Lecture 5-4/13/10

First of all, I have to say that I was a bit confused as to the parameters of the paper we just turned in. I understood that this was supposed to be far less in-depth than the 2^nd paper, but Jared’s comment in discussion that we weren’t supposed to be “making an argument” was a bit confusing. Since this is a draft, I hope and do think that the comments I get back will clear up most of this confusion.

Okay, on to the lecture. The first part of the lecture revolved around the controversies surrounding Warren’s shaft and Siloam channel/pool. After discussing these archeological discoveries and their connection to the Canaanite settlement as well as David’s assault, we finished discussing the rule of David. One of the key points made concerning David was that he did not build the first temple, his son, Solomon, did. David was responsible for taking back the city, bringing in the Ark of the Covenant, and building his palace, but god instructed David not to build the temple because of the blood on his hands from years as a war lord (1 Chronicles 21:28-22:10).

After discussing David and the Ark of the Covenant, we briefly introduced the rule of Solomon ("Wise" King Solomon). While his father was responsible for most of the "construction" phase of sacred development from Eliade's viewpoint, Solomon completed Jerusalem's consecration as a sacred space. While the bible goes into detail about Solomon's reign and the building of the temple, no archeological evidence remains, leading some to believe that this lack of evidence points toward fallacy in the biblical accounts.

Along with this controversy over a lack of evidence comes the fundamental question of whether an "absence of evidence" is indeed itself "evidence of absence". Extended to the question of god's existence, this assertion probably carries a bit more weight. Because many of the supposed fundamental surrounding divine existence go beyond the physical norms we know true today, an absence of evidence can easily be argued as evidence of absence. However, while the context we know of surrounding Solomon makes this argument weaker when applied to biblical accounts of his reign, the lack of familiar with earlier events involving a divine being could account for the belief by many that this assertion is true in the case of god's existence. Who's right? Honestly, I dont know and quite frankly, without evidence, no one does.