Did the King Solomon worship the Jewish Jehovah, or the Babylonian Astarte?

Question

I was reading about the recent archaeological discovery of a beekeeping industry in the Beit Shean Valley in Israel, dating from 3000 years ago or so. Which just so happens (I think) to be around the time of King Solomon.

The beekeeping = honey ... which led me to muse on Moses’ enticing prospectus in Exodus about Canaan being “a land flowing with milk and honey”.

So, then I began to read about the association of ideas involved in this “flowing with milk and honey” hyperbole in the Ancient World. And, lo and behold, all of a sudden I’m back to Solomon and Astarte (or “Ashtoreth” in the Bible). Because, it seems, the “flowing with milk and honey” phrase could have had sexual connotations for the Ancient Semites; and could have been particularly associated with that earth-mother type goddess, Astarte.

This is one of those situations where a little reading becomes a dangerous thing. Can anyone set me straight, please?

Answer 1

I guess you are not the only one who has wondered what milk and honey actually means so here by simply Googeling
I have so many replied
http://www.google.co.il/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=WX7&q=the+land+of+milk+and+honey&btnG=Search
I guess if you do the same search in other search engines you will find much more. As to the sexual connotation this might be just one of many many definitions or connotations.

If you could read Hebrew you would have found much more, the Talmud and Rashi and other famous biblical interpreters
have written a lot about the Bible.

Answer 2

1 Kings 11:5 Solomon's Foreign Wives
…4For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. 6Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done.…

Answer 3

he worshiped the Lord Jehovah. he is the one credited with building the great temple to Jehovah, that if it were still around today, would be one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Answer 4

Solomon was a worshipper of Jehovah when he was anointed as king, and when he wrote parts of the bible.

(1 Kings 2:1-3) David gradually drew near for him to die; and he proceeded to command Solomon his son, saying: “I am going..., and you must be strong and prove yourself to be a man. And you must keep the obligation to Jehovah your God by walking in his ways, by keeping his statutes, his commandments and his judicial decisions and his testimonies, according to what is written in the law of Moses

(1 Kings 2:12-24) As for Solomon, he sat down upon the throne of David his father... King Solomon swore by Jehovah, saying: “So may God do to me, and so may he add to it... And now, as Jehovah is living who has firmly established me and keeps me seated upon the throne of David my father

Sadly, Israel's King Solomon did worship false gods toward the end of his life.

When the bible uses the expression "flowing with milk and honey", it is always as part of a discussion of soil and farmland (and not of inhabited towns). The questioner's point seems to be refuted entirely when one recalls that existing inhabitants were to be executed if they did not agree to live by Jehovah's wholesome standards.

(Exodus 3:8) And I am proceeding to go down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a land good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey

(Deuteronomy 6:1-3) the land to which you are passing over there to take possession of it ... as respects the land flowing with milk and honey.

(Joshua 5:6) Israel had walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation...that did not listen to the voice of Jehovah had come to its finish, to whom Jehovah swore that he would never let them see the land that Jehovah had sworn to their forefathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

(Jeremiah 11:4-5) You will certainly become my people and I myself shall become your God, for the purpose of carrying out the oath that I swore to your forefathers, to give them the land flowing with milk and honey

(Ezekiel 20:5-6) ‘I am Jehovah your God.’ In that day I lifted up my hand in an oath to them to bring them forth from the land of Egypt to a land that I had spied out for them, one flowing with milk and honey. It was the decoration of all the lands.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/19980515/article_02.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20010922/article_03.htm