Lecture 5

Today we started by talking about the promise that was made to David in 2 Samuel 7, where God doesn't want David to build him a house, and rather he will have David's son build him the house.  Along with this, God promises to make the divine line of David last forever, and his monarchy never die.  This comes into some conflict however, because his line is defeated by the Babylonians years later.  What can be considered truth?  Some people have tried to mend the story to fit history, claiming that the story is still accurate and whatever ruling line to come is the divine line.  This comes greatly into play when the people see Jesus of Nazareth as the son of David, meaning he is part of that divine line - a mesiah.

In Solomon's Jerusalem, he builds a house for God.  This holds true in the further biblical passages for David's Promise.  Solomon was said to be a wise man.  Also, tradition has it that he authored the Song of songs, and Ecclesiastes.  Though he is said to have these qualities, scholars question whether he really did exist.  Current theory is that he and David did exist, but they were not as popular or powerful as they were made out to be.  Controversy exists over how to analyze the Megiddo.  This mountain is associated with a lot of battle, and has participated in the coining of Armageddon.  The controversy of Solomon's existence comes with Stratum 5, where one scholar thinks that the stratum refers to Ahab while another thinks it is from Solomon.

We then discussed Solomon's temple.  Currently, no tangible evidence has been found that supports the existence of this temple.  Current support, however, is seen in the biblical explanations.  The descriptions of the temple are extremely similar to temples of the time.  This could show that the temple qualities did exist, and that it was model for other temples.  It can be said, however, that the writers of the bible wrote about other temples to describe Solomon's temple, but we still don't know.