I Kings 6: At the Library

I'm in the library right now, and my eyes are bigger than my stomach---metaphorically speaking, that is. There are all these books that I want to check out, but I have so little time to read them, since I'm reading for my comps.

One of the books I'm looking at is Harvard professor Harvey Cox's The Future of Faith. He talks about how many people nowadays see themselves as "spiritual" rather than "religious," and he offers some personal anecdotes, so his book may be an enjoyable read. The other book is by another person at Harvard, humanist chaplain Greg Epstein. His book is entitled Good without God.

For some reason, I've been hungry for writings that are skeptical about religion. I became a "follower" recently of such blogs as "Why I De-Converted from Evangelicalism" (Ken Pulliam), "Debunking Christianity" (John W. Loftus), and "Common Sense Atheism." What intrigues me is that these are people who were once Christians, yet they decided to chuck their faith. I think there are many reasons that I like them: my own hostility to Christian dogmatism, my belief that life is more complex than Christian apologists like to argue---more than that, my impression that the Bible is more interesting, complex, and stranger than Christian apologists often present, in their attempt to sanitize the Bible by explaining away the hard stuff. I'm not interested in trading a Christian dogmatism for an atheistic brand, but I think that atheists are more sensitive than a lot of Christians to how strange the Bible really is. Atheists see that as a reason to chuck it; I view it as an opportunity to explore it as I make it a part of my intriguing and unpredictable spiritual journey.

And speaking of unpredictable...my weekly quiet time! What do I make of I Kings 6? I approached this chapter thinking, "This is just about the dimensions of the temple---big deal!" I leave it wondering if I understand anything!

The chapter has a lot of tensions. It uses the Phoenician names for months (vv 1, 37-38), and commentators like to point out that the Israelite temple resembles the sanctuaries of Phoenicia. (I remember that Byker Bob said he mentioned this to some Christians when he was a non-believer!) Yet, v 7 stresses that the temple was made of unhewn stones, and that no tool was heard while the temple was being built. Why's this important? Scholars are puzzled as to why the Torah prohibits the use of tools in the construction of altars (see Exodus 20:25; Deuteronomy 27:5), which may be the basis for I Kings 6:7's statement. But some say that the Torah wants to distinguish Israelite worship from the of the Canaanites, who used polished, hewn stones for certain objects of worship. So the Israelites absorb foreign customs, even as they try to reject them...

...if they're even trying to reject them! Some interpret I Kings 6:7 to mean that the Israelites hewed the stones away from the temple area, meaning that they worked in silence when they were at the temple site. The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary compared this to a Sumerian account, in which a man building a temple insisted that there be no noise in the construction area. Perhaps this is all about reverence. Be quiet and respectful when you're doing something sacred, such as constructing a temple at the site of the sanctuary (Habakkuk 2:20).

Some think I Kings 6:7 says the temple was built of unhewn stones; others say it means the stones were hewn away from the temple construction area. Option 1 makes more sense to me when I look at the Hebrew. But the problem is that I Kings 5:31 and 6:36 refer to the use of hewn stones in the construction of the temple. So the chapter seems to make a big deal about the stones being unhewn by a tool (possibly in accordance with the Torah), right before it mentions hewn stones! What's going on here?

The things I got out of this chapter are certainly time appropriate, with Christmas coming up this week. My Armstrongite background says that Christmas is a pagan holiday and that Christians shouldn't observe it in honor of Christ, who dislikes paganism. After all, does not Deuteronomy 12:30-32 tell the Israelites not to observe the customs of the Canaanites in their worship of the LORD, but to follow the Torah, neither adding to it nor subtracting from it? Yet, the Israelites borrowed from other nations. They understood their God in light of foreign mythologies, such as the story in which a god triumphs against the chaotic sea. In the Solomonic temple, we encounter the concepts of cherubim guarding the god, of a sea at rest, of pomegranates that may represent prosperity; these are ideas that appear elsewhere in the ancient Near East.

There are two things that come together to make a good lesson, in my humble opinion. First, there's I Kings 6:1, which dates the temple 480 years after the time of the Exodus. Scholars debate whether or not we should accept this figure, since a later date for the Exodus seems to fit history a little better. I was intrigued by the insights of E.W. Bullinger and Jimmy Swaggart (whom I don't put in the category of "scholar," but there are many gems in his study Bible). They note that there were more than 480 years between the Exodus and the construction of the temple, but that I Kings 6:1 is not counting certain years in its calculation: the years in which the Israelites were under foreign oppression in the Book of Judges, as punishment for their sin. According to Swaggart, the point here is that God forgets our sins, and also that sin is a waste. God chooses to count the time that Israel was a free nation, rather than getting bogged down in the sordid details of her history.

Second, there's vv 11-13. I Kings 6 describes the temple, vv 11-13 interrupts its grand account, and then the chapter resumes its description. Essentially, vv 11-13 is God telling Solomon that he'll dwell in Israel's midst if Solomon obeys God's commandments. God's not going to dwell in Israel's midst because he's impressed with a fancy building, for his desire is that Israel love God and neighbor---the important aspects of religion. Here Israel is, getting caught up in her plans on what to do for God, absorbing some foreign customs and rejecting others as she builds the temple, and God stops Solomon to give him a brief reminder about what's truly important: God and what God stands for.

God focuses the attention on himself: the one who freed Israel from Egypt and loved her and imparted to her his righteous standard. He doesn't want Israel to forget that. I'm reminded of a post I read on Lawson Stone's blog, "Stone's Fence" (see my blogroll). He said that his wife was at a conference, and he was going there to meet her for lunch. His problem was that the conference rooms all looked alike, so he couldn't find the one in which his wife was. He ended up waiting in the wrong conference room! His spiritual lesson was that many religions have common lessons and ideas, but only Christianity has Jesus, the one he loves and who loves him. That's what I see in I Kings 6: Israel borrows from other cultures even as she tries to remain faithful to the Torah (somewhat), and God reminds her not to forget him in all her religion. After all, God's the one who loves them.

This year, I'm not going to make a big deal about Christmas, though I may watch a few Christmas movies. I don't know to what extent borrowing from pagan cultures is okay, if it even is okay. But I hope to keep in my mind the God who loves me. In my mind, that's what's important!