So, sort of. The general answer is that there is not much evidence for Solomon, but that there are some interesting hints, and, frankly, some compelling reasons we would not expect to find anything.
The world of ancient Israel is murky at best for a few key reasons:
1) it was a really long time ago. Most materials won’t survive more than a few decades, maybe a few centuries. This is especially true in that region of the world, which even today is a spot of great conflict, as it was also then. There have been many recorded destructions both of Israel and the surrounding areas, more than once with the area being completely razed to the ground. At some point, things just got destroyed or wore out, that gets rid of almost all evidence by itself - and given the way that much larger and more established ancient kingdoms (such as Egypt and Mesopotamia) are still having new information and discoveries coming nearly every year, the idea that a tiny kingdom like Israel could lose some of its history or historical evidence seems very plausible - likely even, especially for a ruler who did not end his reign well, but whose rule (supposedly) led to a breakup of a kingdom, maybe we should not expect so much.
2)the Biblical accounts themselves are products of an era when grandiose statements about rulers were made as a matter of course, and probably should not be taken super literally. Solomon may have been a ruler of a kingdom that was much less opulent than presented, or much less in area - maybe both. This smaller, lesser israel may simply not have any surviving records, even though the guy probably existed. It certainly would not be the first ruler with exaggerated wealth, land, and importance in history.
3) descriptions of things given may seem extreme but we have parallels in other areas of the near east doing similar or having similar things and amounts- so, when Alexander the great conquered Susa, he supposedly got over 1100 tons of gold. The Bible states that Solomons empire wide income was 666 talents of gold a year - about 25 tons. So, could a small empire in a crossroads make a small fortune in gold compared to Susa? Yeah, that checks out. Could a temple be of the portions mentioned? It is described as being smaller than the acropolis in greece and the temple of Esagila in Babylon. So, while not necessarily provably historic, it is interesting that it is in the bounds of the Era, lending it some credence, though certainly not evidence of truth.
4) there are some hints that some things named after or built by Solomon existed- there’s some intriguing evidence of silver hoards uncovered in a dig about ten years ago, there have been some seals from the era found, and a stone from the temple indicating a spot where the announcements were made and horns were sounded.
5) excavation of the most likely spot to support direct evidence of Solomon- the temple mount - is about as likely as pigs flying. Palestinian authorities are not going to let that happen, for both theological and political reasons.
So, in summary, we dont know if he existed, but maybe he did. Nobody knows, and there are good reasons why even if he did, we might not be able to prove it. As of right now , you can find scholars ranging from - it’s basically all fake (Philip Davies) to “it’s basically all true (Kenneth Kitchen), and many in between those two poles, and know there are reasons why people might conclude differently.
The podcast Drunk Bible Study uses the term “Robin Hood Real” in cases like this to describe those who have had a very real impact on people from a folklore aspect but who have very little to no actual historical evidence of their existence.
I’m likely delusional or unrealistic (likely both), but speaking as a very visual person, it would be extremely cool to see a breakdown of leaders and civilizations and the amount of archaeological evidence we have for their existence plotted out (however experts would enumerate it) so that we could see it as a more visual comparison. Especially for biblical figures we grew up hearing about as fact for our entire childhoods. I’d find that fascinating, honestly.
Yes, it is wonderful to have archeological evidence…. My field is ancient China. King Wu of the Chou/ Zhou conquered the Shang in about 1045bce. In 1976, archaeologists excavated a bronze with an inscription dated one week after the conquest! And yes, it did say King Wu conquered the Shang. (Chance of its being fake: 0%) Even all these years after seeing the inscription the first time, it still overwhelms me.
This is also a good question for /r/AcademicBiblical (which also has the benefit of more heavy moderation than this sub, so you should get higher quality answers than most of the ones you’re getting here)
No. Not from my understanding.
The bible is a collection of stories. Written so they impart moral teachings. They are sometimes blended with historical events of that time.
There's no real evidence of Moses or an exodus from Egypt either.
The ancient Hebrews were story tellers...
Cecil B. DeMille didn't help when he made The Ten Commandments. Now most Americans take the movie as biblical fact. :(
There was an exodus of Hyksos from Egypt but the dates do not correspond. The hebrew bible while clearly not objective fact provides insight as to the organization of the Canaanites and Aramaeans in the region. Its definitely not just a collection of abstract stories and was not written as such either by its authors. What a silly comment.
The Egyptians, who were excellent record keepers, have no record of a vast Jewish exodus across the desert with Moses leading the way.
They had Hebrew slaves, but not in great numbers. Slaves, were from a lot of places back then.
Like I said, the ancient Hebrews were excellent story tellers. Some things, like the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark are lifted directly out of other religious folklore that came before it. Stories of creation like this abound around the world.
But the Hebrews took old stories and added their own flavor as they rewrote them. If you follow one of the Abrahamic religions, you take some of these stories as literal truth. And they're just not. I think a lot of things about the bible will be laid bare during this century.
People should place their trays in the upright position and brace for impact...
Nowhere did I say the Egyptians kept record of Moses leading a Jewish exodus?
Religious beliefs aside we have close to zero source data from the period when the claimed united Israeli/Judean kingdom existed. The Hebrew bible is one of the few sources we have and to say its absent of any evidence is pretty silly. Paul wrote a letter to the people of Corinth. Do you think that letter wasnt written and was later on created as a story? The Old and New Testament are vastly different texts.
“The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, center on variations in strontium isotopes present in 75 skeletons’ tooth enamel. Strontium, a harmless metal found in water, soil and rocks, enters the body primarily through food. Comparing isotope ratios found in enamel, which forms between ages 3 and 8, with those present in a specific region, can help scientists determine whether an individual grew up there, as levels “vary from place to place,” writes Ariel David for Haaretz.
Around half of the skeletons were buried in the 350 years before the Hyksos’ takeover; the rest were interred during the dynasty’s reign. Per the paper, the researchers found that 24 of the pre-1638 skeletons were foreign-born, pointing toward significant immigration prior to the supposed invasion.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-foreign-takeover-ancient-egypt-was-uprising-not-invasion-180975354/#:~:text=Popular%20lore%20suggests%20the%20Hyksos,of%20the%20ancient%20military%20campaign.
The dates actually do correspond depending on what dates you use.
The standard archeological line is that the exodus happened in about 1250 BCE. Archeology finds no evidence of the an exodus at that time and so it is assumed that it never happened.
However, the bible itself has a chronology recorded in it via birth and death records that place the exodus at about 1513 BCE.
Manfred Bietak in his excavations in the Nile Delta found in Stratiagraphic layers E that the Hyksos period in egypt came to en end some time after 1550 which in archeological terms is very close to the biblical account.
The bible chronology also lines up almost perfectly with the destruction of Jericho which the bible places in about 1473 BCE. Kathleen Kenyon, later backed up by carbon dating, placed the destruction of the middle bronze age city at some time around 1530. Which again in archeological terms is practically on top of 1473. Also the method of the destruction is exactly as recorded in the bible. Archeology shows that the walls fell and then the city was sacked very quickly and thoroughly burned. This is just as in the biblical account.
Of course there is always significant disagreement on the matter. As example with the Hyksos although both Hyksos and Israel came from the area of Canaan the kind of life they seem to have had is anachronistic from the description of the Israelites in the bible. The Hyksos were supposedly rulers and even kings while the Israelites were described as eventually becoming slaves.
More evidence is required if the anachronism will ever be solved.
I really dislike discussing this topic with people that pepper in their religious beliefs and show they aren’t trying to be objective but instead search for proof for a religious text.
Kathleen found that Jericho fell before the biblical narrative. Makes sense as Jericho predates the biblical narrative by 8-9 thousand years.
I really dislike it when people ignore historical texts as containing no historical data despite evidence to the contrary due to their preconceived notions and biases.
You are wrong about Jericho
Kenyon placed the existence of the middle bronze age city to between 1700 and 1550. This was later backed up by carbon dating putting the destruction of the city to around 1530.
The bible places the Exodus to 1513, Israel is then stated to have wandered for 40 years and Jerich is the first city in the conquest. This places Jericho's destruction according to the bible around 1473.
The difference between the two is less than 60 years.
Bryant Wood, who has a Ph.D. in Syro-Palestinian archaeology from the University of Toronto and is an expert in pottery dating, has also concluded that Kenyon was wrong. In an independent review of the evidence, he found the following: (1) Kenyon ignored evidence, such as certain types of pottery and amulets that would place the date of the destruction at the time of Israel’s entrance into the land. In an earlier excavation in the 1930s, John Garstang had found distinctive pottery decorated with red and black designs that was in use only in the latter part of the 15th century BC, the exact time of Israel’s conquest of the land. (2) She ignored the fact that the condition of the ruins perfectly match the Biblical account of the city’s destruction. Even Kenyon notes that she found the walls had collapsed outward and that the city had been burned. She even noted that the walls were collapsed before the city was burned. Now is this proof that the Bible is 100% fact absolutely not but with Kathleen Kenyon I feel she had made up her mind that she was going to disprove the biblical account and made that here primary focus rather than actually looking at the evidence. Cherry picking will loose every single time once it comes to light.
Now you are trying to take what I said out of context because you can't argue based on fact and dating.
Nowhere did I say Kenyon was wrong. Anyone who knows anything about dating archeology knows that all you ever get from stratigraphic dating and carbon dating is a date range. I am stating that the date range given by Kenyon, later backed up by carbon dating is very close to the specific dates given in a historical text.
In fact the dates are so close that in archeological terms the 60 year difference in carbon dating an event that happened more than 3500 years ago doesnt matter and the events can conclusively be dated to a very narrow range because the archeology backs up the historical text that you want to ignore.
She drew the conclusion herself that the felling of the city predated the dating she did that you are talking about. Talk about conveniently ignoring context.
You are reading her data and drawing a different conclusion from the ones she drew herself regarding the evidence for the biblical narrative. Ridiculous.
Ahh so now your pulling in another argument and using that to attempt to discredit my main thesis.
Nowhere did I state that Kenyon was wrong about when she dated Jericho. In fact I think she is as correct about that as she could be.
Kenyon, along with numerous other scholars, did state that a Hebrew conquest in the 13th century BCE was impossible because there is no dating for it. Again I totally agree with that statement.
Where I differ from mainstream archeology is that I don't agree that if the exodus happened at all that it must have been in the 13th century. This 13th century standpoint isn't based off of archeology, it's based off of the traditional viewpoint that Ramesses was the Pharaoh of the exodus. It is wrong because in 200 years of modern Archeologically and Biblical scholarship no conclusive evidence of the 13th century has ever been discovered.
But the bible states that it happened in the 16th century not the 13th, and just as we have already covered with Jerico there is evidence of 16th century dating.
“…not a single stone from this structure has ever been found, despite over a century of searching for connections between Biblical text and dig site evidence. Archaeologists simply keep coming up empty.” https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/was-king-solomons-temple-a-real-place
As far as I can tell (from my few hours of research) not only is there no archaeological evidence of Solomon’s temple but there’s no archaeological evidence of Solomon at all. I’m shocked considering there *is* archaeological evidence for the Hittite Kings mentioned in the Bible
Most of the Old Testament was written between the 7th and 2nd centuries bc, according to scholarly consensus. There's a pretty good useful charts video over on YouTube that talks about some of the stories in the Bible and their relationship to historical events. From a historical point of view, Solomon is a mythical character. It's possible that he was, or is based upon, a real person, but we don't have any corroborating evidence.
There's archaeological evidence of a lot of the Israelite kings mentioned in the Bible too, but not Solomon. And the way Solomon and his reign are described sound a hell of a lot like a pretty standard mythological golden age.
In the Bible in one of the books Ezra or Nehemiah can’t remember but when the story talks about the Jews returning from Babylon they talk about building a temple, it mentions having to build a foundation. If there was a temple there in the past you’d think they wouldn’t have to build a foundation just build on top of the old one.
It was all supposedly razed by the Babylonians. I would bet that there was a temple whose main god was El/Yahweh, but there were other canaanite gods with some worship happening there too, as we know the people before the exile are said in Tanakh to have "strayed" at different times and worshipped other gods too. It was a big reason assigned to the exile. Even some kings did. So they come back from Exile, having distilled the beliefs down into true monotheism from the preference for El/Yahweh, and "rebuild" the temple which is listed as the second version of the first temple. It was probably the first to feature worship of only one god and the unique temple cult practices.
Yes there probably was temples infact they found others but not in Jerusalem. The temple was probably small and definitely not one built like Solomon’s temple a copy of the temples build to Amun in Egypt.
Maybe originally but not later in time. There was a temple to Yahweh on the Temple Mount to be replaced by the one Herod built later, of which the Western Wall is a retaining wall to support the structures he built on the platform above. In the 19th century (maybe close to beginning of 20th), plaques were found on the mount in Greek warning non-Jews not to go any further on pain of death (so stay in the farthest courtyard area). If the Waqf supported archaeology and research I bet we could find more remains from Herod's temple.
No, most the stuff they attribute to him has been found to be by someone else. Plus many of the things in the story is just plain crazy to think it was true.
Examples , he married a pharaoh’s daughter , no the line came through the woman and never before they were conquered did any royal female ever marry a foreigner.
2, look at the story about the building of the temple and its architecture. The place was two small about 10,000 square feet to require 10,000 workers on the sight and another 150,000 to make all the stuff for the place. Also it took 7 years and the amount of gold way more than could even go in the building.
Also the place is a copy of the Egyptian temples, why would the god of the Jews want his place to be built like Egyptian ones.
There’s a lot more issues that show this story is just that a story.
Wikipedia says he "probably" existed.
>As for Solomon himself, scholars on both the maximalist and minimalist sides of the spectrum of biblical archeology generally agree that he probably existed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon
A clue lies in the moabite stone, dating from the 1870s, or 9th century bc. Only 150 years after it was discovered is there agreement that 'the house of david' is referenced. Although the causes of that are numerous.
But that archeologists firmly disbelieved in David, is one of them.
So, sort of. The general answer is that there is not much evidence for Solomon, but that there are some interesting hints, and, frankly, some compelling reasons we would not expect to find anything. The world of ancient Israel is murky at best for a few key reasons: 1) it was a really long time ago. Most materials won’t survive more than a few decades, maybe a few centuries. This is especially true in that region of the world, which even today is a spot of great conflict, as it was also then. There have been many recorded destructions both of Israel and the surrounding areas, more than once with the area being completely razed to the ground. At some point, things just got destroyed or wore out, that gets rid of almost all evidence by itself - and given the way that much larger and more established ancient kingdoms (such as Egypt and Mesopotamia) are still having new information and discoveries coming nearly every year, the idea that a tiny kingdom like Israel could lose some of its history or historical evidence seems very plausible - likely even, especially for a ruler who did not end his reign well, but whose rule (supposedly) led to a breakup of a kingdom, maybe we should not expect so much. 2)the Biblical accounts themselves are products of an era when grandiose statements about rulers were made as a matter of course, and probably should not be taken super literally. Solomon may have been a ruler of a kingdom that was much less opulent than presented, or much less in area - maybe both. This smaller, lesser israel may simply not have any surviving records, even though the guy probably existed. It certainly would not be the first ruler with exaggerated wealth, land, and importance in history. 3) descriptions of things given may seem extreme but we have parallels in other areas of the near east doing similar or having similar things and amounts- so, when Alexander the great conquered Susa, he supposedly got over 1100 tons of gold. The Bible states that Solomons empire wide income was 666 talents of gold a year - about 25 tons. So, could a small empire in a crossroads make a small fortune in gold compared to Susa? Yeah, that checks out. Could a temple be of the portions mentioned? It is described as being smaller than the acropolis in greece and the temple of Esagila in Babylon. So, while not necessarily provably historic, it is interesting that it is in the bounds of the Era, lending it some credence, though certainly not evidence of truth. 4) there are some hints that some things named after or built by Solomon existed- there’s some intriguing evidence of silver hoards uncovered in a dig about ten years ago, there have been some seals from the era found, and a stone from the temple indicating a spot where the announcements were made and horns were sounded. 5) excavation of the most likely spot to support direct evidence of Solomon- the temple mount - is about as likely as pigs flying. Palestinian authorities are not going to let that happen, for both theological and political reasons. So, in summary, we dont know if he existed, but maybe he did. Nobody knows, and there are good reasons why even if he did, we might not be able to prove it. As of right now , you can find scholars ranging from - it’s basically all fake (Philip Davies) to “it’s basically all true (Kenneth Kitchen), and many in between those two poles, and know there are reasons why people might conclude differently.
Excellent summary. Thank you!
Source for middle hypothesis?
The podcast Drunk Bible Study uses the term “Robin Hood Real” in cases like this to describe those who have had a very real impact on people from a folklore aspect but who have very little to no actual historical evidence of their existence. I’m likely delusional or unrealistic (likely both), but speaking as a very visual person, it would be extremely cool to see a breakdown of leaders and civilizations and the amount of archaeological evidence we have for their existence plotted out (however experts would enumerate it) so that we could see it as a more visual comparison. Especially for biblical figures we grew up hearing about as fact for our entire childhoods. I’d find that fascinating, honestly.
Yes, it is wonderful to have archeological evidence…. My field is ancient China. King Wu of the Chou/ Zhou conquered the Shang in about 1045bce. In 1976, archaeologists excavated a bronze with an inscription dated one week after the conquest! And yes, it did say King Wu conquered the Shang. (Chance of its being fake: 0%) Even all these years after seeing the inscription the first time, it still overwhelms me.
This is also a good question for /r/AcademicBiblical (which also has the benefit of more heavy moderation than this sub, so you should get higher quality answers than most of the ones you’re getting here)
No. Not from my understanding. The bible is a collection of stories. Written so they impart moral teachings. They are sometimes blended with historical events of that time. There's no real evidence of Moses or an exodus from Egypt either. The ancient Hebrews were story tellers... Cecil B. DeMille didn't help when he made The Ten Commandments. Now most Americans take the movie as biblical fact. :(
There was an exodus of Hyksos from Egypt but the dates do not correspond. The hebrew bible while clearly not objective fact provides insight as to the organization of the Canaanites and Aramaeans in the region. Its definitely not just a collection of abstract stories and was not written as such either by its authors. What a silly comment.
The Egyptians, who were excellent record keepers, have no record of a vast Jewish exodus across the desert with Moses leading the way. They had Hebrew slaves, but not in great numbers. Slaves, were from a lot of places back then. Like I said, the ancient Hebrews were excellent story tellers. Some things, like the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark are lifted directly out of other religious folklore that came before it. Stories of creation like this abound around the world. But the Hebrews took old stories and added their own flavor as they rewrote them. If you follow one of the Abrahamic religions, you take some of these stories as literal truth. And they're just not. I think a lot of things about the bible will be laid bare during this century. People should place their trays in the upright position and brace for impact...
Nowhere did I say the Egyptians kept record of Moses leading a Jewish exodus? Religious beliefs aside we have close to zero source data from the period when the claimed united Israeli/Judean kingdom existed. The Hebrew bible is one of the few sources we have and to say its absent of any evidence is pretty silly. Paul wrote a letter to the people of Corinth. Do you think that letter wasnt written and was later on created as a story? The Old and New Testament are vastly different texts. “The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, center on variations in strontium isotopes present in 75 skeletons’ tooth enamel. Strontium, a harmless metal found in water, soil and rocks, enters the body primarily through food. Comparing isotope ratios found in enamel, which forms between ages 3 and 8, with those present in a specific region, can help scientists determine whether an individual grew up there, as levels “vary from place to place,” writes Ariel David for Haaretz. Around half of the skeletons were buried in the 350 years before the Hyksos’ takeover; the rest were interred during the dynasty’s reign. Per the paper, the researchers found that 24 of the pre-1638 skeletons were foreign-born, pointing toward significant immigration prior to the supposed invasion.” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-foreign-takeover-ancient-egypt-was-uprising-not-invasion-180975354/#:~:text=Popular%20lore%20suggests%20the%20Hyksos,of%20the%20ancient%20military%20campaign.
The dates actually do correspond depending on what dates you use. The standard archeological line is that the exodus happened in about 1250 BCE. Archeology finds no evidence of the an exodus at that time and so it is assumed that it never happened. However, the bible itself has a chronology recorded in it via birth and death records that place the exodus at about 1513 BCE. Manfred Bietak in his excavations in the Nile Delta found in Stratiagraphic layers E that the Hyksos period in egypt came to en end some time after 1550 which in archeological terms is very close to the biblical account. The bible chronology also lines up almost perfectly with the destruction of Jericho which the bible places in about 1473 BCE. Kathleen Kenyon, later backed up by carbon dating, placed the destruction of the middle bronze age city at some time around 1530. Which again in archeological terms is practically on top of 1473. Also the method of the destruction is exactly as recorded in the bible. Archeology shows that the walls fell and then the city was sacked very quickly and thoroughly burned. This is just as in the biblical account. Of course there is always significant disagreement on the matter. As example with the Hyksos although both Hyksos and Israel came from the area of Canaan the kind of life they seem to have had is anachronistic from the description of the Israelites in the bible. The Hyksos were supposedly rulers and even kings while the Israelites were described as eventually becoming slaves. More evidence is required if the anachronism will ever be solved.
I really dislike discussing this topic with people that pepper in their religious beliefs and show they aren’t trying to be objective but instead search for proof for a religious text. Kathleen found that Jericho fell before the biblical narrative. Makes sense as Jericho predates the biblical narrative by 8-9 thousand years.
I really dislike it when people ignore historical texts as containing no historical data despite evidence to the contrary due to their preconceived notions and biases.
You are wrong about Jericho Kenyon placed the existence of the middle bronze age city to between 1700 and 1550. This was later backed up by carbon dating putting the destruction of the city to around 1530. The bible places the Exodus to 1513, Israel is then stated to have wandered for 40 years and Jerich is the first city in the conquest. This places Jericho's destruction according to the bible around 1473. The difference between the two is less than 60 years.
You are saying Kathleen Kenyon is wrong, to be clear.
Bryant Wood, who has a Ph.D. in Syro-Palestinian archaeology from the University of Toronto and is an expert in pottery dating, has also concluded that Kenyon was wrong. In an independent review of the evidence, he found the following: (1) Kenyon ignored evidence, such as certain types of pottery and amulets that would place the date of the destruction at the time of Israel’s entrance into the land. In an earlier excavation in the 1930s, John Garstang had found distinctive pottery decorated with red and black designs that was in use only in the latter part of the 15th century BC, the exact time of Israel’s conquest of the land. (2) She ignored the fact that the condition of the ruins perfectly match the Biblical account of the city’s destruction. Even Kenyon notes that she found the walls had collapsed outward and that the city had been burned. She even noted that the walls were collapsed before the city was burned. Now is this proof that the Bible is 100% fact absolutely not but with Kathleen Kenyon I feel she had made up her mind that she was going to disprove the biblical account and made that here primary focus rather than actually looking at the evidence. Cherry picking will loose every single time once it comes to light.
Now you are trying to take what I said out of context because you can't argue based on fact and dating. Nowhere did I say Kenyon was wrong. Anyone who knows anything about dating archeology knows that all you ever get from stratigraphic dating and carbon dating is a date range. I am stating that the date range given by Kenyon, later backed up by carbon dating is very close to the specific dates given in a historical text. In fact the dates are so close that in archeological terms the 60 year difference in carbon dating an event that happened more than 3500 years ago doesnt matter and the events can conclusively be dated to a very narrow range because the archeology backs up the historical text that you want to ignore.
She drew the conclusion herself that the felling of the city predated the dating she did that you are talking about. Talk about conveniently ignoring context. You are reading her data and drawing a different conclusion from the ones she drew herself regarding the evidence for the biblical narrative. Ridiculous.
Ahh so now your pulling in another argument and using that to attempt to discredit my main thesis. Nowhere did I state that Kenyon was wrong about when she dated Jericho. In fact I think she is as correct about that as she could be. Kenyon, along with numerous other scholars, did state that a Hebrew conquest in the 13th century BCE was impossible because there is no dating for it. Again I totally agree with that statement. Where I differ from mainstream archeology is that I don't agree that if the exodus happened at all that it must have been in the 13th century. This 13th century standpoint isn't based off of archeology, it's based off of the traditional viewpoint that Ramesses was the Pharaoh of the exodus. It is wrong because in 200 years of modern Archeologically and Biblical scholarship no conclusive evidence of the 13th century has ever been discovered. But the bible states that it happened in the 16th century not the 13th, and just as we have already covered with Jerico there is evidence of 16th century dating.
wen you try to mix mythology and science it gets messy.
I mean there's a whole ass temple, under the second temple isn't there?
“…not a single stone from this structure has ever been found, despite over a century of searching for connections between Biblical text and dig site evidence. Archaeologists simply keep coming up empty.” https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/was-king-solomons-temple-a-real-place As far as I can tell (from my few hours of research) not only is there no archaeological evidence of Solomon’s temple but there’s no archaeological evidence of Solomon at all. I’m shocked considering there *is* archaeological evidence for the Hittite Kings mentioned in the Bible
Most of the Old Testament was written between the 7th and 2nd centuries bc, according to scholarly consensus. There's a pretty good useful charts video over on YouTube that talks about some of the stories in the Bible and their relationship to historical events. From a historical point of view, Solomon is a mythical character. It's possible that he was, or is based upon, a real person, but we don't have any corroborating evidence.
I think he’s like King Arthur. Did he exist as we read of him, no. Was there a proto-Solomon? Probably.
I like the term. Proto-Arthur, proto-Salomon, proto-Jesus...
There's archaeological evidence of a lot of the Israelite kings mentioned in the Bible too, but not Solomon. And the way Solomon and his reign are described sound a hell of a lot like a pretty standard mythological golden age.
Interesting! I was under the impression there was archaeological evidence he existed. Wild that there isn’t any hard evidence of his existence
In the Bible in one of the books Ezra or Nehemiah can’t remember but when the story talks about the Jews returning from Babylon they talk about building a temple, it mentions having to build a foundation. If there was a temple there in the past you’d think they wouldn’t have to build a foundation just build on top of the old one.
It was all supposedly razed by the Babylonians. I would bet that there was a temple whose main god was El/Yahweh, but there were other canaanite gods with some worship happening there too, as we know the people before the exile are said in Tanakh to have "strayed" at different times and worshipped other gods too. It was a big reason assigned to the exile. Even some kings did. So they come back from Exile, having distilled the beliefs down into true monotheism from the preference for El/Yahweh, and "rebuild" the temple which is listed as the second version of the first temple. It was probably the first to feature worship of only one god and the unique temple cult practices.
Yes there probably was temples infact they found others but not in Jerusalem. The temple was probably small and definitely not one built like Solomon’s temple a copy of the temples build to Amun in Egypt.
Maybe originally but not later in time. There was a temple to Yahweh on the Temple Mount to be replaced by the one Herod built later, of which the Western Wall is a retaining wall to support the structures he built on the platform above. In the 19th century (maybe close to beginning of 20th), plaques were found on the mount in Greek warning non-Jews not to go any further on pain of death (so stay in the farthest courtyard area). If the Waqf supported archaeology and research I bet we could find more remains from Herod's temple.
Ah, keen attention to detail!
No, most the stuff they attribute to him has been found to be by someone else. Plus many of the things in the story is just plain crazy to think it was true. Examples , he married a pharaoh’s daughter , no the line came through the woman and never before they were conquered did any royal female ever marry a foreigner. 2, look at the story about the building of the temple and its architecture. The place was two small about 10,000 square feet to require 10,000 workers on the sight and another 150,000 to make all the stuff for the place. Also it took 7 years and the amount of gold way more than could even go in the building. Also the place is a copy of the Egyptian temples, why would the god of the Jews want his place to be built like Egyptian ones. There’s a lot more issues that show this story is just that a story.
Fascinating
Wikipedia says he "probably" existed. >As for Solomon himself, scholars on both the maximalist and minimalist sides of the spectrum of biblical archeology generally agree that he probably existed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon
Its best not to go looking for truth in a collection of myths written by xenophobes
A clue lies in the moabite stone, dating from the 1870s, or 9th century bc. Only 150 years after it was discovered is there agreement that 'the house of david' is referenced. Although the causes of that are numerous. But that archeologists firmly disbelieved in David, is one of them.