Several times in the past few years when I’ve presented the Book of Ecclesiastes to someone, they’ve reacted, “Wow, that’s good stuff!”

It’s almost like they're shocked something so eloquent and on-the-money could be from the Bible.

Ecclesiastes, written by Solomon, is chocked with wisdom, some of which has become part of our common vernacular, such as, “There is no new thing under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9) and “Two are better than one.” (Ecc. 4:9)

A lot of people aren’t even conscious of this anymore, but the classic song from 1966, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” by The Byrds—with the refrain, “To every thing, turn, turn, turn There is a season, turn, turn, turn, And a time to every purpose under heaven”—is lifted wholesale from Ecclesiastes.

“Originally taken by Pete Seeger from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' was such a powerful anthem for all involved in the social unrest--both weary politicians and youths burning their draft cards,” reads an Amazon.com music review on the The Byrds.

Born of Bathsheba around 1030 B.C., Solomon succeeded his father, David, as king of Israel and was responsible for building the Temple during his 40-year reign.

God endowed Solomon with unparalleled wisdom and riches but eventually he strayed off into pagan religions being practiced by some of his wives (Solomon had a harem of 700 wives and 300 concubines).

As I Kings 11:4-5 sums it up, “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.”

Next week, a controversial new book on Solomon hits bookstores ("The Key To Solomon's Key, Secrets of Magic and Masonry," by Lon DuQuette) which will, according to the publisher’s press release, “respectfully call into question the truth of the story of Solomon, his magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, and the very keystone of the Bible that supports and connects the Old Testament to the New.”

The press release states, “According to accepted history, King Solomon has long-held an established position as a wise magician King. He is a key element to the traditions of three warring religions, as well as the central figure of both the secret rituals of Freemasonry and the forbidden rites of sorcery. . . DuQuette's research addresses the reality of King Solomon in a tightly woven narrative that is sure to shock the world. It is here between the shadow of religion and magic that ‘The Key To Solomon's Key’ dispels myths and, for the first time, explains to the public a most dangerous secret -- infinitely more fascinating than accepted history.”

Obviously this book hopes to cash in on the current trend, fueled by the “Da Vinci Code” and “The Gospel of Judas,” of giving far different accounts of Bible characters from what the Bible would have you believe. In fact, the press release title for the Solomon book is, “Move Over ‘Da Vinci Code.’ ”

The Bible uses the word “magician” 16 times and not once is it found in connection with Solomon. It’s ridiculous to suggest he was established in Bible history as the “wise magician king.”

In an old book I have from 1871, called, “An Illustrated History of the Holy Bible,” author John Kitto confirms that it was “Hebrew tradition, perhaps the superstitious wonder of (Solomon’s) own age, that ascribed to Solomon the highest skill in magical arts, and even unbounded dominion over all the invisible.”

As Kitto emphasizes in the very next sentence, “More sober history recognizes in Solomon the great poet, naturalist, and moral philosopher of his time.”

Biblically, Solomon was regarded as the wisest man on earth. He composed 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs and was legendary for his ability to speak with authority on about any subject. He was also a close observer of nature who revealed unheard of things about trees, plants and animals. His reign as king was a time of peace and prosperity for Israel.

“As a young man, (Solomon) had a consuming passion for Knowledge and Wisdom,” reports “Halley’s Bible Handbook,” the long-revered family Bible commentary first published in 1927 and still in wide use. “He became the literary prodigy of the world of his day. His intellectual attainments were the wonder of the age. Kings came from the ends of the earth to hear him. He lectured on Botany and Zoology. He was a Scientist, a Political Ruler, a Business Man with Vast Enterprises, a Poet, a Moralist, and Preacher.”

In addition to Ecclesiastes, Solomon penned the Book of Proverbs and the Song of Solomon.

“The Teachings of this Book of Proverbs are not expressed in a ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ as in the Law of Moses, where the Same Things are taught as a direct command of God; but rather are given as coming out of the Experience of a man who tried out and tested just about everything that men can engage in,” says Halley’s Handbook. “God, in the long record of His Revelation of Himself and His Will to Man, it seems, resorted to every possible method, not only by Commandment, and by Precept, but by Example also, to convince men that God’s Commandments are worth living by.

“Solomon’s fame was a sounding board that carried his voice to the ends of the earth, and made him an Example to All the World of the Wisdom of God’s Ideas.

“This Book of Proverbs has been called one of the ‘Best Guide Books to Success that a young man can follow.’ ”

As Halley’s Handbook succinctly sums up the great king’s demise, “Solomon’s glorious reign was clouded by a grand Mistake: his Marriage to Idolatrous women. . .This wise man of the ages, in this respect at least, we think, was just a plain common fool. Many of these women were Idolaters, daughters of heathen princes, wedded for the sake of political alliance. For them, he, who had built God’s Temple, built alongside of it Heathen Altars. Thus, Idolatry, which David had been so zealous to suppress, was re-established in the palace. This brought to a close the glorious era ushered in by David, and started the nation on its road to ruin: the Sunset of Israel’s Golden Age.

“The besotted apostasy of Solomon’s old age is one of the most pitiful spectacles in the Bible. Perhaps the account of it was intended of God to be an example of what luxury and ceaseless rounds of pleasure will do to even the best of men.”

What we see through Solomon’s melancholy poured out on the pages of Ecclesiastes, where the overriding theme is, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” is a reprobate man who’s rejected the divine revelation given to him so abundantly by God in favor of what he in himself, and in his human viewpoint, could figure out.

Frank Sinatra’s, “I did it my way,” is written all over his downfall.

As my pastor, Richard Jordan (Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.), puts it, “Solomon goes over here and says, ‘I don't need any input anymore from God or anybody else—I'm going to figure this out on my own.’ Over and over, Proverbs says the ‘fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,’ and this guy doesn't want that. He wants what he wants.”

Proverbs 18:1, for one, says Jordan, “describes perfectly what Solomon’s done. In fact, it's something his dad warned him against doing.”

The verse says, "Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.” The next verse says, “A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.”

What Solomon means by his summation, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” is that he finds everything in life, and in the world, is meaningless, but this is certainly not the case from the divine perspective.

“God created the world with a purpose and it's not meaningless, but when you look at it with human viewpoint, rejecting God's Word, you know what—this guy's right on,” says Jordan.

In Ecc. 1:18, Solomon writes, “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”

Again, this certainly isn’t true of a person increasing in divine knowledge and wisdom, but it is the way it is when the Word’s rejected and a person’s forced to go on just what they can see, feel, touch, hear and figure out on their own.

By Ecc. 2;1, which says, “I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity,” we can read Solomon’s own testimony to how he’s set his heart to do what he wants to do without the influence of God’s Word.

“You know what your heart will discover about itself when you go to the Bible?” says Jordan. “Jer. 17:9 says, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.’ Hello. You know, the premises you operate on are important.

“When George Bush answered ‘Jesus Christ’ to the question of who he thought was a great philosopher, the newsmen went into a snit. They don't think Jesus Christ is a great philosopher.

“Now if he'd named some lost, hell-bound egghead who didn't say anything worth reading, but took 50,000 words to say it, they'd say, ‘Oh, he's so well-read. Oh, he intermeddleth with all wisdom. Oh, he's been out there and looked and searched. Look how he's come up with answers that nobody believes, but boy, he's out there looking.’ ”

Obviously everyone operate on premises, and while God’s premise in His Book is that we’re all sinners who’ve got a problem only He can solve, Solomon changed his premise to, “I'm going to figure it out by my own self.”

“You know what the problem people have with Jesus Christ is? The premises that He operated on,” says Jordan. “Jesus said to a bunch of people one time, 'If you being evil give gifts to your children. . .’ Now think about that as a premise. His premise is you’re evil. That's where he started.

“You see why people don't like the Bible? The Bible's negative toward man and people know that. For decades and centuries, the Bible’s been the old black book held up where people knew, ‘Whoa, that thing’s against me!’

“While the Bible's negative toward man and positive toward God, men are positive toward themselves and negative toward God. That's backwards, that's vanity, and that's the course of meaninglessness.”

The Bible says Solomon let these “strange women,” meaning they were non-Israeli, turn his heart from God to pagan gods, and it was on the basis of human viewpoint that he concluded all was meaningless.

“He’s saying, ‘You live, you get up, you go to work, you make a living, you take your six-pack and bag of chips and watch TV. It's just a circle and you just go ’round and ’round and ’round,’ ” says Jordan. “The problem with Solomon is he couldn't get away from what he knew that God had said.”

Through the ages, people have used what Solomon writes in Ecc. 3:20 (“All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”) to try and show there isn’t any difference between man and beast; they all just die and return to the earth.

But the very next verse shows Solomon meant just the opposite of that. He writes, “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”

“Is up and down the same thing?” reasons Jordan. “No. Then the same thing doesn't happen to man and animals when they die. You die, but you don't die alike. One spirit goes up, one goes down; they don't go to the same place obviously.

“So even in Solomon’s vanity and human reasoning, describing the meaninglessness of life ‘because whatever you do in life, you wind up dying,’ he can't get away from the fact that there's a fundamental difference in the essence between man and animals where one spirit goes up and one spirit goes down.”