Titre du document / Document title

Loving too well: The negative portrayal of solomon and the composition of the Kings history

Auteur(s) / Author(s)

BOYD BARRICK W. ;

Résumé / Abstract

The unequivocally negative theological evaluation of Solomon in the Kings History (he "did evil in the eyes of Yahweh" [1 Kgs 11:6a]) is based on three accusations: he is said to have patronized the bamoth (3:3b), to haveabetted his many foreign wives in the worship of their native deities (11:2,7-8a; cf. 2 Kgs 23:13), and to have even worshipped some of them himself (11:5, 8b[LXX_L], 33[LXX]). This negative portrayal is customarily seen as the handiwork of the "deuteronomistic historian(s)", but also rooted in fact. This essay examines that scholarly consensus, finding: Solomon's wives/women were introduced in the "Josianic" (customarily Dtr) edition of Kings as a theological construct to blame the schism on his misdeeds; that authorcompiler drew upon a contemporary tradition attributing certain cultic installations ('bamoth") on the Mount of Olives to Solomon (2 Kgs 23:13), from which he inferred that it was Solomon's wives who had led him astray; that tradition Is euhemeristic, not historical, probably arising in Hezekiah's era in conjunction with the reopening of the Silwan cemetery in the slopes of the Mount of Olives; the Pharaoh's daughter tradition is also "Hezakian" and may have been present in a pre-deuteronomistic historiographic work from that era (cf. LXX); a post-Exilic author-compiler of Kings recast the theme from one of too many wives/women (consistent with Deut 17:17a) to one of alien wives, reflecting the same extreme xenophobia which finally carried the day in post-Exilic Yehud (cf. Ezra 9-10; Neh 13:23-30a) when Solomon is known to have been a negative role-model in this regard (Neh 13:26); none of this material sheds any light on the "historical Solomon".

Revue / Journal Title

Estudios bíblicos    ISSN  0014-1437 

Source / Source

2001, vol. 59, n^o4, pp. 419-450 [32 page(s) (article)] (ref. et notes dissem.)

Langue / Language

Anglais
Revue : Espagnol

Editeur / Publisher

Facultad de Teología "San Dámaso", Madrid, ESPAGNE  (1929) (Revue)

Localisation / Location

INIST-CNRS, Cote INIST : 24414, 35400010437664.0010