The Books of Solomon: The Wisdom, Psalms, Odes, and Testament of Solomon, in Clear Modern English (Lost Books of the Bible) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Four ancient books carry Solomon's name. None were written by him.

The Bible gives Solomon eleven chapters, a handful of proverbs and a love poem. From that modest foundation, Jewish, Christian and Gnostic writers built a figure who commanded angels, interrogated demons, and learned what wisdom costs.

This volume collects the four books that name him, in clear modern English, complete and unabridged.

THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON

A Greek-speaking Jew in Alexandria argues that the wisdom of Israel's God can stand against anything the philosophers had to offer. Its central figure is Wisdom herself, a divine person who enters souls, chooses, travels and rescues. Catholic, Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox readers know this book as scripture. Most Protestant readers have never heard of it. Nineteen chapters, second century BCE to first century CE.

THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON

Eighteen poems written in Jerusalem after the Roman general Pompey walked into the Holy of Holies in 63 BCE. They are angry, grieving and theological, and they ask the oldest question in Jewish life: why does God allow the righteous to suffer and the wicked to triumph? The final two contain the most detailed portrait of the expected Messiah written before the birth of Jesus.

THE ODES OF SOLOMON

Forty-two short hymns of startling beauty, lost for a thousand years until a Syriac manuscript surfaced in 1909. The speaker has been filled with light, clothed in truth, and rescued from the grave. They may be the oldest surviving Christian songs outside the New Testament.

THE TESTAMENT OF SOLOMON

Solomon receives a ring from the archangel Michael and uses it to summon and interrogate demons one by one. Each reveals its name, its powers, the zodiac sign it haunts, and the angel that can defeat it. Then he puts them to work building the Temple. This is the foundational text of Western demonology, and the ancestor of every grimoire that followed.

What this edition does

• Rewritten in modern English. No thees, no thous, no inverted syntax. If you can read a newspaper, you can read this book.
• Nothing cut. Complete and unabridged, from public-domain scholarly translations.
• Original numbering kept. Every chapter and verse follows the source, so you can cross-reference any academic edition without a conversion table.
• Named chapters. Ninety-two chapters, psalms and hymns, each given a title so you can find what you remember.
• An introduction to each text, plus two essays on how one name came to carry four completely different traditions.

Philosophy. Political psalms. Ecstatic hymns. Demon catalogs. Four completely different answers to a single question: what does it mean to be wise in a world full of forces you cannot see?

Clear Text Editions. Classic works. Clear words.

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