Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures

Philip Davies argues that David like Arthur is an invention to explore the ideas of emerging politics. I have always been interested in Arthur. As a young man when  I read Idylls of the King by Tennyson. The musical and movie “Camelot” based on the Theodore White book Once and Future King.  Cable television has created a program Camelot in the spring of 2011. So I talked with Tom Hanks of Baylor University a Mallory scholar  to get more clarity on the Arthurian story.

He told me that Arthur began in Celtic circles as they were pushed out of Brittany by the Anglo-Saxons. One community of Celtic background remained in Britain and another group in Brittany. The political force came from Eleanor of Aquitaine.  Ambrosius evolved into a character Arthur recounted by Gildas. There are other sources such as Annales Cambriae and Historia Brittorum. Also testify to the tradition.  This last volume was the product of Gregory of Monmouth in his fanciful and imaginative treatment of the Arthurian story. Chretien DeTroyes (1170-1185) presented a French version of the Arthur legend. This material was probably a source for Mallory’s work Mort D’Arthur .  Tennyson’s Idylls of the King ere developed in ideas from Mallory.  Arthur and David share the position as the model king but that is an ambivalent and complex model of power.

 

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The blog post Archaeologist battle in the Elah Valley outlines the debate that still rages on the nature of the emergence of Israel in the land. It provides an interesting look at the  debate for class conversation.

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While recently re-watching the third "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, I was struck by the role that deceit played in the film. Every character moved about with secret motives and was constantly trying to manipulate others around them to accomplish those hidden goals. Yet, deceit is not simply something that pirates take part in, but it also plays a significant role in the Old Testament. From Jacob to Tamar, Simeon to Absalom, many of Israel's ancestors rely on trickery from time to time.

Most of us have heard the story about David and Bathsheba. David sees her bathing one day and his lust leads him to kill her husband and take Bathsheba as his own wife. However, David does not get away. Instead, the prophet Nathan tells David a parable and then points out that David is the villain in the story whom David had condemned himself.

While popular interpretations of this story argue that David believed Nathan's story was an actual legal case and that David foolishly missed the point or was tricked, Jeremy Schipper offers a different interpretation. Schipper argues that David recognized the story as a parable, but misinterpreted (either accidentally or intentionally) the different parts of the parable. Nathan's intention and David's interpretations according to Schipper are given below:

NATHAN                                                   DAVID
Lamb- Bathsheba                                       Lamb- Uriah
Poor man- Uriah                                        Poor man- Bathsheba
Traveler- n/a (perhaps David's lust)            Traveler- David
Rich man- David                                        Rich man- Joab

This misinterpretation by David seems plausible because Nathan does not address the identity of the traveler and because both Uriah and the lamb are the ones killed. According to Schipper, David attempted to use Nathan's parable as a means of shifting the blame for Uriah's murder to someone else. In particular, David used the story to denounce Joab, his general, as a "son of death" who kills on behalf of another (the traveler/David). Thus, David condemns this action in an attempt to prove that his reign is not built upon assassination plots. However, as Nathan quickly corrects, the point goes beyond the murder to the adultery with Bathsheba.

Whether we accept Schipper's proposal or not remains a matter of debate. However, it does cast David in a new light. Instead of a fool who gets tricked, David is a continued schemer in the likeness of ancestors like Jacob. Unfortunately, his scheming here is an attempt to continue covering his sins.

"Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, including his sword and his bow and his belt. So David went out wherever Saul sent him, and prospered..." (1 Sam. 18:3-5a, NASB)

"Then David arose and cut off the edge of Saul's robe secretly. It came about afterward that David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's robe." (1 Sam. 24:4b-5, NASB)

As 21st century, Westerners, we miss a lot of the significance of stories about robes and clothes in the Bible. For many of us, there is nothing super special about our clothes. They're something that we put on and off, but are also something that we can just as easily put in a give-away box. However, in the ancient near east, your clothes were also you're identity. They symbolized status in a way much more poignant than today. Oh sure our clothes signify role or wealth somewhat today. A person walking down the street in an Armani suit is likely making more than minimum wage. However, just because you manage to try on an Armani suit does not give you the privileges or wealth that a powerful businessperson might have.

Yet, for the ancients, clothes were part of your identity. If you are stripped of you clothes, you lose the identity that those clothes symbolized. Thus, it is extremely significant when Jonathon (a prince) strips off his royal robes and gives them a shepherd boy. It was essentially an abdication of the throne. Likewise, David feels guilt over cutting part of Saul robe because it was like making a premature grab at the royal throne. David was not just cutting a robe, he was attacking Saul's identity as king.


Passages like this serve as a poignant reminder that we cannot simply overlook details in Biblical narrative. Even things like the clothes that people wear (or don't wear) can have a major affect on interpretation.

"Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years."- 1 Samuel 13:1 (TNIV)

This summary of the reign of king Saul comes at the beginning of chapter 13 in 1 Samuel. However, it's placement in the story is odd. One expects to find such a summary either at the end of a story or perhaps at the beginning. Indeed, both David and Solomon have similar summaries of their reigns, but in both of their cases the summary comes after the death of the king. However, in the case of Saul, this statement appears in the middle of Saul's story. A similar thing occurs with Ish-bosheth and David in 2 Sam. 2:10-11 and 4:4-5. Here, Saul was crowned king 3 chapters earlier and had led a successful campaign against Israel's enemies. However, there is still plenty of Saul's story to go. In fact, Saul does not die until the very end of 1 Samuel.

In thinking about the placement of this statement, perhaps it is significant that, unlike David or Solomon, there is no summary statement at the end of Saul's life. Furthermore, it appears just before Saul's first major mistake as king. While waiting at Gilgal for Samuel, Saul becomes impatient and ends up disobeying God's command. Instead off waiting for Samuel to come and offer a sacrifice, Saul chooses to offer the sacrifice himself. Samuel then rebukes Saul with the harrowing claim that Saul's "kingdom will not endure" (13:14 TNIV). Indeed, things continue to go downhill for Saul as he slowly loses touch with God and slowly loses his kingdom to David.

In some ways this narrative device works lie an extended flashback in movies. There are many movies that provide you with a scene and then go back to explain how that scene came about. For example, a bomb goes off in the opening scene and then the movies flashes back to the events leading up to that bombing. We already know the ending, the question is just how did we get there. Thus, whether it is Saul or David, we get a peak at the end and must await the details that are to come. However, in Saul's case, the author is signaling that this is the beginning of the end for Saul. With no second summary at the end of his reign (unlike David and Solomon), Saul's life is a steady downhill event. After chapter 13, Saul's reign is a good as done, so one might as well only summarize the totality of Saul reign here. Thus, in chapter 13, we know that the end of Saul is coming, but the reader soon discovers that the 42 years of Saul's reign were not all good years..

I find 2 Samuel 6 to contain quite a humorous, and yet poignant tale that teaches us something about the human condition.

David and the Israelites decide to move the Ark of God (God’s dwelling place among men) to a new location.  During the move though, David got a little more than he bargained for.

David didn’t pay top dollar for the professional movers; no–he hired the kids from down the block for $20 bucks to move his stuff, the sons of Abinadab; there the kids that don’t really know how to use the bubble wrap and literally throw your box of fine china into the trailer.

Sometime during the move, the wagon slips and the Ark begins to slide off (apparently they didn’t know how to use a bungee cord).  Instinctively, Uzzah reaches out to catch it; he finds out, like many other characters in the Old Testament, that encountering unmitigated divinity unprepared is often fatal to frail humans.

Then David, who has been leading the Ark around in parade-like fashion, stops and says “Wait a minute!”  In fact, the Bible says that he became angry (2 Sam 6:8).  A God who would strike someone dead for trying to protect the Ark?  I don’t want nothing to do with that David says.

So he refuses to let the Ark enter into his city, and he sloughs it off on the poorest schmoe he can find nearby (Obed-edom).  And there the Ark remained the rest of David’s days…

HAH! Just kidding.

In the immortal words of Lee Corso, “not so fast my friends!”

Shortly thereafter, King David gets word that the Lord is blessing that poor man’s household and possessions because of the Ark’s presence.  All of the sudden, David exclaims “I got to get me some of that!” (rough translation) (2 Sam 6:12).  David quickly goes back to Obed-edom’s house and has the Ark of the Covenant moved into the City. 

It’s really interesting, isn’t it?  When following God was difficult, confusing, or causing pain, David didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but when he thinks God will give him something, he can’t get that ark in there quick enough.

I wonder how often am I like this in my own life.  How often do I “love” or pursue God simply because of what I think He can do for me?  I should love God for who He is.  A lot of people, including myself, tend not to give a rip about God until we are in a tight spot or we perceive He can give us something.

In a sense, we all come to faith initially because of what God can do for us–not the other way around.  We put our faith in Jesus because He offers us the security of eternal life, or freedom from addictions that threaten to destroy us, contentment in life, etc.  I’m not saying that this is a bad thing–its a great starting point–it just can’t be a stopping point.

We must learn to take the pleasant with the uncomfortable.  Otherwise, we become like the disciples who wanted to sit at Jesus right hand but did not want to be involved with His call to suffering and hardship.  We can not treat God like the Santa Clause we love only because He can give us something, and we must learn to love Him like we would any human being–because of His character, because of who He is.