A. J. MATTILL, Jr.
In this short study we focus our attention on a book known as The Book of Wisdom and The Wisdom of Solomon. Some claim that this Solomon was King Solomon of the tenth century BC/BCE. Others regard him as a writer of the first century BC/BCE. Here we shall refer to the author as Solomon, whoever he was and whenever he lived. The Wisdom of Solomon is neither in the Jewish canon of Scriptures nor in the Protestant canon, but it is in the canon of the Roman Catholic Church. Now we’ll sample thirteen of Solomon’s stupidities.
Stupidity One (7:1-2). Solomon wrongly asserts that in his mother’s womb he was molded into flesh in a ten-months’ period. Here Solomon accepts the opinion of the ancients about the period of pregnancy.
Stupidity Two (7:17-21). Solomon claims that God gave him unerring knowledge of existing things that he (Solomon) might know the organization of the universe, the operation of its elements, and the positions of the stars. What a stretch! The most highly trained scientists thousands of years after Solomon wouldn’t dare to boast like that.
Stupidity Three (9:2). Solomon ignorantly declares that God created humans to rule over the other creatures God made. Solomon’s attitude has encouraged humans to be cruel to animals and to kill them without restraint.
Stupidity Four (9:8). Solomon was stupid enough to believe that God ordered him to build a temple and an altar to practice brutal butcher-shop religion, pitiless packinghouse piety, and senseless slaughterhouse spirituality. Solomon’s God was merciless!
Stupidity Five (10:1). Solomon foolishly believed that Adam was the first man, for Solomon was ignorant of the evolution of species. We know of no first human but only of a long chain of animal forms gradually approximating humans.
Stupidity Six (10:4). Solomon was so uninformed that he accepted as fact Noah’s worldwide flood. Noah and the flood are figments of biblical imagination.
Stupidity Seven (10:7). Solomon in his ignorance of nature operating according to natural laws believed that God turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:24-26).
Stupidity Eight (10:10). Solomon was so benighted that he called Jacob a “just man.” Solomon overlooked the fact that Jacob lied to his father four times and deceived him three ways (Genesis 27).
Stupidity Nine (10:15). Solomon should have known better than to call Israel “a holy people and a blameless race.” Contrast Exodus 32:9-10 and Deuteronomy 9:6 which called Israel “a stiff-necked people.”
Stupidity Ten (14:3-4). Solomon must have had the blinkers on when he declared that God “can save from any danger.” The harsh reality is that one tsunami follows another, and no supernatural power deigns to intervene.
Stupidity Eleven (15:2). Solomon made a foolish promise to God which was and is impossible for anyone, including Solomon, to keep: “We will not sin, knowing that we belong to you.” We inevitably sin because we are born self-centered.
Stupidity Twelve (16:2). Solomon thoughtlessly praises God for providing quail for the Israelites to eat. Evidently Solomon never heard of a basic principle of enlightened ethics, namely, reverence for life. Reverence for life means recognizing and respecting the fact that every living creature, including quails, has a strong will to live life at its highest and best and not to be eaten by other creatures. Solomon failed to devote his thoughts to the knowledge of life, his affections to the love of life, and his actions to the service of life.
Stupidity Thirteen (16:17). Solomon, with hardly a child’s knowledge of the cold-blooded universe in which we live and move and have our being, rashly assumed that “the universe fights on behalf of the just.” If the whole universe works for just people and just causes, why are unjust people and causes so often victorious?
Conclusion. These thirteen samples of Solomon’s stupidity should be enough to prove that Solomon was indeed stupid: benighted, ignorant, misinformed, and uninformed.
Keep on reading. Mattill, The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs, 1995; and a Cosmic Creed for the Current Century, 2007, both published by the Flatwoods Free Press, 750 Lum Fife Road, Gordo, AL 35466-3357