An Atheist Explores the Apocyrpha Part 14: Life Is Rubbish And Then You Die (Wisdom of Solomon 1-5)

Wisdom of Solomon 1-5
Life Is Rubbish And Then You Die.

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Apocrypha version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Old Testament Apocrypha, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/3aEJ6Q5
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Wisdom 1
“Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth: think of the Lord with a good (heart,) and in simplicity of heart seek him.”

During the various historical books, Solomon was called out for his wisdom, but very little in the way of example was given. Later on we got the books Proverbs and Ecclesiastes attributed to him, of which the first half were interesting and then went astray towards the end (especially Proverbs). Almost certainly Proverbs had at least two authors. And then there was Song of Songs as well.

All of which, if we accept the attribution to Solomon, show a person wrestling with sophisticated philosophical concepts that seem counter to much of the rest of the Bible. And a poem about boobs. So if those were the bits that were left in, I’m intrigued what was not considered suitable for all traditions.

To begin with there seems nothing too unusual, although the sentiments expressed are more like those in the New Testament; that a person needs to be willing to seek and accept God in order to, well, seek and accept God. “For the holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and remove from thoughts that are without understanding, and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in”. God and “the holy spirit of wisdom” are given as essentially the same thing, and this might seem like an invitation to confirmation bias, but it also speaks of having a quiet mind; God does not come at the urging of anyone – “he will be found of them that tempt him not; and sheweth himself unto such as do not distrust him”. There’s something again quite Eastern in this philosophy.

The second part of this chapter gives a few rules to follow – no gossiping or suicide, and segues into an intriguing discussion on the nature of death in God’s plan. According to Solomon (or perhaps “Solomon”), “God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living”. In the beginning, “the generations of the world were healthful; and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon the earth”. Now, according to Biblical tradition death stems from the Fall – I’ve heard some commentary that it’s not a punishment brought by God, but by being banned from the Garden of Eden humanity no longer had access to the Tree of Life and so no longer had access to immortality. The choice, evidently, was between knowledge and immortality.

Here, though, “ungodly men with their works and words called it [presumably death] to them: for when they thought to have it their friend, they consumed to nought, and made a covenant with it, because they are worthy to take part with it”. This doesn’t really sound like a paraphrase of the Fall story – one couldn’t really accuse Adam and Eve of being “ungodly men”. This is more like a myth placed later in the Bible, like the Flood or Babel.

Wisdom 2
“For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave.”

It’s amusing to me that this chapter seems to pretty much present the same strawman argument against non-believers that I’ve seen given in online forums. I guess some things don’t change.

Solomon at first presents an image of a non-believer as a kind of epicurean existentialist, who accepts that “our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist” and as a consequence decide to “let us enjoy the good things that are present” and to “crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered”; carpe diem in other words. Apparently this kind of thinking will also involve self-indulgence – “Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments” and “Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness”, and if that wasn’t insulting enough, apparently this kind of bon vivant thinking also involves going round beating people up – “Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged”.

That really doesn’t follow, necessarily. It’s the same crap “atheists think people are just collections of atoms” that theist trolls offer nowadays. And Solomon continues his slippery slope fallacy with a side order of persecution complex, where the nonbelievers decide to lie in wait for the believer “because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education”.

Let’s test him, they say, let’s see if his God will save him when we set upon him. This is, says Solomon, because “As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not”, and what they don’t know is that “God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity”. Well, maybe. I’ve seen many different interpretations of what “in His own image” is supposed to mean. And then “Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it”. Again this is a later interpretation of the story of the Fall, where the serpent is just a serpent and it’s the natural curiosity of humans that defeats them. But, again – moral awareness or immortality? Which one, really, makes us more human?

Wisdom 3
“But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.”

This feels like I’m back in the Qur’an again. There’s a comparison between the “souls of the righteous” and the “the ungodly” and their eventual fates, both within and after this life.

Actually, there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the real life; the ungodly find that they are “miserable, and their hope is vain, their labours unfruitful, and their works unprofitable”, whereas the righteous may die and “their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction”.

However, the righteous apparently “shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble” as well as judging nations. Meanwhile the ungodly are stuck with foolish wives and wicked children. Solomon seems to think that barren virgins and eunuchs are lucky because they won’t be touched by sin, whereas children born of adultery “shall they be nothing regarded: and their last age shall be without honour”. Seems a bit mean, it’s hardly the fault of the children how they were conceived.

None of this strikes me as particularly wise, which involve surely some kind of understanding of other people and a desire to help them. Rather, it smacks of a mix of elitism and cynicism. As I said it’s nothing unusual for the Qur’an, but for the Bible its closer to either Revelation or some of the prophets. Except that the OT prophets never made use of any kind of punishment or reward after death, so this feels very anachronistic if it’s supposed to be Solomon.

Wisdom 4
“Better it is to have no children, and to have virtue: for the memorial thereof is immortal: because it is known with God, and with men.”

Solomon, if it is indeed he, has a real bee in his bonnet about people having children. He sounds like some sanctimonious moralist looking down on the welfare poor for having lots of children, the “multiplying brood of the ungodly” as he calls them. These children will come to nought, he says, “the imperfect branches shall be broken off, their fruit unprofitable, not ripe to eat”, because “children begotten of unlawful beds are witnesses of wickedness against their parents in their trial”.

Better, he says, to live a virtuous life, even if it’s short, speaking of a godly man who evidently died at a young age – “Yea speedily was he taken away, lest that wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul”. You’d expect maybe something here that implied that the dead virtuous man then enjoyed a reward in the afterlife, but there’s nothing that really suggest that. The reward, it would seem, is not having to live in this world filled with the “bewitching of naughtiness”. Actually, this does sound like the Solomon behind Ecclesiastes now I come to think of it.

Meanwhile, the rest of us “shall hereafter be a vile carcase, and a reproach among the dead for evermore”. Again, there’s nothing that points to an afterlife in Hell here, this is more that all the mortal works will come to nothing. There’s also nothing here that says that the mortal works of the virtuous man won’t come to nothing either, just that he gets to die at a young age. Not, I must say, the most enticing of “rewards”.

Wisdom 5
“Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours.”

Broadly, this chapter covers those popular Biblical themes of the righteous standing forth and being rewarded by God, and the rest getting punished and discovering that riches and pride have been good for nothing.

Although it’s kind of pitched a little like Revelation, where “the righteous live for evermore” and “receive a glorious kingdom, and a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand”, I’m kind of looking at it more metaphorically. Recall all of the stuff about “vanity” in Ecclesiastes. This is in similar vein. Pursuit of earthly things is ultimately vain, and even if the writer isn’t talking about an actual Magical Sky Disneyland of an afterlife, the intent, I think, is that pursuing righteousness ultimately leads to a more fulfilling life than mere materialism. Akin, perhaps, to the sentiment about man not living by bread alone. The spiritual is needed as well.

This is an idea I don’t have any dispute with, expect to say that what one might consider “righteous” or “spiritual” need not necessarily mean blind contemplation of the God of the Bible (an entity with unresolvable contradictions). One might equally consider the concepts of Plato to be similar at heart, as well as many Eastern philosophies.

There is some great imagery here. The ways of a materialist have as little lasting substance “as when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found, but the light air being beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted with the violent noise and motion of them, is passed through, and therein afterwards no sign where she went is to be found”. At times the elaborate metaphors are positively Shakespearean, and better than the typical Biblical melange of lions, fire and vines – “For the hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away with the wind; like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm; like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with a tempest, and passeth away as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day”.

Although, mind you, the good old Breastplate of Righteousness makes an appearance.