What is New Under the Sun: Nothing?

Submitted by M Tovey (United States), Feb 9, 2022 at 13:28

Observer Ludvikus is nothing if not provocative to this observer; the premise of many of his comments have a way of provoking, even poking, at some of the somnolescent attitudes this reader has carefully secreted away in distant memories once thought set in immovable terms of thought. Since much of what this reader believes has been screened through filters of decades of Biblical thought (not necessarily my own), there has been and still is the standard lesson of making human thought comport to Scriptural thought; and where the Spirit leads, the true student of Scripture is bound to consider what is taught. Where Scripture is determined as truth, it cannot be debated except where there is defection and the defects are debatable.
Reader Ludvikus brings up Scripture in the question he poses: is there nothing new under the Sun? It is the quintessential pondering of the intellectual inquisition of 'what is life all about?'
Those of the readership of Dr. Pipes' forum here are engaged in something of just that sort: how does the Middle East gain so much interest from such a global audience in an apparent disproportionate way when the world has so many arenas of discontent; and yet, so many things philosophically arguable end up being debated here: is there really, nothing new?
In reality, this is not just being philosophical about what is challenged here. The lives of real people and their individual and corporate collective issues are at stake and the further reality is that many such lives are at stake as well: who determined then and who determines now which have more value than others and which philosophy rules in any outcome? Or does religion rule?
From this reader's perspective (and make sure, this perspective is this reader's alone), the question is a quote from a person in history regarded by some to have been the wisest of all the ages of sages, the King of ancient Israel; Solomon. It is written that as he ascended the Jewish throne, his petition to the Holy One of Israel was to be imbued with sufficient wisdom to rule over the chosen people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. By all accounts, his desire was granted.
In the ancient text from which this quoted question was taken, his life was in essence in its final chapters and in its being written for posterity, ends with: revere God and observe all His commandments. This was written well before the arrival of Islam; and Islam and its subsequent variant forms of required submission cannot match the wisdom that King Solomon honored.

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