freaks in the Historical Jesus/Biblical Jesus argument.  Sure, in their quest to portray some historical basis for the godboy xtians will downgrade him from the miracle working son of god to some asshole who got himself killed for some reason or other.

There is no evidence of any Davidic Empire.  There is no evidence that the countries which would have been overrun to make up that empire had any idea that they had been conquered.  There are no obvious artifacts scattered about which indicate that any so called "United MOnarchy" ever existed.  The kingdom of Israel is referred to in Assyrian texts as Bit Humri (House of Omri) and many people try to say that bytdvd means House of David although the latter is an Aramaic text and the term may be a place name according to George Athas.  In Aramaic there should be a dot separating the words byt and dvd if it meant House of David.

Whatever, archaeology indicates that in the 10th century "Jerusalem" (or whatever it may have been called) may have been little more than a fortified manor house for the local warlord who was in charge.  Archaeologist David Ussishkin has suggested that for a time the site was totally abandoned.  It's sole raison d'etre was the Gihon Spring and if that spring had dried up the place would have been uninhabitable.

So asserting that there was some schlepper named Solomon does not solve the problem.  If he was little more that the chief goat herder on a hilltop so what?
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#29

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
For the record, the name of the Assyrian king Shalmenessar is a Greek rendering of his actual Akkadian name which was Šulmanu-ašarid. 

Sulmanu?  Solomon?  I usually do not put much stock in words which sound like other words but in this particular case Sulmanu-asarid actually WAS a great king, rich from the Arabian trade and ruling a far flung empire.  It would make for a pretty good model for a culture which wanted to shake off its primitive and poverty stricken beginnings with a few pretensions of grandeur.

For that matter, there are temples in Syria which correspond to the supposed "Solomon's Temple" which was supposedly in Jerusalem.  The issue there is that we have artifacts and relics from Ain Dara and Tayinat while no one has ever found a so much as a single stone which can be traced to some magnificent temple in "Jerusalem." 

There is no question that the Judahite kingdom grew prosperous under Assyrian hegemony.  When the Assyrians collapsed the impression is that later writers looked back on it as some sort of "Golden Age" and appropriated Assyrian trappings for themselves.
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#30

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Whatever his origins in history -- if any -- Solomon is simply a Jewish culture hero and a ripping yarn for people in need of a competence fantasy to groove to. In history, as elsewhere, if it's too good to be true, it most likely isn't.
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#31

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Exactly, but biblical literalists can't accept that.
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#32

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(09-03-2020, 05:02 AM)Minimalist Wrote: A take off on the Jesus thread above but this one with an OT slant.

Keeping in mind that there is no archaeological attestation for "Solomon" and that the only textual reference to him is in the OT this reduces him to little more than a character in a book of fiction.

Let the opinions fly!

Huh?

There's no evidence that anyone in the OT actually existed.
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#33

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
A lot of the foreigners existed.  Sennacherib.  Nebuchadnezzar.  Cyrus the Great.  Shalmenessar.  Hazael.  Tiglath-pileser.  Necho.  Sargon II.  Shoshenk.  

You're right that the alleged "jews" are in short supply when it comes to historicity.  Want to speculate on why that might be?   Big Grin
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#34

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(09-06-2020, 09:08 PM)Free Wrote:
(09-03-2020, 05:02 AM)Minimalist Wrote: A take off on the Jesus thread above but this one with an OT slant.

Keeping in mind that there is no archaeological attestation for "Solomon" and that the only textual reference to him is in the OT this reduces him to little more than a character in a book of fiction.

Let the opinions fly!

Huh?

There's no evidence that anyone in the OT actually existed.

The first king of Israel to be attested to out side of the Bible was Omri.  Mentioned in the Mesha stele among other places.  Israel was known the Assyrians as Omriland.
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#35

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Quote:Omriland.


More or less.
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#36

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Jehu. King of Israel. The black Obselisk from Assyria shows Jehu bowing down before Shalmaneser III. First derpiction in history of an Israelite King. First naming of an Israelite king outside the Bible.

“I received the tribute of Iaua (Jehu) son of (the people of the land of) Omri"
The Black Obselisk of Shalmaneser III
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#37

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(09-06-2020, 11:55 PM)Minimalist Wrote: A lot of the foreigners existed.  Sennacherib.  Nebuchadnezzar.  Cyrus the Great.  Shalmenessar.  Hazael.  Tiglath-pileser.  Necho.  Sargon II.  Shoshenk.  

You're right that the alleged "jews" are in short supply when it comes to historicity.  Want to speculate on why that might be?   Big Grin

OK, I had to look up Tiglath-pileser. Impressive guy. Maybe the first to accurately record military campaigns.

And when I read "Shoshenk" I made an internal joke about "The Shoshenk Redemption"... I'm hopeless sometimes.

But I wanted to ask about the "alleged "jews" are in short supply when it comes to historicity". I suspect they never were in Egypt. Their pottery says not. Rather that they were in Persia. Well, after you wander around in a desert for a generation, who can recall?

And their religious myths did come from there. Big Grin
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#38

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Quote: I'm hopeless sometimes.

Aren't we all?


There is no short answer to your question.

Try to forget everything that so-called "Biblical scholars" have to say (That term is basically shorthand for "bible-thumping assholes" ) and look at the archaeology and non-biblical texts such as they are. We know there were "Canaanites" in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. They gave rise to the Hyksos Dynasty around 1,600 BC. But they were Canaanites, not "Jews." The Hyksos got their asses kicked in a revolt from Upper Egypt which chased them out and, to make a long story short, c 1500 BC set off a 400 year occupation of Canaan by Egypt. Somehow the OT doesn't seem to know anything about that.

Around 1200 all of the Late Bronze Age kingdoms (except Egypt which was seriously weakened) collapsed in some kind of region-wife upheaval, which if you want to take Professor Eric Cline's view, was caused by a series of natural disasters which led to revolution and massive migration. This is referred to as "The Sea People" but it seems to have been more complicated than just that.

Around that time the first villages which would later coalesce into the kingdoms of "Israel" and "Judah" formed either from refugees from the coastal cities or nomads who had to settle down to grow grain that they could no longer get from their burning trading partners on the coast or (most likely) both. But Egypt began a millennium long descent into geopolitical irrelevancy after 1200 BC which with few spikes or resurgences ended at Actium in 31 when they became the personal property of Octavius.

Would Egypt have been a cultural lure for the poverty stricken inhabitants of Canaan? Of course. And Egyptian religion did not significantly change until the Ptolemies in the 4th century. The idea of the Ark of the Covenant could easily have been borrowed from the Egyptian Opet Festival where the "gods" were carried about in boxes on poles.

[Image: 3b6b276083138884bff210fb88e274de3c47cb54...4v2_hq.jpg]

But just as many Assyrian/Babylonian elements can be found in "jewish" religion so the safest guess might be to say that what eventually came to be Judaism was a syncretism of every silly superstition being practiced by the more powerful nations which dominated them.... culminated with the Zorastrian ideas of Persia.
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#39

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
[Image: 1469768561.png?precrop=1876,1935,x0,y0&h...width=1429]
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#40

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
A discussion of the Tel Dan stele. 

https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/teldan257923

Quote:The text is fragmentary and open to many reconstructions and interpretations. No fewer than 33 different reconstructions are referred to by Hagelia (2006, see above). Some reconstruct just the fragment found in 1994, the biggest fragment; later reconstructions include the smaller fragments found in 1994. The joint fragments have 13 lines. Its maximum height is 32 cm and its maximum width is 22 cm.
There is general agreement that the inscription is part of a royal stele, possibly comparable in size and form with the contemporary Mesha stele. We do not know for sure from which part of the stele the fragments stem; some lines are surely missing from the top. Of the 13 lines none are complete, varying in length from just a few letters up to 6-7 words. The right hand side is straight, so 11 lines are undamaged from the beginning. But ancient inscriptions do not regularly begin new passages with a new line. Except for where the inscription is damaged, the text is neatly made, chiseled into the rock, and easy to read.
The text is written in the ancient Canaanite alphabet, also called Palaeo Hebrew or Palaeo Aramaic.


I have read Athas' book referred to in the article.  It is an exhausting study particularly when he discusses the carving of each letter.  But his conclusion is that the pieces, as shoved together by the finder, Biran, are from different parts of the stele and should be placed differently.

He also concludes that in Aramaic the term bytdvd refers to a location ( a toponym) rather than House of David which would have a dot, or word separator, between byt and dvd.

Naturally, the bible thumpers went crazy.
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#41

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programm...n_qa.shtml

Or, how the scientists at the Israel Antiquities Authority determined that the Joash Tablet was a fraud.

Quote:King Solomon's Tablet of Stone

Quote:Why did investigators conclude that the stone probably came from a crusader castle?
Royal monumental inscriptions were sometimes written on black, rectangular-shaped, basalt stone. The forgers clearly knew this and chose a stone which was black. But mineralogical tests showed they had made a mistake. The tablet was not basalt but the unusual stone greywacke. This type of stone is not native to Israel, and would certainly not have been found in Judah (modern Jerusalem) during the reign of King Jehoash.
In fact, the closest source for the low grade metamorphic greywacke used for the tablet is western Cyprus. Assuming the forgers would not have gone so far afield to obtain a stone tablet, investigators concluded that this Cypriot stone must have been found locally. But why would a stone from Cyprus have been found in Israel?
There seemed one obvious possibility. During the Crusades stones were used as ballast on ships. They were frequently collected from one Crusader port, including Cyprus, and used by them for construction elsewhere. The Fortress of Apollonia, only 15 kilometres up the coast from Tel Aviv, was built by the Crusaders and part of it still stands today. It contains all sorts of exotic rectangular stones - including greywacke.
It seems very probable that the forgers took one of these stones, or one from another Crusader building, knowing it to be old and weathered, and already cut to a rectangular shape. It was also the right colour, and they may never have realised their error: that the stone they had chosen would not have been found in Israel in Biblical times.


When religion goes up against science it usually takes it up the ass.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#42

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(10-11-2020, 01:18 AM)Minimalist Wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programm...n_qa.shtml

Or, how the scientists at the Israel Antiquities Authority determined that the Joash Tablet was a fraud.

Quote:King Solomon's Tablet of Stone

Quote:Why did investigators conclude that the stone probably came from a crusader castle?
Royal monumental inscriptions were sometimes written on black, rectangular-shaped, basalt stone. The forgers clearly knew this and chose a stone which was black. But mineralogical tests showed they had made a mistake. The tablet was not basalt but the unusual stone greywacke. This type of stone is not native to Israel, and would certainly not have been found in Judah (modern Jerusalem) during the reign of King Jehoash.
In fact, the closest source for the low grade metamorphic greywacke used for the tablet is western Cyprus. Assuming the forgers would not have gone so far afield to obtain a stone tablet, investigators concluded that this Cypriot stone must have been found locally. But why would a stone from Cyprus have been found in Israel?
There seemed one obvious possibility. During the Crusades stones were used as ballast on ships. They were frequently collected from one Crusader port, including Cyprus, and used by them for construction elsewhere. The Fortress of Apollonia, only 15 kilometres up the coast from Tel Aviv, was built by the Crusaders and part of it still stands today. It contains all sorts of exotic rectangular stones - including greywacke.
It seems very probable that the forgers took one of these stones, or one from another Crusader building, knowing it to be old and weathered, and already cut to a rectangular shape. It was also the right colour, and they may never have realised their error: that the stone they had chosen would not have been found in Israel in Biblical times.


When religion goes up against science it usually takes it up the ass.

Naturally, "ass" refers to a kind of donkey here. Coff, coff... Wink
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#43

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
I'm curious to see if anyone can access this file.

https://www.academia.edu/keypass/SzlaZ1F...card=title


I joined academia.edu years ago and have gotten some fantastic papers from them.  In this one, Israel Finkelstein blasts the view that any Davidic United Kingdom ever existed and, as he says at the end:

Quote: 
 
A Great United Monarchy?
23 All this may seem to belittle the stature of the historical David and Solomon. But in the same breath we gain a glimpse into the glamor of the Northern Kingdom – the first true, great Israelite state. If there was a historical United Monarchy, it was that of the Omride dynasty and it was ruled from Samaria. And no less important, we are given a glimpse into the fascinating world of late-monarchic Judah.
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#44

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(02-16-2021, 02:10 AM)Minimalist Wrote: I'm curious to see if anyone can access this file.

https://www.academia.edu/keypass/SzlaZ1F...card=title


I joined academia.edu years ago and have gotten some fantastic papers from them.  In this one, Israel Finkelstein blasts the view that any Davidic United Kingdom ever existed and, as he says at the end:
Tried it various ways including the Tor browser but no joy.
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#45

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(09-04-2020, 08:49 PM)Dānu Wrote: No hegemony of black rap artists convinced young black men to expose their underwear and wear their pants around their ankles.  It just happened organically.  

I often wonder if any of them actually know where that came from, originally. 
It came from the California prison system. It had a very specific meaning, or set of meanings. 
I wonder if they knew the origins and meanings if they would actually do it.
Test
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#46

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(02-16-2021, 02:16 PM)mordant Wrote:
(02-16-2021, 02:10 AM)Minimalist Wrote: I'm curious to see if anyone can access this file.

https://www.academia.edu/keypass/SzlaZ1F...card=title


I joined academia.edu years ago and have gotten some fantastic papers from them.  In this one, Israel Finkelstein blasts the view that any Davidic United Kingdom ever existed and, as he says at the end:
Tried it various ways including the Tor browser but no joy.



That's what I was afraid of.  Well, if anyone wants to read it just PM an email address and I'll send it to you.

Of course, I still think that Academia has a free registration service if anyone wants to join.  There is a premium service but I have used it for years without bothering.
https://www.academia.edu/about
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#47

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Every culture has similar stories and the stories reflect the geography of their surroundings.  The Hindus have magical stories set around the Gangis river.  The Bible has magical stories set around the Nile.

India has a very ancient story about a baby named Karna who was put into the Ganges river by a single mother who had been  impregnated by a sun god (sound familiar?)  and hoping that the baby would be fostered by more stable parents she puts him in a reed basket in the river.   Well, the baby was plucked out of the Ganges by a palace worker who gave the baby to one of the royal family members.  The child grows up to become a great warrior and lead his people in great victories.   Hummmm, where have I heard this story before?

Sargon of Akkad has the same story except he was placed in the Euphrates River.   If you look at a map and follow the Silk Road you'll see that these oral stories may have traveled from the East and ended up in the Bible.

Ancient river stories are common around the world, especially the big rivers like the Nile, Ganges and the Amazon where communities lived.   I haven't checked Amazon river stories about babies put into baskets yet but it's possible there might be one or two.
                                                         T4618
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#48

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
Add in Romulus and Remus.


Quote:Romulus and Remus were born in Alba Longa, one of the ancient Latin cities near the future site of Rome. Their mother, Rhea Silvia, was a vestal virgin and the daughter of the former king, Numitor, who had been displaced by his brother Amulius. In some sources, Rhea Silvia conceived them when their father, the god Mars, visited her in a sacred grove dedicated to him.[2]

Seeing them as a possible threat to his rule, King Amulius ordered for them to be killed and they were abandoned on the bank of the river Tiber to die. They were saved by the god Tiberinus, Father of the River, and survived with the care of others, at the site of what would eventually become Rome. In the most well-known episode, the twins were suckled by a she-wolf, in a cave now known as the Lupercal.[3] Eventually, they were adopted by Faustulus, a shepherd.







Then add in Perseus.

Quote:The Oracle of Delphi tells King Acrisius that his daughter, Danae, will give birth to a son who'll kill him one day. Totally freaked out, Acrisius locks Danae in a bronze chamber that's open to the sky. Zeus sees Danae locked in the chamber and falls for her. The King of the Gods streams into the chamber as a shower of gold and impregnates Danae with little baby Perseus. Acrisius doesn't buy the whole Zeus-as-a-shower-of-gold story, so he locks his daughter and grandson in a chest and throws them into the sea. Luckily, it's a sea-worthy chest and the two float to the island of Serifos, where they're taken in by a friendly fisherman named Dictys.


Fucking "Moses" wasn't so special after all!
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#49

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
In a story in Haaretz about recently concluded excavations in Gath, a Philistine city conquered and destroyed by King Hazael of Aram-Damascus c 820 BCE we find this little tidbit from Professor Aren Meier who has headed up the excavations for 25 years. Gath, for anyone who cares about such nonsense was the purported home of the biblical "Goliath."

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/arch...869d75a8f2


Quote:After Hazael’s conquest, Gath was only briefly repopulated in the late Iron Age as a small settlement, possibly by the subjects of the Kingdom of Judah. But the ruins of its former glory would have likely still been visible at the time.

In fact, Maeir has previously theorized that the city’s massive walls and public buildings may have inspired the legend of Goliath, because ancient peoples often interpreted such large structures as the work of giants.

So, most probably, Goliath the giant was just a myth, and the residents of Gath were run-of-the-mill people, who eventually lost their homes due the ambitions of the imperialist du jour. And now, the possible discovery of the breach in the city walls has added to our growing knowledge of the very human and very terrifying story of the fall of Gath of the Philistines.

Just another bullshit yarn in the buy-bull.
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#50

Historical Solomon, Biblical Solomon
(09-03-2020, 05:02 AM)Minimalist Wrote: A take off on the Jesus thread above but this one with an OT slant.

Keeping in mind that there is no archaeological attestation for "Solomon" and that the only textual reference to him is in the OT this reduces him to little more than a character in a book of fiction.

Let the opinions fly!

All I know is I fucked his sister 20 years ago. She was a dead fuck.

Necrophilia for the win.
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