tracer

I remember having read this little tidbit from the Book of Kings:

"All King Solomon's goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon's days."
-- 1 Kings 10:21, NIV translation


But just this morning, commuting to work and listening to the first cassette in my newly-bought NIV book-on-tape, I heard this:

"Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold."
-- Genesis 13:2, NIV translation


So ... the Genesis passage implies that in the ancient (mytical?) time of Abra[ha]m, silver was considered valuable -- but the 1 Kings passage implies that silver didn't become valuable until after the reign of King Solomon, who came along much later than Abraham.

Does this story about silver not being valuable have any historical/archaeological corroboration from the ol' Fertile Crescent region?

sharon45

Well even in this day, gold has many more times the value of silver, and as for a King, they would want only the finest, why waste on anything else, that is a King's choice.

As for Abram, he is by far not a King so his wealth was somewhat like a man of "middle-class", they would be respectful of any money they could get and not go in for the excesses of a King.

tracer

Yes. But. 1 Kings 10:21 seems to imply more than just that gold was worth "more" than silver in King Solomon's time. It seems to imply that silver was considered so blasé that it wasn't even worth making money out of, as though it were no more valuable than tin or iron, but by the time the book was writted it had become at least somewhat valuable.

Doctor X

Much of--if not all of--the Solomon and David stories are just so much propaganda. Methinks the Deuteronomistic Historian wished to demonstrate that Solomon was so rich he did not need silver!

It is a bit like the current stories that Bill Gates makes so much a day that he would lose money if he bent down and picked up a $100 bill.

--J.D.

tracer

I think you're right. Other translations (besides the NIV) tend to render the last clause in 1 Kings 10:21 as saying that silver "wasn't reckoned for anything" or "was accounted as nothing" in the days of Solomon, implying that Solomon's kingdom was bulging with so much silver that they used it to build boat anchors or something.

contracycle

In a Sumerian document I've been reading about, silver is used in the context of great wealth, as in, "shall I invest silver?".

tracer

But wait a minute ... if silver was so abundant in Solomon's kingdom, why were most of the ornamental decorations in his Temple made out of bronze?

Surely, if silver was cheap, then bronze would have been even cheaper!

Doctor X

Because it was the Bronze Age . . . silly!

--J.D.

Freodin

A possible reason: silver tends to get black in extended contact with air. Does not look nice.


But for the OP: I would say this is simply an exaggeration to show that he was so rich that even something less valuable was of no value to him (and his kingdom)

tracer

But bronze tends to tarnish on extended contact with air, too. Bronze needs to be polished in order to keep it looking nice, just like silver does. (Obviously, bronze would have to be used for anything requiring structural strength, such as the "molten sea" out in front of the Temple, but that's no reason not to make purely ornamental decorations [like the pomegranates] out of silver.)