Wednesday, May 4, 2011

1 Kings 8-10 Politics-The more things change...

1 Kings 8-10

Solomon proves himself to be quite the politician.  He would have done well in Chicago.

The ark is brought to the temple and God unleashes his "cloud" immediately (insert fart joke here).

At the dedication of the new temple, Solomon rededicates the Israelites to The Lord.
This came off (to me) as a politician making a speech.

The Queen of Sheba shows up because she doesn't believe how great Solomon is (?).   When she sees his greatness he gives him a shitload of gold.  Could political favors be far behind?


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6 comments:

  1. Ah, I Kings 10:14...the other Biblical reference to the number 666...

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  2. @Lorraine. I also forgot to mention the Bible's reference to pi in chapter 7.

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  3. I was pretty disappointed by the Queen of Sheba. It's a well-known character, but what does she do? Go OMG YOU GOT SO MUCH GOLD and thats it.

    Solomon's "wisdom" seems to be conflated with his "riches". There's really only one story of him being wise, right?

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  4. It appears to be irony. The life of Solomon in general is narrated to appear unwise. There seems to be a moral of the story, that being a peacetime ruler (Shlomo, after all, is derived from Shalom) makes one soft, and hence corrupt, wordly, decadent, etc., etc.

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  5. Worldly, too. But maybe also wordy. Sort of like the so-called 'baby boomers' who grew up living off the fat of the land in Post War America, right?

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  6. 1 kings 8:63 is interesting

    63 Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the LORD: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the temple of the LORD.

    This was done over 14 days which come out to 65 oxen per hour every hour day and night (or over 1 per minute) and over 5 sheep/goats per minute. Given one altar, I don't think this is physically possible.

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