Steven Weitzman, "Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom"

THE SOLOMON LEGEND is the subject of a new book:

King Solomon: Stanford scholar considers how the man who had everything ended with nothing

Scholar Steven Weitzman's new book on Solomon is a meditation on the "lust to know." But how much can we really know about the legendary king who was the first Faust and inspired the voyage of Columbus?

BY CYNTHIA HAVEN (Stanford Report)

What can we learn from the wisest man who ever lived?

Maybe not as much as we think, according to Stanford Jewish studies scholar Steven Weitzman.

His new book, Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom (Yale University Press) has been called a meditation on the "lust to know." Yet it's curious we know so little about the man at the center of the book. We don't even know what Solomon looked like, though Biblical writers note that his father and siblings were handsome.

One thing he is famous for, though: "According to Jewish tradition, he knew everything. He knew as much as God knew," said Weitzman, a professor of Jewish culture and religion. "As a scholar, I'm attracted to knowing everything. Because I feel I don't know anything."

Hence, the book. "It was a lot of fun," Weitzman said of the work he calls "an unauthorized biography."

[...]

It does sound like fun.