Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Raymond de Hoop <rdehoop AT keyaccess.nl>]

At 22-05-2001 14:22 Thomas L. Thompson <tlt AT teol.ku.dk> wrote:

> Neither of you have a Solomon in
> history to hang your thesis on.

I suppose you mean "in my (= ThLT) history" we have no Solomon; in many
other's there is one.

> Gaps exist between two separate things. In
> this case, however, only the literary Solomon is known to exist. The issue
> is methodological and not one of belief or prejudice, and certainly not of
> efforts to erase what is not yet there.

1 Kings 1-11 does at least suggest that there was a king called Solomon,
presenting him as a king who did live. Of course you can dismiss every text
as "literary", but that is prejudice and belief. When we are talking on
methodology, we have to ask whether these texts are solely literary products
and intended as such and on which ground, or whether they are intended to
tell something about a (possible real) king Solomon, albeit with a
theological or ideological bias, and on which grounds.

I'm however not inclined to dismiss these texts as a *possible* historical
source, because they are coincedently part of the Hebrew Bible. Religious
texts originated in historical contexts and were products of groups who had
some kind of interest (power, religiously or politically) in their message.
This is also the case with the "literary" traditions concerning Saul, David
and Solomon. But that is not the same as being just literary products.


Regards,
Raymond