Solomon: The lure of wisdom
Steven Weitzman
Yale University Press £18.99
(978-0-300-13718-7)
Church Times Bookshop £17.10
IF THERE is such a thing as holiday reading about the Old Testament, this is it. To describe it thus is not to imply an insult, but to express enthusiasm for a book that is engagingly written and fun as well as intellectually stimulating. As I read it, I would periodically mutter an appreciative “Hmm!” and have to explain to my wife what I had appreciated.
Professor Weitzman, who teaches at Stanford (and is therefore almost a colleague of Robert Alter, who contributes a blurb), notes in his preface that two approaches to writing a biography of Solomon are closed off to us.
We cannot simply paraphrase the biblical text in the conviction that as the Word of God it must be pure factual history. But neither does critical and archaeological study make it possible to write a biography: even giving Solomon some dates involves an educated guess. So what this biography focuses on is the intriguing nature of Solomon’s story. We, too, would like to gain mastery of all knowledge. Solomon has inspired an ambition in Christian and Muslim rulers to be the kind of king that he was.
To begin with, however, there is his name, which in Hebrew (Shlomo) is a bit nearer shalom than is the English version. If only he had lived up to his name! Biblical history might then have been less catastrophic, though also less interesting.
In reality, Solomon’s path to the throne is facilitated by street wisdom rather than theological wisdom. He anticipates Machiavelli: it is not necessary that a ruler be virtuous, but it is essential that he appear so.
Yet Solomon is someone (like Saul and David) whose life eventually unravels, and it does so in a way appropriate to his strengths; in the end, he is a fool. There is a related irony about his broader place in the Bible, because the patron of wisdom in Proverbs and (rather implausibly) the poet of love in the Song of Songs finally in Ecclesiastes acknowledges that the quest for wisdom leads nowhere. (But perhaps, according to another way of ordering the books, the Song of Songs comes last, which provokes other reflections.)
I love the fact that the series Jewish Lives, to which this volume belongs, is to include Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Sigmund Freud, and George Gershwin, as well as Rashi, Franz Kafka, Martin Buber, and Jacob.
The Revd Dr John Goldingay is David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, California.