By Isaac Kalimi

In Jewish, Christian and Islamic cultures, Solomon has been seen as the wisest and greatest king of ancient Israel, and one of the most significant and admired figures of ancient history. Solomon’s repute as the builder of the Temple in Jerusalem, his judgment of the two harlots, and his visit from the Queen of Sheba have become fixtures of literature, music, and art across the centuries.

King Solomon, Duomo di Monreale, Monreali (Sicily).

Yet for all this glorious reputation, the story of Solomon is not straightforwardly told. Outside of the Bible itself, relatively little hard evidence survives for reconstructing his life or deeds on a historical level. Unlike several other Israelite and Judahite kings, there is no direct mention of Solomon in any surviving contemporaneous extrabiblical source, and the archaeological evidence that could be related to Solomon is open to interpretation and widely disputed among scholars.

Though monumental construction recovered in cities such as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer (not to mention Jerusalem) has been dated by many scholars to Solomon’s reign in the 10th century BCE (cf. 1 Kings 9:15, 17), others defend a “Low Chronology,” which dates all of this building activity to the 9th century, after Solomon’s time.

Within the Bible, the two accounts of Solomon’s life in the books of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles also differ substantially in their depictions of his birth, rise, reign, and Temple building. These books include historically reliable sources, but also various types of nonhistorical material, late additions, anachronisms, internal contradictions, exaggerated numbers and statements, and legendary stories.

For these reasons, some scholars dispute whether Solomon even existed, or conclude that he could not have been more than a local ruler of a small city-state, not the king of the empire described in the biblical texts. Denying that there ever was a United Monarchy at all, these “minimalists” dismiss the biblical accounts of Solomon and his father David as late ideological fictions, created to serve the imperial aspirations of later Judean (or even Jewish) kings. But these dismissals are not founded on any detailed or careful analysis of the biblical accounts of Solomon, nor do they demonstrate any indisputable contradictions between these accounts and reliable archeological, epigraphical or other evidence. Building theories primarily on unreliable surveys regarding the supposed population of Judah in the 10^th century, they even dismiss epigraphical finds (such as the Tel Dan Inscription) that could support at least some aspects of the biblical accounts.

By contrast, my book Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel employs interdisciplinary and comparative methods, while cautiously analyzing all the available sources concerning Solomon from various viewpoints.

Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel.

Its main purpose is to closely compare these biblical and extrabiblical sources, focusing especially on the contrasting accounts of Solomon’s life and kingdom in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. It argues that there are essential differences in the theological approaches, literary techniques, and historiographical methods that various early and later biblical writings employ: whereas the authors/editors of Samuel-Kings stick closely to their sources and offer an apology for Solomon’s kingship, including its more questionable aspects, the Chronicler freely rewrites his sources in order to present the life of Solomon as he wished it to be, eliminating its most problematic elements, while glorifying Solomon’s rise, reign and Temple-building.

Some might claim that since the Chronicler has freely rewritten his story of Solomon, the authors/editors of Samuel-Kings must have done the same. However, this cannot be assumed automatically. Comparing Chronicles with Samuel-Kings offers a window into the historiographical methods that could be employed by ancient authors and editors, but it also reveals the starkly differing approaches reflected in these writings. To assume that Samuel-Kings is just as free with its sources as Chronicles imposes a false uniformity of method and perspective on the biblical historiographers, which cannot stand up to scrutiny.

In order to explore the relation between the two biblical accounts of Solomon, including their use of sources, the book begins by reviewing the epigraphical, archaeological and literary evidence regarding Solomon and his period. It argues that there is no compelling reason to reject the basic outline of his life presented in the early biblical historical writings. This challenges recent minimalist approaches to the United Monarchy, without falling to the other extreme of naively accepting whatever the biblical texts affirm without question or careful analysis.

On that basis, the book turns directly to the biblical accounts, beginning with Solomon’s birth story/report in 2 Samuel 12:24–25, and its context in 2 Samuel 10–12. Reexamining several redaction-critical approaches, which claim that 2 Samuel 10–12 is the product of a lengthy editorial process, it argues that a close reading of the text reveals its compositional unity.

Further, a comparison of 2 Samuel 12:24–25 with its closest parallels among Israelite, Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Egyptian, and Persian literature reveals that Solomon’s additional theophoric name “Yedidyah” (“Jedidiah”) and the statement that “the Lord loved him” reflect modes of royal legitimation commonly employed by usurpers, which tie this text to the larger themes of Solomon’s Succession Narrative (2 Samuel 9–20 + 1 Kings 1–2). By contrast, the later biblical historiography in Chronicles has no interest in justifying (or even mentioning) Solomon’s usurpation of the throne and omits any allusion to the name Yedidyah or the scandals surrounding his birth.

Two Women Judgment, Psalter, Use of Sarum (‘The Rutland Psalter’), c. 1260, London, British Museum.

Stained glass window, Katharinenkirche in Oppenheim, Germany.

Similarly, the accounts of Solomon’s accession in the early and late biblical historiographies also differ significantly. According to the book of Kings, Solomon rose to the throne as a result of power struggles and palace intrigues, which nevertheless fulfilled the Lord’s will (e.g., 2 Samuel 12:25; 1 Kings 2:15). In Chronicles, Solomon’s succession is also presented as God’s will, but he is depicted as the rightful king and Temple builder from the beginning, without any intrigue, dispute, or struggle.

In line with this, both accounts legitimize Solomon’s actions by attributing a Testament to David, but whereas in Kings it includes both religious and political instructions, in Chronicles David focuses exclusively on Solomon’s religious duties and construction of the Temple. In Kings, David’s Testament justifies Solomon’s bloody suppression of his political foes, while in Chronicles, Solomon’s qualification to build the Temple is premised on his being free from any stain of bloodshed (in contrast, David is described as one who shed a lot of blood; 1 Chronicles 22:8-10; 28:3).

As for the Temple building itself, both biblical accounts present this as the climax of Solomon’s reign, but the Chronicler goes much further, anachronistically integrating into his descriptions of Solomon’s Temple elements both from the Tabernacle of Moses and the Second Temple of the postexilic period. By doing so, the Chronicler builds continuity between those earlier sanctuaries and the restored Temple of the Chronicler’s own day, enhancing its antiquity and holiness.

All in all, the volume demonstrates the continuities and discontinuities between the accounts of Solomon in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles, each in their own temporal settings. Doing so not only gives good grounds for maintaining the basic trustworthiness of the early biblical historiography, but also reflects its essential differences in approach compared to Chronicles. Both present Solomon as the divinely chosen successor to David and builder of the Temple, but how they do this differs radically in literary and editorial methods, as well as theological, historiographical and historical implications.

Unlike Chronicles, the editors of Samuel-Kings frequently included sources that contradict their own theological commitments, without any tendency to omit or rewrite their more problematic elements. While Chronicles omits whatever does not fit its own perspective and replaces it with a sanitized and idealized portrait of Solomon, Samuel-Kings instead seeks to justify Solomon’s kingship (2 Samuel 12; 1 Kings 2) or to criticize (1 Kings 11) those aspects of Solomon that could seem problematic.

Therefore, while there remains much about Solomon that we can only infer without conclusive proof from outside sources, Samuel-Kings remains our best surviving evidence for reconstructing his life and kingdom. Though neither Samuel-Kings nor its counterpart in Chronicles is free of ideological bias or nonhistorical features, Samuel-Kings offers a compelling and plausible account of the king and his reign that must be taken seriously in any historical reconstruction of the period.

Isaac Kalimi is Gutenberg-Research Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies and History of Ancient Israel at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.