Thanks for downloading the NRTIME podcast. For more details about NRTIME and for our terms of use, please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for.

I hope you enjoy the program.

Hello, when George II was crowned in 1727, George Frederick Handel composed an anthem for the occasion.

It's a brief and ecstatic work in praise of wise and enlightened rulers and proved so popular that it's been performed at every British coronation since it begins.

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon, King, and all the people rejoiced and said, God save the king, long live the king, may the king live forever.

The ideal monarch, according to Handel, is a figure from the Old Testament, King Solomon, feigned for his wisdom, Solomon has inspired a wealth of literature and legend, and is revered in Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike.

He celebrated as the architect of the first temple of Jerusalem, and in the Middle Ages and Renaissance was commonly depicted in art as the personification of the just and wise ruler.

With me to discuss King Solomon Arne, Martin Palmer, director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture, Philipp Alexander, emeritus professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester, and Catherine Del, senior lecturer in Old Testament Studies at the University of Cambridge and the Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge.

Martin Palmer, before we get to Solomon himself, we do tell us a bit about his father David and the kingdom he ruled and left.

We need to look at David to start with, because he's such a contrast to what we then have with Solomon. David comes to the throne of the United Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, around about 1020 BC.

He reigns for 40 years, 33 of those years as King of both combined countries, because at that time the 10 tribes in the North formed Israel and the two tribes in the South formed Judah.

And he is an extraordinary figure. He really is our first sort of modern man and modern biography. We know his angsts, we know his foibles and his weaknesses.

We know, of course, the story of his seduction of Bathsheba and the way that he then has her husband, Uriah, killed in order that he can marry her.

We know of his anxiousness about rebellion and about his sons, in particular his son Absalon, who rebels against him twice and in the end is killed.

And this terrible outcry of pain that comes from that, we know about his love for Jonathan, the son of his great opponent, Saul, the first king of United Israel and Judah.

And we have a very rounded figure of a flawed, damaged, violent, brilliant, military, compassionate, devout man, who dances half naked in front of the temple, over in front of the Ark and so forth.

So he is, we know a lot about him as a personality.

And so, and then here we go to Solomon, you're building up for a contrast, I think everybody listening is waiting for contrast to come.

You get.

And then that his tense son, Solomon, who was the son by Bathsheba, was elevated.

We are told through the machinations of Bathsheba to be his successor. And what is the, how did that happen as I've outlined?

Well, there is more to that. I mean, we know that he has to put down a not so much rebellion, but an attempt by one of his other brothers, an older brother, with a better claim at Anaya to the throne.

...