My friend Christopher Davis shared the following, which is yet another nail in the coffin of Rob Bowman’s “Temple of Solomon” ‘argument,’ one he continues to use in spite of being refuted on this time and time again (as I have said before, he lacks any intellectual honesty and integrity, so not a surprise):
Theodore
J. Lewis on the kings/rulers and their association with the names of temples
and cultic sites.
A
while back, a critic of LDS theology, Rob Bowman, made a rather dishonest claim
that temples would have never been known by the names of their builders in his
attempt to discredit the historicity of the Book of Mormon with its reference
of the Temple in Jerusalem as “Temple of Solomon”. In his attempt to corroborate this argument
of an anachronism, I responded by citing scholarship where a passage in Amos 9
has been argued by many scholars to be a reference of the temple when it calls
it “tabernacle of David”. While this
interpretation is disputed, it is not objected to on the basis of it being an
anachronism which would otherwise prove his point. Needless to say, while Bowman was ready to
walk back his argument to compromise that “Temple of Solomon” was not a proof
FOR the historicity of the Book of Mormon, later he denied that he made this
concession and never corrected his article that made this criticism. Since then he has denied that he ever had
such an exchange with me.
Tonight
I offer a new angle to this argument that further refutes Mr. Bowman’s
claim. This is found in the award
winning book, “The Origin and Character of God” by Theodore J. Lewis where it
is demonstrated that the ancient cultures often raised the kings to be infused
with divine qualities as the representation of God performing/administrating
the priestly duties. They have direct association with the cultic center names of the structures that they built,
supported, or reformed.
“Prior
to the building of the Jerusalem Temple, Solomon’s cultic activities include
sacrificing and burning incense at high places, with his sacrifice of 1000 olot
offerings at the ‘great high place’ of Gibeon being singled out (1 Kings
3:2-4). After his legitimizing dream revelation at Gibeon, Solomon returned to
Jerusalem, where he made olot and selamim offerings before the ark (1 Kings
3:15). Solomon’s building of the Temple receives extensive treatment in both
the DtrH and Chr traditions. The
detailed narratives go far beyond David’s providing the building
materials. Solomon gathers building
materials as well, yet his construction narrative is fleshed out to a much
greater degree by including technical descriptions, specific architectural
features, and the articulation of a workforce made up of general laborers and
those with specialized skills (1 Kings 5:15-8:13 [Eng 5:1-8:13]; 2 Chr
1:18-6:11 [Eng 2:1-6:11]). Though these laborers accomplished the actual work,
the authors are keen on using third person singular verbs to describe over and
over again that it was Solomon who built the Temple. Notice n particular how
Solomon is given credit for building the innermost shrine (debir), the Holy of
Holies (qodes haqqodasim), in which the Ark of Yahweh wax housed and guarded by
two huge cherubim (1 Kings 6:16-36, 2 Chr 3:8-13). Gold abounds in every aspect
of his crafting. Thus we read of Solomon’s proclamation at the dedication
ceremony: ‘I [O Yahweh] have built you an exalted house” (1 Kings 8:13//2 Chr
6:2).
Royal
cultic activities formed a central part of the temple’s dedication ceremony
with Solomon engaging in two sacrificial episodes. In the first, his sacrifices
of oxen and sheep are beyond number (1 Kings 8:5//2 Chr 5:6), while in the
second they exaggerated to be 22000 oxen and 120000 sheep as selamim offerings
ass well as olot, grain, and fat offerings (1 Kings 8:62-64//2 Chr 7:5-7). This is not to imply that Solomon absorbed
all priestly prerogatives, for priests alone are privileged to bear the Ark
into the Holy of Holies (1 Kings 8:3-11//2 Chr 5:4-7).
Subsequent
traditions speak of Solomon’s (regular?) cultic activity of making olot and
selamim offerings three times a year (1 Kings 9:25, cf. 2 Chr 8:12-13). Most
scholars view wehe’ela in 1 Kings 9:25 as a frequentative (‘Solomon used to…’)
and combine it with the Chronicler’s understanding (2 Chr 8:13) to argue that
Solomon officiated at the three great pilgrimage feast of Unleavened Bread,
Weeks, and Sukkot (cf. Exod 23:14-27; Deut 16:1-17). The Chronicler adds that
like his father, David, Solomon also appointed priests and Levites to their
service (2 Chr 8:14). DtrH inserts
disparaging comments about Solomon engaging in syncretistic worship linked to
the religion of various foreign women to whom he was married. DtrH specifically
highlights his building of sacred space (the notable ‘high places’) for two of
these deities (the Moabite Chemosh and the Ammonite Molek), yet adds that the
cultic activities per se were enacted by the wives, not Solomon (1 Kings
11:7-8).
All
in all, the Judean royal cult of Solomon (building on the foundation of David)
was remarkable in its reimagining of religion: at the end of his reign, the
nature of Yahweh was infused with royal imagery. Ancient Israelites certainly knew of kingship
before they had their own monarch; Yahweh was thought to be king in this it
earliest poems. Yet with the creation of
the Solomonic Temple, Yahweh now sat enthroned as king in his royal abode in
the heart of Jerusalem. Yahweh the king,
at the center of a hierarchical royal and priestly administration, has traveled
some distance from the family god who shepherded his people in the most
intimate of ways.
Many
other kings (Israelite and Judean) were very involved with religious and cultic
matters - from Bethel being called ‘the king’s [i.e., Jeroboam II’s] sanctuary’
and ‘a temple of the kingdom’ (miqdas-melek hu ubet mamlaka hu; Amos 7:13) to
the reforming kings who constructed and deconstructed cultic apparatuses. Royal cult also saw queens and queen mothers
as cultic actors with our best examples being Jezebel and her sponsoring of
Baal and Asherah worship (1 Kings 18:19). Athaliah and her patronage of Baal (2
Kings 11), and Maacah and her erection of an asherah image, likely in the
Jerusalem Temple (Ackerman 1998a: 142-146)” - Theodore J. Lewis, “The Origin
and Character of God”, p.500-2
Lewis
not only demonstrates the tendency of Israelite and Judahite kings to associate
themselves with the name of the temple, but he also shows in the same chapter
that the king was often obligated to perform the same duties of priest and
existed in a type of understood middle ground on the spectrum of mortality and
divinity as king. It would not be odd at
all that Solomon would be associated with the name of the temple in Jerusalem,
when other contemporary kings had their names or titles used with their own
sites that they built for their deities, since they were considered to be
quasi-divine and had priestly obligations.
Both myself and Christopher have
delivered many death blows to this novel and inane argument against the Book of
Mormon. One is reminded of the following scene from The Simpsons:
Further Reading
