SLD

1 Kings describes an opulent royal court for Solomon, including something like 25 tons of gold, fleets of ships bringing huge gifts such as ivory, peacocks, apes to his court, thousands of horses and chariots, and not to mention 700 wives and 300 concubines. (Real biblical family values!).

Yet, no hard archeological evidence exists to support the story of King Solomon. Now I wouldn't expect there to be any hard archeological evidence necessarily, i.e. actual gold, chariots, etc. Obviously those would be carted off, especially by the Babylonians if no one else. It's the infrastructure implied by such opulence. That should have left some material trace. What the Bible implies here is an extremely powerful Kingdom exisiting (by most accounts) in the 10th century B.C. Yet there is virtually nothing outside the Bible to indicate that such a powerful empire existed. Nor are there any other ancient referrences, AFAIK, about this supposed empire, neither by its enemies nor its allies.

In contrast we do have a lot of historical evidence of other powerful kingdoms that existed before this period of time and in that general vicinity, such as the Hittites, Hammurabi, the Egyptians obviously, Minoans, and many others.

It would seem to me that if there were any truth to the story, there would be lots of evidence to support it, but the archeological evidence is very silent about this supposedly powerful kingdom.

I noticed though that a lot of our evidence of other civilizations includes depictions of great rulers, or at least statues of various animals (bulls). Is it the biblical prohibition on graven images that could explain at least some of the absence of evidence for this empire? Still there should be more to it if it had any validity.

Just a thought!

SLD

proudfootz

Maybe the invaders took all the roads and buildings too...

Bronzeage

I suppose, up to this point in history, no one has considered they might have exaggerated.

dockeen

Interestingly, in other places these days, one sees the argument "Everyone knows that
these things were exaggerated" card being played to minimize the genocides of the old
testament. They don't appear to like to play that card in places like this though, I
wonder why?

Sheshbazzar

Kings is a lot like the tales of King Arthur's Kingdom and Court.
It is not a contemporary account, it was put together to serve the political and religious needs of a latter time.
Wealth when it is only on paper, (papyrus or leather) is easy to present as being extravagant.

The Nation of Israel was a relatively late arrival in the ancient world, in composing their nations mythological 'history' and its cultural hero's, the writers 'took liberties' least the glory of her previous kings appear pale before that wealth and power held by other kingdoms and cultures.

In reality, ancient Israel was never as large nor anywhere near as influential or powerful as its religious 'history' might lead one to believe.
They were small and really few in numbers, but needed to talk big to survive.
One effective way was to produce and to widely disseminate reams of propaganda promoting the existence of twelve powerful and independent but united Tribes, and a God more to be feared than any other.

Thus a city of only a thousand, or a camp of a hundred, could usually by hauling out and being familiar with the content of these scrolls, bluff, with the threat of being able to call up the hundreds of thousands of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and the wrath of their God Yahweh.
The atrocities in the Old Testament are also highly exaggerated, intended to strike fear of falling into Israelite hands into the hearts of any would be enemies.
Often it worked, other times they got their ass kicked for their trouble.

Duvduv

Alas, the glories of superficial polemics...Where is Max Weber when you need him?!

Bronzeage

The Ten Commandments and it's prohibition on murder and theft, only applied to the various tribes to whom Moses gave the law. It did not apply to relations with peoples outside that circle.

If a city were sacked and "every man, woman and child," was put to the sword, it doesn't really matter if it was 3,000 people of 30,000 people. War stories, just like rich king stories lend themselves to embellishment in the retelling.

As far as exaggeration goes, few dispute the wealth of the many Pharaohs of
Egypt, but very little of it remains in place, today.

Sheshbazzar

As much as possible, the real ancient Jewish manner of warfare consisted of its Priests hauling out their 'ancient' texts and using them to talk their enemies into treaties or submission... or bore them to death.

outhouse

Um not so fast.



there has been a copper mine possibly dated to that period. Its weak evidence and Finklestien doesnt buy it, even if the date is off by a few hundred years, the ruling governement over said copper mine, could have the possibility of having historical roots to the solomon legends.


as far as power in 1000 BC, Israeliotes didnt have it. Davidic legends again i will run with Finklestien place david as a hit n run type bandit. Not a ruler mighty ruler of a empire

Minimalist

I always found it interesting that the name of the Assyrian king, Shalmeneser V was, in Akkadian, Šulmanu-ašarid. Sulmanu? Solomon? Nah, couldn't be...



Could it?