King Solomon had an ring with a seal and resisted harmful spirits.

In this essay, I set out to prove two things: First, that King Solomon had a ring with a seal on it, and Second, that he resisted evil spirits.However, the issue we really run up against before going further is whether King Solomon existed in the first place. Presumably, he did. The Bible is quite detailed and was written in ancient Israelite times. King Solomon was the king who built Jerusalem's temple before the Babylonians destroyed it in the 6th century. He was quite famous and lived somewhere in the 11th-10th centuries, B.C.One may imagine that King Solomon did not in fact exist, and that he is merely a literary figure in the Bible. However, for purposes of this debate, that possibility does not prevent me from arguing that he had a magic ring or resisted evil spirits. Rather than arguing about what a real person did, it becomes a matter of arguing what a fictional character did, much like arguing whether Oliver Twist in Charles Dickens' novel was at least two feet tall. Certainly, Oliver Twist was at least two feet tall, because as a reader, you strongly expect him to be a normal human and not so drastically stunted, despite his malnurishment due to the British Orphanage and School system. Just as clearly as Oliver Twise was at least two feet tall, King Solomon had a ring and resisted spirits, based on the stories of the Biblical canon, as well as later writings that gave a fuller picture of him.First, it is easy to show that Solomon had a ring with a seal on it. This is because the patriarchs of Judah and the kings of his ancient era had rings with seals on them.In Genesis 38:18, Judah the Patriarch asks a woman who he wanted to sleep with: What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him. In this passage, it calls the signet "hothawm", which means a seal, or a ring with a seal. Notice that the things mentioned were things that you carry in your hand- bracelets and a staff. Most likely then the seal was something also carried in the hand in this passage, so it must be referring to a ring with a seal, carried on the hand. Likewise, to show his approval of Joseph, the Egyptian pharaoh in Genesis 41:42 "took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck." In this case the ring was a sign of pharaoh's authority. In 1 Kings 21:8, the Israelite ruler Ahab's wife decided to make political decisions, so she "wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth." In this example, the seal is shown to be a tool in order to make decisions and show authority. Then, later, when the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar wanted to put Daniel in the lion's den, "a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel."(Dan. 6:17) In this instance, the seal was used to make an order. The "signet" here would have been like the others - a ring with a seal or "sign" on it. In Esther 8:8, the Persian King Ahasuerus told Esther and Mordechai: "You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews, as you please, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring; for whatever is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring no one can revoke.” In fact, the book of Esther several times talks about the king's signet ring. Looking over the number of cases when major kings had rings with seals on them it makes sense that King Solomon, as a major Israelite ruler would have one too. If the Persian, Babylonian, and Egyptian rulers all had rings with seals, it makes sense that Solomon would want to have one. Indeed, as a major king, he would be expected to have one. On top of that, two of his major predecessors, the Patriarch Judah and the judge Ahab, who ruled when Israel was under a judge instead of a king, were each specifically identified as having seals. Following in their footsteps, Solomon would be expected to have one too. In each of those cases, the rings or seals were seen as bestowing or conveying authority - and Solomon certainly was a figure of primary authority in Israel. One can make two objections: First, that the seals or rings mentioned in those cases were not rings with seals, and Second, that the mere fact they had rings with seals does not mean he did. As to the first objection, the term hothawm, used in Genesis to describe the patriach Judah's "seal" does have a dual meaning of seal or ring with a seal, as Strong's Hebrew Dictionary shows.[1] Plus, the context shows that the seal was apparently worn on the hand like the other items mentioned. This word hotawm is repeatedly used in the Bible as well to describe a seal on a ring, as in Jeremiah 22:24, when God says that the king of Judah would be like a signet on God's hand. Esther 8:8 doesn't use the word seal (hothawm), but rather the word "ring" (tabbaath in Hebrew), but there it says that Esther would seal things with the ring. The conclusion is that even in that case, the ring had a seal on it. As to the second objection, even if Solomon did not wear a ring for some unusual reason, he would certainly have had a ring with some kind of design in his vast treasury. In 2 Chronicles 1, God says to Solomon: "I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like." Solomon's wealth was reflected in his massive Temple, not to mention his palace, which had many sculptures of lions. Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, and as mentioned earlier, one of the Egyptian pharaohs had a ring he was willing to give Joseph. The pharaohs were quite rich and Solomon's father-in-law would have had many things like rings to give Solomon. Even if he did not give Solomon one, his wife would have the wealth to purchase one for his treasury. Based on this information, we can assume with a solid degree of certainty that Solomon had a ring with a seal on it. It was standard for the kings of his era to have rings with seals, and it was also characteristic for the rulers of Israel. If for some reason Solomon did not actually wear a ring with a seal or design on it, he certainly would have possessed one in his vast treasury. The second main issue in this debate is whether Solomon resisted harmful spirits. This can also be shown due to the fact that spirits were taken to include forces or things like wisdom or entities like demons. Harmful spirits therefore were warded off in the Psalms of David, like Psalm 91, which would have been passed to Solomon for spiritual guidance as they were to all Israel. 1. http://biblehub.com...