Solomon's judgment : the meta-riddle.

In the biblical story of Solomon’s Judgment (1 Kgs 3,16-28), after the question of how the king can determine which woman is the true mother, a further question arises: Which woman turned out to be the true mother — the plaintiff or the defendant? This study attempts to do four things: first, confirm that the latter question is a deliberate feature of the story and is thus a meta-riddle that illustrates the biblical authors’ highly sophisticated management of ambiguity; second, present the interpretation history pertaining to this riddle; third, solve the riddle; and fourth, show the effect of textual criticism on it.