Last time Solomon built a temple was 1 Kings 6 (entry). I remember realizing how small the thing was in comparison to the temple, but anyway...it didn't have to be huge. I don't believe it was used for "church" the way we perceive traditional church now. I'm no historian, but I get the idea most common folk never even ventured into the temple. Maybe they did, but it seems to me like its for the priests.
Lots of gold. But then, gold was abundant in Solomon's time. Just about everything in there was gold, or overlaid with gold, like a rapper's mouth. It was probably a sight to behold.
Today, wouldn't you find this display rather pretentious? I don't know, maybe since I don't have the money to overlay my house and it's furnishings with gold, I find it a bit off-putting. A bit too glorious for me. But if I did see it, I admit I would be in awe of the power and the wealth it would take to assemble such a découpage. Then I would be put off. But one would definitely come before t'other.
And I would guess that a nomadic people (for a long part of their history, at least) wouldn't often see such use of gold and wealth. Other than idols, I wonder how much gold they saw.
Also, one of the pillars is named Boaz. This is quite a while after Ruth's Boaz. I wonder if that was part of the thought process.
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