King Solomon

The article situates a talmudic legend (bGit 68a-b) relating the usurpation of Solomon's throne by Ashmedai, king of the demons, at the crossroads of Jewish and Christian traditions stemming from the Roman East and indigenous Iranian mythical lore pertaining to the usurpation of Yima's throne by the demons.

— СПб.: Издательство «Академия исследования культуры», 2018. — 68 с. илл. — (Серия Code Grimoire). ISBN 978-5-6041848-1-3

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Алмадель (Алмодел, Алмандал) — это вариант переносного алтаря из воска, установленного на четырех свечах, который используется для вызывания специфических ангелов, управляющих ростом и плодородием во всех смыслах. Двадцать ангелов относятся к четырем временам года, четырем сторонам Света и называются ангелами Высот мира. Эти Высоты представляют собой некую проекцию Высших Небес для управления материальным миром.
В нашей книге мы предлагаем читателю критический текст Искусства Алмадель царя Соломона по английским манускриптам. Книга снабжена рядом иллюстраций и реконструкций. Приводятся фотокопии манускриптов.
В книге вы найдете критическую реконструкцию имен Бога и ангелов, используемых в конструкции скрижали и вызываниях, а также руководство по деталям практической магической работы в этой системе.

The beginning of the end of Solomon’s history (1 Kgs 11:1-13) places blame squarely on Solomon’s “many foreign wives.” In classic Deuteronomistic interpretation, Solomon’s failings are made clear: he worshipped foreign gods who were imported as a result of various diplomatic marriages. The consequences were dramatic; the vast majority of the kingdom would be ripped away from the Davidic dynasty. In this moment, the Deuteronomistic Historian reveals how culturally out of step he was with his source materials. Diplomatic marriage was a well-established practice with the power to secure alliances, protect territories, and join ruling families in elite bonds that perpetuated dynasties. Deuteronomistic ideology, however, equated political alliances with a failure to trust Yahweh and foreign women with apostasy and transgression. Yet in the biblical history both perspectives survive. In order to explore this paradox, I focus on the earlier source(s) that refer to Solomon’s marriage to a pharaoh’s daughter (1 Kgs 3:1; 7:8; 9:16, 24). These passages associate the Egyptian character of Jerusalem’s royal estates with this union without condemnation. I argue that the inherent foreignness embedded in Solomon’s legacy was at odds with Deuteronomistic ideology, causing a conflict that inspired the narrative of Solomon’s fall and the vilification of “foreign wives.”

The story about the dying David and his death (1Kgs 1:1–2:10) is like a didactic play about the relationship between authority and exercised power. As king, David is an indisputable authority. But because his authority is not exercised with acts of power, he causes a crisis. His authority is questioned by Adonijah’s acts of power. But Adonijah lacks the necessary authority for a putsch. In the moment when David actualizes his authority by acting, Adonijah loses all his power. But David just changes from a passive authority to an acting power, because of Nathan’s intervention. Nathan confronts the authority with the question for the needed decision: Who will sit on the throne after David? The lesson which is taught from the narrative in 1Kgs 1 is given in David’s testament: Passive authority needs active actions of power. Authority and power always need to be actualized. A king is a fighter for power. God’s law is understood to be a restriction of power and the foundation of power and success. According to the Testament of David, being strong and fighting for power as well as the law of God are the cornerstones of kingship.

The thesis is a refutation aimed against the use of theocratic presuppositions concerning Israel in Biblical debates, especially pro-theocratic.  This paper traces the word's origin and its varied arbitrary definitions for the purpose of demonstrating its invalidity within theological argumentation.  It also argues for a more biblical language to be applied to Israel:  That of the Covenant and its law which was given to her at Mt. Sinai.

I explore the political uses of the mythic King Solomon in Ottoman pious writing of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Solomon offers narrative material that is especially appropriate for reworking as comment and criticism of Ottoman early modern social and political transformations. In fact, several works focusing on Solomon appear between 1450 and 1580, each offering variations on the themes of city-building, sedentarization, sacral kingship, and technological change. The anonymous Dürr-i Meknun, written around the time of the conquest of Constantinople, presents an anti-imperial vision, using Solomon and his subsequent disgrace to illustrate the risks of urbanization, imperial hubris and tyranny. The Süleyman-name, by the technically-inclined author Uzun Firdevsi, portrays Solomon in the image of Sultan Bayezid II. Finally, the accounts given by Ottomans of the deeds of Sultan Süleyman (r. 1520-1566) show the Solomonic myth enacted by the state itself. These sources trace a trajectory whereby anxieties surrounding the technological and administrative transformations of early modernity are expressed and worked through by means of the vocabulary of sacred history, a model universally understood by Ottoman Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike.

This volume represents the proceedings of the third BICANE Colloquium* held at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge from March 26-27, 2011 (see Figure 1, p. vi, and 2 p. x below).The third BICANE colloquium focussed on two key figures: Shishak and Solomon. The Old Testament describes a period of great prosperity and strength for Israel during the reigns of kings David and Solomon. The alleged ‘golden age’ ended – as the biblical narrative relates – because of oppressive measures used to work the people and the machinations of an Egyptian pharaoh referred to as ‘King Shishak’. He fostered Jeroboam I, who led a revolt in the northern region (Israel) and in the 5th year of Solomon’s successor, Rehoboam, invaded Judah c. 925 BC, attacked its strongholds and took tribute of the treasures from the Temple built by Solomon. Hardly a single point of the biblical story has remained undisputed in recent years.

The article focuses on the publication of an unknown apocrypha “The Legend of Solomon of Healthy Eating for Every Day (“kako yasti vo vse dni”)” related to the Slavic-Moldovan literature of the the 15th – 16th centuries. The work is a translation of an unknown Greek and Byzantine original dietary and healthful recommendations for each month of the calendar year. The text was published on the basis of three Slavic manuscripts of Moldavian origin, identified by the author: 1) The Collection of the Moldovan scribe Gavriil Urik of 1447 (Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, Fund 188, File 778; Russian State Library, Fund 178, File 923); 2) The Collection of 1561 (Institute of Manuscripts of the National Library of Ukraine, Fund 313, File 47); 3) Horologion with additional articles of the first quarter of the 16th century (Russian State Library, Fund 209, File 201). The textual analysis has shown that the content of the work under study is very close to “Month According to Romans. About Different Months” from the Anthology of Svyatoslav of 1073. However, the published calendar is more detailed. It  begins from September, not from March, and contains archaic Slavic denominations of diseases. For the first time it introduces an unknown apocrypha of dietary and healthful recommendations, indicating the syncretism of Christianity and popular beliefs among the Slavs and Moldovans.

U radu je predstavljen jedan malo poznati crnogorski običaj
– „proricanje na mač“. Ovaj običaj nema veze s maharomansijom, gatanjem uz pomoć mača ili noža, već spada u korpus pravnih običaja uz pomoć kojeg se određivao krivac za neki zločin
u slučajevima kad narodni sud nije mogao da nađe svjedoke ili
na neki drugi način dozna krivca. Rad predstavlja analizu ovog
običaja i simbolike njegovog rituala, kao i njegovu ukorijenjenost u narodnoj tradiciji Crne Gore. Poseban osvrt je učinjen na
tipove mača koji su postojali na crnogorskom tlu tokom istorije i
simboliku koju sa sobom nosi Solomonov pečat.

RESUMEN: Los datos arqueológicos, filológicos y toponímicos y las fuentes literarias y epigráficas desaprueban la identificación del Tarshish que la Biblia relaciona con Salomón de Israel e Hiram I de Tiro con el lugar llamado Tarteso por algunas fuentes literarias griegas y con la colonia fundada por los fenicios en terrenos de la actual ciudad de Huelva, probablemente en torno al segundo cuarto del siglo IX a.C., se defienda o no la identificación de esta última con Tarteso. Por el contrario, dichos datos y fuentes aconsejan situar el Tarshish bíblico en el Mediterráneo oriental, concretamente en el territorio que un epígrafe asirio llama Tarsisi, directamente relacionado con la ciudad de Tarso. La presencia de dos Tarshish en el Levante mediterráneo refuerza la vinculación de este topónimo bíblico con esta zona y no con la Península Ibérica.

ABSTRACT: Archaeological, philological and toponymic data, as well as epigraphic and literary sources disapprove of identifying the Tarshish linked in the Bible to Solomon of Israel and Hiram I of Tyre with the site named Tartessus in some Greek literary sources and with the colony founded by Phoenicians on what is now the city of Huelva, presumably around the second quarter of the ninth century B.C., be the identification of this Phoenician colony with Tartessus proposed or not. On the contrary, they recommend placing the biblical Tarshish in the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically in the country of Tarsisi quoted by an Assyrian inscription, closely bound to the city of Tarsus. The presence of another two Tarshish in the Mediterranean Levant bolsters the ties of Tarshish with this area, rather than with the Iberian Peninsula.

Translation by the author of a Feb 21st, 2018 lecture in the Mint of Austria, Vienna. The topic of the talk is a Silver Penny of Henry Jasomirgott who participated in the Second Crusade. In December 1148 CE he was married in Constantinople to the Byzantine Princess Theodora, niece of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. In Constatinople there was a "Solomonic Lion Throne" which possibly is shown on the Avers of the Krems minted Silver Penny.

Translation by the author of his 'Feb 21, 2018 lecture at the Mint of Austria. The topic is a silver penny minted in the city of Krems at the Danube River, issued by the Austrian Babenberger Duke Henry Jasomirgott. He participated in the Second Crusade. In 1148 CE he was married in Constantinople to the Byzantine Princess Theodora Komnenos. In Constantinople there was a "Solomonic Throne" which possibly appears on the Avers side of the Krems minted Silver Penny.