Image of Elijah (on Mt Carmel, photo by brett.wagner)
Idols, “gods” that people make! The very idea of making a god is one of those notions that almost have to reduce you to tears (whether of laughter or sadness and desperation depends on the circumstances), and the Bible has plenty of fun at the expense (in both senses) of idols. In this episode, therefore, we’ll look at 1 Kings 18 (particularly 1Kings 18:27 & 39).1
Since this is a gripping, but well-known, story what I’ll try to do in this podcast is show you how a bit of context (see here for more on context and understanding the Bible).
I’ll also tell you God’s two nicknames, in some religious traditions knowing all a god’s names is really important, in Hinduism the god Vishnu has 1,000 names, in Islam there is a tradition that God has 99 names. Yahweh the God the Bible talks about has kicknames as well as formal names!
Forrested crest of Carmel from the Eshkol Tower of Haifa University
Photo from The Russian Institute of Radionavigation and Time, http://www.rirt.ru/
Solomon’s prayer understands that Yahweh is a different God, the gods (like Ba’al and his crowd) lived in the sky – and lanced thunderbolts down on people they disliked – heaven/sky was like the earth only bigger and better.
When Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev said “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any God there“. Solomon’s prayer sees the stupidity of Krushchev – how could the creator of universes be see from a measly 302Kms from earth? But even this is not the real difference. This Yahweh is a God who’s name means “being with you” cf. E100-17: Exodus 3-4: Getting the holy between your toes! Yahweh wants a relationship, loves us, and is therefore a jealous God
cf. E100-21: Exodus 19:1 – 20:21: The Ten Commandments.
The story of Israel’s ancestor, Jacob, was bookmarked by two nighttime meetings with God, the second time he was given the name “Israel”. Solomon’s story also has two nighttime meetings with God, in the first he got his wish, and chose wisdom, in this reading after dedicating the temple in a dream God warns Solomon that all his promises to the chosen people are conditional on Israel’s obedience. Therefore they provisional and as we will see are only really fulfilled in Jesus.
The judgement of Solomon by Gaetano Gandolfi (1734–1802)
In just two chapters we get some of the most beautiful and inspiring, and some of the grubbiest and most bloodthirsty stories in the Bible. It is no wonder that telling the stories of David (with Saul and Solomon and perhaps the rest) as a serial, like a soap opera has the audience panting for more
In this podcast I’ll again point to clues to how we can, and (often of more use) how we should NOT “read” Bible stories.
I’ll also make a shameless plug for my Not Only a Father an online book about the use of motherly language and imagery to describe God in the Bible and in later Christian theology, which you can discuss, argue with or ask questions about as you read – and if you can’t see how that connection fits this passage… then listen to the podcast
“The fall of Israel” is a theological (not historical) title. This five covers almost the whole history of the Israelite kingdoms from David to the destruction of Jerusalem. The Deuteronomistic History (Joshua-Kings) from which they all come (cf. remarks on Judges) tell the story with the end in view, one important goal of these books is to explain the fall of Jerusalem and the exile.
So this is a good selection to understand what is going on:
Even the great king David is human and fails (spectacularly)
Solomon is seen at his best – asking for and displaying wisdom not wealth or power;
building the temple and expressing fine theology
not as the king who began to lose an empire, and introduced idols to the temple
Elijah and the fight on Mt Carmel is an archetypical story of the conflict between belief in gods and in God
Then the final reading tells the ghastly and traumatic story of the fall of Jerusalem and the end of Israel as a political entity – but worse of the temple and crown promised by God!
This story is often used to support testing whether God really wants us to do something we are reluctant to do, just like Gideon. In this podcast, as well as drawing attention to some other thoroughly human characteristics of our hero, I’ll point to the censored Bible story (one we do not read in church) in 1 Kings 22, and suggest we should heed its warning before we hurry to copy Gideon.
