The Bible Unveiled

by M. M. Mangasarian

And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year. **

* II Chronicles ix, 1-9.
** II Chronicles ix, 23,24.

Everything turns into silver and gold. Every one of Jehovah's favorites, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, became exceeding rich. In the present instance, not only are "all the kings of the earth" on their knees before the man who conceived and carried into completion so stupendous a monument—one of the seven or eight wonders of the world—but they also empty their purses in his lap. The temple is already earning a dividend.

But when we draw nigh unto this bible masterpiece to take its measurements, we find that the one hundred and eighty-three thousand and six hundred men, working for eleven years, and spending the wealth of many modern countries put together, produced only what we would call to-day an unusually small meeting-house.

And the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, the length thereof was three-score cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.

And the porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was the breadth thereof before the house. *

* I Kings vi, 2.

Now a cubit is the length of the forearm from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about eighteen inches. The Egyptian cubit was about twenty inches. It is not quite certain whether the Hebrew cubit was as long. Some commentators, wishing to help Solomon's temple, stretch the cubit to nearly twenty-six inches. Figuring, however, on the basis of the cubit of bible times, the Egyptian cubit, to ascertain the size of Solomon's temple, we find that this national monument of Israel, the pride of the desert, was about ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high; which would have cost to-day, when labor and material are very much higher, but a few thousand dollars, and a short time to build it in. Surely not all the gold and silver which David and his son Solomon raised by taxing the people, and by collecting tribute from foreign powers were spent in the erection of this modest little chapel! Into what other channels could the money have been diverted? Who did the stealing? Nobody, really. It was only mythical wealth, and a mythical army of workmen, building a mythical temple. The real temple which was destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked must have been a very inexpensive affair.

The only striking feature of the vaunted Solomonic edifice was its porch, which was altogether out of proportion to the rest of the building, being one hundred and forty feet higher than the temple itself. But the eccentric porch, climbing up a hundred and forty feet higher than the building it was designed to serve, as well as the building itself, and the untold moneys it cost, together with the huge army of toilers, existed only in the imagination of the Jewish scribe. We have only to think of the pyramids of Egypt, the cities and temples of Babylonia, the still-abiding wonder of Baal-bec—the temple of the sun, to realize that even when they vaunt their gifts and possessions, even with their passion for inflation and swagger, the bible writers do not rise to the level of the achievements of their heathen neighbors.

But it is only by comparing Athens with Jerusalem that we realize how very much more wonderful is the truth of paganism than Jewish fiction. It is not our intention to enumerate the masterpieces of Athens. To preserve even its dust and broken fragments, museums far more stupendous than Solomon's temple have been reared all over the world. Was not Athens—as a city, as a place of habitation, as a school for the mind, as a spectacle for the eye, as the home of liberty—better than Jerusalem? And is not the book or books which tell the story of the wonderful Greeks—how they lived, and thought, and sang, and wrought their masterpieces—better than the book which tells the story of the desert? Both Judaism and Christianity will disappear, but Greece, that is to say, science, that is to say, art, that is to say, civilization, will continue to produce masterpieces, and yet remain as prolific as time.