Is it logical to believe the story of King Solomon and the Baby

Great Debates
1

1st Kings 3:16-28

Short Version:
Two women showed up in Solomon’s court. The two women lived together, and within 3 days of each other, both bore children. One mother accidentally slept on her baby, and smothered it, killing it. The woman woke in the night, found her dead baby, and took it and swapped it with the other mother while she slept. The mother woke in the morning to find a dead baby at her bosom, and looked and saw “Aww man! My baby’s dead! Oh hey! Wait a tick! Smoeone played the old switcharoo on me.” So she knew her baby was with the other mother. The other mother denied it saying “Nope, you killed your baby, mine is alive.” So they go to Solomon, who says “OK ladies, tell ya what. I’m gonna get this purdy sword here, and slice the baby in half. That way, you both get at least half a baby, and that’s fair.” The fake mother says “Yeah, good idea! I’ll hold it, you slice, Kingie” while the other woman says “Woh, bucko, that’s messed up. If you’re gonna do that, just give the other lady the baby. I don’t want it to die.” King Solomon, oh wise one that he is, says “Ooooh! I got ya now. The woman who’d let me cut the baby up is a liar! The lady who protected her baby at all cost is the real mother, let her have the baby, and I won’t cut it up.”

I’ve heard this story all my life, and just read it. And I was always told it was such a shining example of Solomon’s wisdom.

I don’t get it.

First of all, why would such a petty matter be before the King of Israel? The Revised Std. Edition refers to the two women as Harlots. I would assume this means they weren’t really, ya know, high up on the social ladder. But that may be a language barrier problem.

Second of all, who the HELL would have thought, in a custody battle like this “Oh yes, cut the baby in half, that’s a great idea!” Anyone with half a lick of sense would have said “WHAT? King, are you off your damn rocker?” I don’t think that was a wise decion at all, because I don’t think it would have worked to get the fake mother to reveal herself. The fake mother would have stuck to her guns about it being “her baby.” and if she was dumb enough not to realize the King was pulling a ruse, and that anyone saying “Yes, half a baby is a great idea” would look like an idiot, then I doubt she was also smart enough to have walked to the damn court in the first place.

NOBODY would have wanted half a baby! Not even the fake mother. At the very least, you may argue, the fake mother thinks “If I can’t have it, then NOBODY can!” but I just don’t think she’d go for that, and reveal herself so soon.

I just don’t believe people act as silly and simplistic as they do in this story. I think it’s suggesting that “Bad people are so stupid they’d fall for this.” which many “Good people” want to believe. But I don’t think it’s so. Not for one second. I don’t think this would have worked on ANYONE.

So someone exlpain to me, why WAS this a wise decision (I think it was transparent, and wouldn’t have worked) and is this story at all logical?

Can you undersand the fake mother’s view that, yes, indeed, a half a baby would be better than no-baby at all.

Besides, if she’s that dumb, wouldn’t she feel gyped?! I mean, after this happens, the fake mother will only have half a dead baby. But the REAL mother will have 1 and a half dead babies, since she already has the body the fake mother gave her during the night.

Dumb story.

Steven

2

Well, it was supposed to be abn example of non-linear problem solving. You find the real mother by a non-real threat, and unmaski the woman whose only real goal is to hurt the true mother.

The story was so popular that it was told outside its cultural milieu. There’s a wall painting of it at Pompeii, which by 79 A.D. was a stronghold neither of Judaism nor Christianity.

I’ve recently heard that it might be a veiled form of political allegory, with Solomon slyly suggesting that it wouldn’t be a good idea to break up the still-united Jewish state into Israel and Judah. I don’t know how much water this holds. It seems more likely to me that this is a much older folktale that got associated with King Solomon because of his reputed wisdom.

3

I’ll have to wait till I get home for a cite, but that story predates the bible a bit, one notes.

4

Like CalMeacham I also heard the allegory explanation, one source is Larry Gonick. In his story in cartoon form, he reports it coming from The Bible companion (WM Neil) or the History of the Hebrew People (C.A. Barton) or The world of Judges (J.J McKenzie):

(Really, why tremble for a very clever or wise action?)

5

Actually, Adoniyah was David’s son. He was not from the family of Saul.

The story, IIRC, comes right after the dream in which God grants Solomon the gift of wisdom. This story is simply an illustration of that wisdom (putting aside for the moment whether or not you agree that the decision is wise).

Zev Steinhardt

6

As to the OP:

Just a guess here… but maybe there weren’t terribly many cases like this and the local judges didn’t know how to handle it, so they passed it up the ladder.

I don’t think Solomon ever intended to really cut up the baby. If it came down to that, I’m sure he would have tried something else.

The point was that the dead baby’s mother was so upset over her loss and bitter at the fact that she no longer had a baby and her friend did, that she was willing to have the baby killed. She didn’t love the baby, she just wanted to be in an equal or better position than her roommate. The baby being killed or being handed to her would have served her purposes equally well.

That’s always been my take on the story.

Zev Steinhardt

7

Actually, the quote refers to Solomon saying to BOTH Adonijah’s family and the House of Saul to give up any aspirations to the throne.

8

Well, Saul’s family had been out of power for over 30 years at this point, so I don’t think anyone there was entertaining a comeback.

As for Adoniyah, he had no “family” that was not also a member of Solomon’s family. In any event, David clearly named Solomon his successor; it was Adoniyah who tried to do an end-run around David and Solomon.

Zev Steinhardt

9

I think it goes like this.

The killer mother was a really smart cookie. She had to have had a lot of experience outsmarting people including herself in order to think that she had a chance of pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes in the highest court of the land. I doubt if that mother said outright, “Yeah. Go ahead and slice.” But somehow Solomon out-smarted her and maneuvered her into showing her true colors. He knew that one of the two whimmen actually did kill her own baby by negligence and could certainly be tricked into revealing her lack of regard for human life.

This feat of not only percieving the truth but also revealing it to all even though it was very well hidden was very impressive indeed. What could be more hidden than the truth inside the heart of a very seasoned swindler?

And why did they tremble? Because they understood that with a guy like Solomon around, their own dark secrets could be discovered and revealed publicly quite easily if the crown saw a reason to do so.

What, might I ask, is more frightening than that?
The story is told very breifly. That’s why the subtleties are left out.

10

I think it goes like this.

The killer mother was a really smart cookie. She had to have had a lot of experience outsmarting people including herself in order to think that she had a chance of pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes in the highest court of the land. I doubt if that mother said outright, “Yeah. Go ahead and slice.” But somehow Solomon out-smarted her and maneuvered her into showing her true colors. He knew that one of the two whimmen actually did kill her own baby by negligence and could certainly be tricked into revealing her lack of regard for human life.

This feat of not only percieving the truth but also revealing it to all even though it was very well hidden was very impressive indeed. What could be more hidden than the truth inside the heart of a very seasoned swindler?

And why did they tremble? Because they understood that with a guy like Solomon around, their own dark secrets could be discovered and revealed publicly quite easily if the crown saw a reason to do so.

What, might I ask, is more frightening than that?

11

Less than 30 years? You are forgetting what kind of crowd we are talking about here! :wink: (Generation upon generation… This land was promised to us even though we lost it for 400 years… etc)

The impression I get from the story is that it was mostly the say so of Batsheba and partisans of Solomon, I do think that the history was written by the victor.

12

I seem to be getting a lot that the story should not be taken at face. sigh shoulda figured. There are a lot of great stories in the bible that lose something if you assume that they ACTUALLY Exactly happened. Guess this is one…Especially if it’s a political allegory.

Certainly a logical explanation, I guess. It still seems like it wouldn’t have made it to “the supreme court,” but I’ll buy that.

Oh I KNOW he didn’t really think he was gonna cut the baby in half. But it’s shown to be a 'wisdom tale" that Solomon would think to himself “Heh heh. I shall offer to cut the baby up. Only the TRUE mother would halt such a thing!” Maybe I’m not wise, but I’d expect both women to be horrified and confused by the suggestion.

That Solomon even EXPECTED a woman to be down with slicing the baby is not very wise, but rather assumes that people are blood thirsty and illogical. {reads newspaper} Hmm, OK maybe he was wiser than I’m giving credit.

Another flaw I see with the story is that I told it kinda out of order. In my biblical reading, the real mother says “NO NO! Don’t cut the baby.” First, when the other mother says “YEAH! Chop it up!” I would think that anyone, after seeing the real mother say “NO! Don’t do it, I love this baby TOO much!” would realize that if she suggested to go forward with the cutting, she’d look pretty guilty. There are some dumb folks in the world, but it seemed kinda “obvious” to me.

That’s about as logical an explanation as I think I’ll get, outside of reading the story as pure symbolism. I still have my doubts that someone would be so hateful and grotesque as to think “Better a baby die than someone else have it.” but I’m naieve, and am learning more and more never to be surprised by what some people will pull.

It still resonates, with me, as a story that’s not really true to how people act, 1) that he’d actually propose the idea 2) that she’d go along with it and 3) that she wouldn’t see it for the ruse it obviously was.

Imagine that scene playing out in a modern-day courtroom, with a judge suggesting that, using modern language, not biblical language. Aside from the fact that a Judge doesn’t have such authority, wouldn’t it seem completely bizare and un-true?

Steve

13

Now that’s an interesting take on it. And it woulda made a much better story, assuming this to be the original intent of the story, if they’d worked more with him outsmarting the lying mother. I’m sure, if there’s any fact to the story, that we have just an abridged version of it, but the “ploy” they wrote into the actual text is a pretty silly sounding one to me, and not nearly as chilling, impressive, or wise, if there had been a true, well constructed argument that forced the woman to reveal her true self.

Hmmm, might make an interesting story to write. The TRUE nature of Solomon’s wisdom, as opposed to the abriged version we have.

I suppose if Solomon did suggest “let’s cut the baby up.” the real mother would have reacted more emtionally than the fake mother, if she’s as vile as the text seems to indicate. This could have been simply a small part of the logical web that Solomon weaved for the woman to fall into, but whoever happened to be court reporter that day might have thought it was the crux of the argument, and only gave us that for brevity’s sake.

Ok. I can buy that too.

Damn, I’m not doing good at defending my original position. But that’s why I posted it here. It’s a story that’s always bothered me in the Bible, and I knew people here would have a sound enough reading to either give me reasons to accept it as plausible, or to reject it outright as poor storytelling.

Steve

14

My take on the story was that Solomon proclaimed that he would play slice and dice with the baby. When a king makes a proclamation, a subjects duty is to accept it and be silent. The real mom took a risk by protesting the king’s decree. Solomon, seeing that the woman was willing to risk everything including offering to give up the baby to save the child, concluded that she was the real mother.

15

That’s right. He somehow managed to manipulate the woman into expressing herself in such a way that her guilt became obvious to all. The brief simplistic way that the story is told reflects how obvious her guilt was to everyone, how easy he make doing justice seem.

Its a characteristic of the Biblical narrative to relate subtle issue’s in an exaggerated one sided way in order to say that the meaning of the event is more obvious than it would have been had it been told in all its subtleties. Some say that King David’s sin with Bath Sheva is an example of this. The story comes accross as if David were guilty of obvious wrong-doing even though in real life there are always two sides to the issue.

16

And Israel wasn’t that big or populated a country and kings of small countries have to put up with much more petty sht than do, say, Queen Elizabeth, and her life is FULL of petty sht. And since Israel was populated at the time by, um, bumptious bumpkins, I can see Solomon getting sick of the Springeresque shenanigans of some of his constituents and offering to chop the baby just to shut up those two harridans. Doesn’t take much spin to change his tone of voice and that would be all that was needed to change an expression of frustration into the Bible’s wise ploy.

17

Okay. On checking my copy of ‘Don’t Know Much About The Bible’, it appears I remembered the wrong ‘gotcha’. The story of the baby may well be original to Solomon… (I still seem to remember an earlier version, but the memory is more vauge.) but…

The two women? They’re prostitutes. And they may well be ‘witch’ style prostitues, cultic temple types that the Hebrews had troubles with time and again.
And, of course, there’s echoes of Abraham and Isaac in the story. But the big reveal I thought I had? Not there. Sorry.

18

This is an interesting take on the issue. It explains the order of events, and makes sense with some of the other Biblical stories involving royalty. If the office of king in Israel was treated the same way as it’s neighbors (who they apparently modeled the position after), then even presenting yourself to the king without request was a potentially capital offense. It also makes the willingness to directly object to what the king has proclaimed a self sacrificial act rather than a simple human reaction. Perhaps the true mother was in effect offering herself in place of the child. Now I’d have to do some brushing up on how the office of king was treated in Israel at the time to see if it holds any water (I don’t recall any indication that the office was treated with quite this reverance in Israel at the time, so consider this a load of hooey until verified), but it’s certainly an interesting possiblity that adds some depth to the story.

19

[the simpsons]

Let the pie be cut in half, and each man shall receive . . .

DEATH!

I’ll eat the pie.

[/the simpsons]

20

Actually, the heir of line of the House of Saul was a crippled man named Meribbaal, called Mephibosheth in II Samuel – see chapter 9; he’s also mentioned in ch. 4, 16, 19, and 21. He was Jonathan’s son, and David spared and honored him for that reason. He in turn had a son Micah, whom I seem to recall Solomon put to death as a threat to his line, though I cannot find a cite to prove that.