Solomon and Solomonic LiteratureConway, Moncure Daniel
History
Solomon and Solomonic Literature
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Hebrew literature -- History and criticism; Solomon, King of Israel
One is irresistibly reminded of the finding of the Book of Mormon by
Joseph Smith, although it would be unfair to ascribe Deuteronomist
atrocities to the revelations of the American phantom, Mormon. Nor is
this a mere coincidence. There are lists of the early Mormons which
show a large proportion of them to have borne Old Testament names,
derived from Puritan ancestors. When Solomon set up his philosophic
throne at Harvard University, and the parishes of the Pilgrims
became Unitarian, and Boston became artistic, literary, and worldly,
the Jahvists began to migrate, carrying with them their Sabbatarian
Ark, in which so many frontier communities are imprisoned "unto this
day." Some of them have become conquerors of Hawaiian "Canaanites,"
appropriating their lands. But the Vermont Hilkiah, Joseph Smith,
discerned that a new Deuteronomy was needed to deal with the many
American sects, and was guided by an Angel of the Lord to a spot in
Ontario County, New York, where the Book was found (1827), which
he was enabled to translate by the aid of his "Urim and Thummim"
spectacles, found beside the Book. In the Book were discussed the
principles of all the sects, though not by name, as in Deuteronomy
Moses is made to deal with the conditions which had arisen since
the time of Solomon. Unfortunately for these American Jahvists, they
had left the New English brains behind, with Channing and Emerson,
and had not carried with them enough to produce a western Jeremiah
to save their movement from ridicule and popular hatred.
"Thy words were found and I did eat them," says Jeremiah
(xv. 16). Whether, as some scholars think, Jeremiah had any part in
the composition of the Book "found," or not, his rage attests the
existence at the time of an important Solomonic School. "How say you,
We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Behold the lying
pen of the scribes has turned it to a fiction." (viii. 8.) "They are
grown strong in the land but not for the faith." (ix. 3.) "Thus saith
the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the
mighty man glory in his might." (ix. 23.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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