Solomon the Wise

[Camillus]

The story of Soloman and the baby (I Kings 3:16-27) has been bugging me recently, mainly because I can't decide if it's so silly it must be made up or so strange it may have a basis in fact.

I just can't see a woman who, after her own child dies, steals another mother's baby just saying "Yeah, whatever" when offered half of said baby in a deal by the court.

It just reeks of being made up by someone who thought they were being clever.

OTOH it's such a strange story to include as a demonstration of wisdom that it might just have some basis in fact. Mind you it wasn't actually a very wise thing to do - what would our sage have done if both women had reacted in the way the "true" mother supposedly does? How would he have sorted out the mess then?

Mind you I think the verse that follows this story is probably right in summing up the feelings of the Israelites:

3:28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.

Because I'd fear a King who thought the way to settle that kind of dispute was to start cutting babies in half.

Comments and opinions on Solomon the Wise gratefully accepted...

 

[Dr Adequate]

The story of Soloman and the baby (I Kings 3:16-27) has been bugging me recently, mainly because I can't decide if it's so silly it must be made up or so strange it may have a basis in fact.

Well then, it might be false or it might be true.

I does sound very "friend of a friend", but then some of those stories are true.

So why not just settle for "don't know", without it bugging you?

 

[Camillus]

Well then, it might be false or it might be true.

I does sound very "friend of a friend", but then some of those stories are true.

So why not just settle for "don't know", without it bugging you?

I guess it's not the fact that it may or may not be made up that's really bothering me. Afterall most of the Bible (and all of it involving God) is made up.

I think what really gets my goat is that people hold up such a stupid story as evidence of wisdom. It's really a sort of Emperor's New Clothes kind of thing: it's clearly a very stupid way to try and solve that problem.

The fact that it hasn't been expunged really says a lot (in my eyes at least) about the people who put together that part of the Bible.

Oh, I'm just ranting now. Ignore me I've been antsie all morning.

 

[AmateurScientist]

I guess it's not the fact that it may or may not be made up that's really bothering me. Afterall most of the Bible (and all of it involving God) is made up.

I think what really gets my goat is that people hold up such a stupid story as evidence of wisdom. It's really a sort of Emperor's New Clothes kind of thing: it's clearly a very stupid way to try and solve that problem.

I think you're missing the point of the parable. You didn't finish the story. After Solomon rendered his judgment, the real mother of the baby offerred to give up her claim to the baby so he wouldn't be cut in half. She demonstrated that she loved her baby so much that she was willing to give him up so that he could live.

That was exactly what Solomon was seeking. He knew that only a mother so deeply attached to and so loving of her child would be willing to let him go rather than see him die.

The other "mother" claimant was humiliated. Solomon awarded the baby back to his real mother. He never intended to carry out the first judgment. It was a ruse to expose the fraudulent claim.

Justice was served through a clever (albeit cruel) judgment.

AS

 

[AmateurScientist]

I might add that the story sounds very much like the Old Testament story of how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar, but just before Abraham was to kill Isaac, God told him not to. God was just testing Abraham's loyalty and commitment to God.

It's a parable.

AS

 

[TragicMonkey]

I think you're missing the point of the parable. You didn't finish the story. After Solomon rendered his judgment, the real mother of the baby offerred to give up her claim to the baby so he wouldn't be cut in half. She demonstrated that she loved her baby so much that she was willing to give him up so that he could live.

That was exactly what Solomon was seeking. He knew that only a mother so deeply attached to and so loving of her child would be willing to let him go rather than see him die.

The other "mother" claimant was humiliated. Solomon awarded the baby back to his real mother. He never intended to carry out the first judgment. It was a ruse to expose the fraudulent claim.

Justice was served through a clever (albeit cruel) judgment.

AS

I think perhaps Camillus meant that any woman who wanted a baby enough to steal one wouldn't be callous about its fate. A desperate, childless woman who really wants to be the kid's mother might well form an emotional attachment to the baby, just as strong as the biological mother's.

 

[AmateurScientist]

I think perhaps Camillus meant that any woman who wanted a baby enough to steal one wouldn't be callous about its fate. A desperate, childless woman who really wants to be the kid's mother might well form an emotional attachment to the baby, just as strong as the biological mother's.

Maybe so, but IF the story went that way, then it wouldn't be an illustrative parable and wouldn't be a story that appears in the Old Testament.

AS

 

[rharbers]

It's probably a lie, but if it isn't you can bet I'm not surprised since his father cut up so many babies and threw them in the kilns, that he makes Hitler look like a choir boy.

 

[7th sextile]

"Doan' talk to me 'bout Sollermun,Huck,I knows him by de back."

"But I tell you you don't get the point."

"Blame de pint!I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you,
de real pint is down furder-it's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised.You take a man dat's got on'y one er
two chillen,is dat man gwyne to be waseful o' chillen?No,he ain't,
he can't 'ford it.He knows how to value 'em.But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen runnin' roun' de house,en it's diffunt.He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat.Dey's plenty mo'.A chile er two,mo' er less,warn't no consekens to
Sollermun,dad fetch him!"


-Mark Twain,The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn