Founding the Temple

(January 20)

Two important passages are discussed in this lecture. The first passage is 2Samuel 7. In this text, God tells David that he does not need to build Him a house, that He will build David a house. This temple will be built by his heir. In addition, God makes a very important promise to David, in that there will always be an heir of David as ruler of Israel. Promises made by God are not supposed to be broken, however, there is a problem with this one because the Babylonians come into Jerusalem and destroy the kingdom. Because of this, some people lose faith altogether or try to rationalize this problem. The ones that try to rationalize say that a Messiah will come. This person is interpreted as Jesus, who is also called the "son of David" for this reason of God's promise. The second passage is 1Chronicles 21:28-22:10. The reason why David is unable to build God's house changes. It states that David cannot build the house of the Lord because he has shed so much blood whereas 2Samuel 7 states otherwise. This is another depiction of how the Bible is not always consistent with the information provided.
In this lecture, we also talked about how Jerusalem was made sacred through the Bible. Several significant stories supposedly originate from this city, like Creation and the Sabbath, Mount Moriah, and the story of Melchizedek. The purpose of all these stories was to build the tradition in Jerusalem.
Solomon's Jerusalem was also addressed in this lecture. He was said to be a wise king. One of his most famous stories was the one of the two mothers and two newborns. He was said to have written the proverbs as well. Although King Solomon was said to have accomplished many things, his existence, as well as his father's, King David, is still not proven.