\n<\/p>\n
Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019re listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I\u2019m Pete Enns.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And I\u2019m Jared Byas.<\/p>\n [Jaunty Intro Music begins]<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Welcome, everyone, to this episode of the podcast. Today we are talking about \u201cThe Historical David,\u201d not to be confused with the\u2026not historical David I guess?<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Chuckles] Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n With\u2014<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019ll have to just listen to the podcast to find out.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n With professor Joel Baden.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. Joel teaches at Yale. And you know, he\u2019s a big guy in Hebrew Bible and he writes all sorts of stuff, and including a book that\u2019s relevant for today\u2019s episode. It\u2019s called The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero. There\u2019s your hint.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Exactly. If that\u2019s not a provocative lead-in to this episode, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, it really is.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n All right, let\u2019s get to it.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Jaunty music plays over clip of Joel speaking] \u201cYou know, our modern idea of history, you know, \u2018as it actually was\u2019 or this sort of objective \u2018I\u2019m just going to tell the facts, ma\u2019am\u2019 sort of historical writing, that\u2019s not something that existed, I don\u2019t know, probably until a couple hundred years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n All right, Joel, thanks for being here. It\u2019s great to have you on the podcast.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n My pleasure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well let\u2019s talk about David, shall we? That\u2019s the David in the Bible. And just give us a 30,000 foot overview of where the story is found, first of all, and just what this long story of David contains generally.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Sure. So we pick up the story of David appearing on the scene right in the middle of the book of 1 Samuel. So, it\u2019s going to last for the rest of 1 Samuel, all of 2 Samuel and trail off into the first couple of chapters of 1 Kings. So we\u2019re talking about actually an almost unthinkably large amount of text devoted to, really, the biography of one character. There\u2019s really nothing else like it in the Bible. Moses has got a bunch of stuff, obviously, in the Torah, or the Pentateuch, but it\u2019s not biographical so much. This is really David\u2019s story. It places him as really the central character of the entire Hebrew Bible. Where we are, of course, is that you know, we\u2019ve gotten\u2014being in 1 Samuel, we\u2019ve left the world of the judges, of Samson, and Deborah and all of them, and we\u2019ve come to Israel\u2019s first thing resembling a king in Saul, David\u2019s predecessor. And Saul has had his ups and downs, mostly downs, and we know already from the Saul story that God is upset at Saul and is going to raise up, as the text famously says, \u201ca man after my own heart\u201d to replace Saul\u2014and that\u2019s going to be David.<\/p>\n So David enters the scene in the middle of Saul\u2019s reign, just as God has turned his affections away from Saul, in comes David to step up to the plate as it were. The story itself\u2014it\u2019s a ramble, it\u2019s an epic, it\u2019s kind of amazing in its scope. We\u2019ve got David as a youth, in the David and Goliath story, famously. You picture this little teenage kid, you know, I think he should be scrawny even if the paintings don\u2019t always make them that way. You got this kid facing up against the giant, he\u2019s got battles that he wins, he has marriages (multiple marriages, more than you\u2019d think one guy would need, but I\u2019m not one to judge). And he\u2019s got kid problems. There\u2019s a story about who\u2019s going to succeed him, which one of his sons is it going to be? It ends up being Solomon, that\u2019s a whole story unto itself. There\u2019s rebellions against him by his own kids, Absalom, most famously. He\u2019s in power, he\u2019s out of power, he\u2019s back in power. He\u2019s hated by the people, he\u2019s loved by the people. And in the end, you know, he dies a happy death of old age, you know, not before he\u2019s passed on some advice to Solomon on how to keep the family in power.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Not how to be a good king, but how to keep the family in power.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Right. Well, that kind of goes to the first question we want to talk about. Because we\u2019d like to take a step back and look at what kind of thing are we looking at when we look at the story of David? And you call it an apology. So what do you mean by that? And then, what evidence do you have for reading the David story that way? In some ways, I think that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to be talking about the rest of this episode, but maybe you can point us to a few factors that lead you there.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I think the first thing to talk about is like, when we\u2019re reading the Bible, we actually don\u2019t often ask the question of, I think, genre. It\u2019s easy when you\u2019re reading poetry, you\u2019re like, oh, this poetry, not prose, or this is laws and not narrative, whatever. But, you know, not all narratives are just straightforward historical recountings. In fact, I would go so far as to say none are. You know, our modern idea of history, you know, \u201cas it actually was,\u201d or this sort of objective, \u201cI\u2019m just going to tell the facts, ma\u2019am,\u201d sort of historical writing\u2014that\u2019s not something that existed, I don\u2019t know, probably til a couple hundred years ago, but in any case, certainly not back in ancient Israel. The purpose of writing wasn\u2019t just to record what happened exactly as it happened. Everything was written. And I mean, this is true of everything from Genesis 1 onward. Every story, every narrative in the text is written in order to convey something to the reader, to convince us of something. So, even just to step back and say, just ask the question: Why am I reading this story? Why did somebody think, \u201cI should write down this story in this way\u201d? That in itself, is I think, is sort of the very first step to starting to read the Bible in what I think of as at least a more interesting way than, \u201cWell, it\u2019s telling me the exact facts exactly as they happen.\u201d So once we start saying that, we can ask questions like: okay, so what is this story trying to do to me, as a reader? What is it trying to accomplish? What kind of feelings for the characters am I supposed to have? Am I supposed to like the characters or dislike the characters? Whose side am I supposed to be on? How is the text convincing me that so and so is good, and so and so else is bad or, you know, these kinds of cues?<\/p>\n And the David story, as you said, I categorize as an apology. Now, apology obviously doesn\u2019t mean what in this case, what it means to most people today, which is \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d An apology in the literary genre sense is\u2014we know it today, I think mostly, essentially, as what we think of as \u201cspin.\u201d An apology says, \u201cYes, I know that stuff happened. But it\u2019s not what you think. It didn\u2019t happen exactly the way it looks or might seem.\u201d And again, we have this kind of thing. We don\u2019t call them apologies, although we probably should. But we see this thing all the time today in media, in politics. You know, the example I think I use a lot is, you know, if you were to look back on\u2026well, there\u2019s so many examples of this now\u2014but you look back on, I don\u2019t know, back when the government shut down, however many years ago, that 10 years ago now or whatever it was. And you were like, okay, the government for sure shut down. Who\u2019s to blame for that? You know, as you read different people\u2019s takes on it, from the different sides, \u201cIt\u2019s the Democrats\u2019 fault\u201d, \u201cIt\u2019s the Republicans\u2019 fault.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n How do you\u2014each one of those narratives of the agreed upon events of the past is colored by, okay, so who\u2019s at fault? Who benefits? Who\u2019s to blame? Who is the real hero of the story? Those are all apologies in their way, and that\u2019s what the David story is doing too. I think what it\u2019s doing is it\u2019s taking observable known things about its main character, David, and then going to great lengths to tell us: \u201cBut I promise it\u2019s not as bad as it looks.\u201d And this is not me imposing some, you know, later literary genre onto the biblical text, quite the contrary. One of the best examples of an apology that we have comes from before David\u2019s time, from the Hittite Kingdom up in Turkey, from about the 14th century BCE. Where we have a text, you know, called The Apology of (I\u2019m not even going to bother with the king\u2019s name, it\u2019s too much to say). A text created by a king to explain how it is he ended up on the throne. Why did he need to explain that? Because he wasn\u2019t the next in line. Right? And of course, kingship was supposed to be hereditary. And this guy was not the next in line. How did he end up on the throne? He goes through this whole story, \u201cWell, the gods favored me. But, you know, the person who was supposed to be king really didn\u2019t like me, and so he tried to kill me. I didn\u2019t try to kill him. But once he tried to kill me, I had to kill him. And then I ended up on the throne and the gods and the people really liked that.\u201d<\/p>\n Which not only is a great example of texts trying to explain how something unlikely happened and it wasn\u2019t the main character\u2019s fault, it\u2019s also kind of exactly the same thing the David story is. David is a kid from nowhere, backwater Judah, which was not a particularly bustling metropolis or area back then. How did this no-one end up king of all of Israel and Judah combined? You know, in the ancient world, you don\u2019t luck into kingship. You have to\u2014you get there either because you were born into it, or because you went and wanted it and got it\u2026except in the David story. In the David story, the whole story really goes\u2014especially, you know, the rise of David, the story about how he got to be king\u2014the whole story is \u201che really didn\u2019t want that at all, but stuff just kept happening.\u201d And, you know, the crown, I mean, I\u2019m not even making this up, the crown literally falls into his lap in the Bible. And that is, you know, I think that raises the kinds of questions like: Okay, so since that seems so unlikely, from everything we know historically, what is this\u2014what\u2019s this text really trying to do?<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Mhmm. So can I ask the question, just to maybe make this a little more concrete: What is the spin actually in the David story? You\u2019re saying \u201cit\u2019s not that bad\u201d? Or could you flesh it out a little bit more? Is it more to it than that?<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Sure. Oh, yeah, sure. I mean that\u2014I was sort of alluding to it a second ago\u2014the big spin, certainly in the first part of the story, in his rise to power\u2014the big spin is \u201che didn\u2019t want this.\u201d And it\u2019s important to say that because, of course, he ends up as king after Saul and Saul\u2019s son Jonathan die. So you know, generally, you would see a nobody who comes to be king, when the previous king and that king\u2019s heir die, as I don\u2019t know, potentially suspicious. Especially when, as the Bible itself admits, you know, the previous king (this is Saul) was convinced that David was in fact trying to usurp the throne, was trying to commit a coup. Saul is convinced of this. Saul tries to kill David. David ends up running away from Saul and living among and working for the Philistines, Saul\u2019s enemies, and in fact, the very people who kill Saul in battle. And then once Saul is dead, the crown is brought to David\u2014I mean, truly, like brought to him in person and handed to him. The spin here is, despite all of those known facts, that you know, Saul was king and Jonathan should have been next, they both died at the hand of the Philistines for whom David was working\u2014and Saul thought that David was trying to do exactly this. The spin of the text is, \u201cYeah, but that\u2019s not actually how it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, and when just reading through your book, the apology or spin is necessary because there are things that happened, that can\u2019t be denied, and so we have these kind of anchor points of things that happened, but we have to be able to spin it because we can\u2019t just deny it or we can\u2019t just make it up. And so, because for me growing up, my Sunday school thing was like, well the Philistines are the enemy, but there in our Bible, David is working with the Philistines. And that\u2019s a clue that maybe something else is going on.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Right, and this happens again and again. If you were to sort of step back from the David story, and just sort of look at it in sort of structural outline, I think what you\u2019d see\u2014and I, lots of people have recognized this\u2014what you see is lots of bad stuff happens. Lots of people die, not just Saul and Jonathan, but you know, husbands of people who become David\u2019s wife (I\u2019m thinking here of Abigail). The story of how Abigail becomes David\u2019s wife involves, by the Bible\u2019s own admission, David running a protection racket. Like a, you know, like a minor mafia Don, and killing\u2014or not killing\u2014and Abigail\u2019s husband dying, according to the text, just at the hand of God. At which point Abigail\u2019s like, \u201cSure I\u2019ll be your wife.\u201d But there\u2019s this\u2014over and over again, you know, even after he\u2019s come to power, when he\u2019s waging war against Saul\u2019s descendants, and the former general of Saul\u2019s kingdom, you know, he says, \u201cI can bring Saul\u2019s kingdom over to your side,\u201d and you know, terrific, that happens\u2014and then that guy dies, is murdered. All this stuff just looks bad. It\u2019s just, he\u2019s surrounded, David is surrounded by death in his story, and every single death that occurs benefits him politically and personally. And the text goes to enormous lengths for every single one of them to say, \u201cbut David didn\u2019t do it\u201d or \u201cbut David wasn\u2019t there\u201d or \u201cbut David didn\u2019t want this.\u201d You know, and so the story itself is one of stuff you\u2019d never want to say about your king. Or especially, especially your like, founding father legend king, right? Which is what David certainly becomes. But when you\u2019re reading the books of Samuel, it\u2019s just episode after episode of stuff that really shouldn\u2019t happen. Bad stuff. Absalom, his son, tries to commit a coup against him and succeeds for a while, and then is killed. And even that death, right? Famously, David weeps profusely over the death of Absalom, although there\u2019s no other way that story ends except with David necessarily needing Absalom to die. It\u2019s all this stuff throughout.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Maybe we can just nerd out a little bit, but can you say more\u2014you talk about Joab being a central part of this apology. He\u2019s almost sort of a necessary character to pull off this apology. Can you say more about who Joab was and how does he function in this apology?<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Sure. In the story of David, Joab is his right-hand man, right? He\u2019s his consigliere, not to be too heavy handed with the mafia analogies here. But he\u2019s his general, he\u2019s his top general. And it is an astonishing feature of the story that when there are political opponents that need getting rid of, all too often it is Joab who does the dirty deed. And again, repeatedly it\u2019s\u2014you know, Joab, Joab stabs like two or three people in the story, always important figures that needed getting rid of. And every time David\u2019s like, \u201cWhat a terrible thing you\u2019ve done, Joab, getting rid of my most powerful enemy.\u201d And you know, curses Joab and, you know, swears that all these terrible things will happen to Joab because he was such an awful person who, of course, never gets, I don\u2019t know, fired for any of this stuff, of course. You know. Joab plays the part of like, the\u2014exactly sort of, I guess exactly like in a mafia family right? The, you know, Don Corleone isn\u2019t actually killing anyone himself.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It creates a distance, so plausible deniability.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Indeed, I mean, and not just plausible deniability, because the Bible is actually making the case it\u2019s actual deniability, right? There\u2019s actual denial. One of my favorite examples of this, and it\u2019s the story I was just talking about, is when the general from Saul\u2019s army sort of flips sides and comes to David and meets with David and says, \u201cI brought the north over to your side, David.\u201d Three times in that, at least three times in this one chapter it says, you know, \u201cwhen he left David\u2019s side, he was completely unharmed.\u201d And even that alone is simply not an objective recording of historical fact. That\u2019s clearly intended to say, \u201cwhatever is about to happen to this guy, David had nothing to do with it.\u201d That to me is really a stunner of a giveaway. \u201cWhen he left David, he was totally safe.\u201d To say that over and over again, in one chapter, is a little bit on the order of, you know, \u201cthe lady doth protest too much.\u201d<\/p>\n [Ad break]<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay, so, I want to make sure we get to a couple of things here, because we can\u2019t talk about David without talking about two stories: David and Goliath, and then David and Bathsheba. So, let\u2019s go through those stories. And, you know, give us an overview of, first, David and Goliath, and how that story fits into the spin.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n David and Goliath is probably\u2014David and Bathsheba is the other one\u2014is probably the most famous of the episodes in the David story. I mean, we still talk all the time about, you know, David-and-Goliath kinds of confrontations. This is right at the beginning. And again, as I said earlier on, right, you picture David as sort of like a kid. He\u2019s not even really old enough to be in battle according to this story, right? His brothers have gone to fight and he\u2019s just come to check on them, and, you know, he just happens to be the one who\u2019s brave enough to go face down this giant one-on-one. Setting aside any question of you know, whether it\u2019s historically accurate, this is exactly the kind of story that establishes David as worthy of kingship. He has, you know, he walks out, he\u2019s the only one in the entire country brave enough to fight off the Philistines. That\u2019s a slap in the face to Saul who made his name fighting the Philistines. The whole story is, I think, you know, clearly intended to let us know (and I think this is how everyone has always taken it) this guy is the man \u201cafter God\u2019s own heart\u201d right? This is the, this is the deserving next king of Israel.<\/p>\n The problem with the story\u2014there\u2019s two problems with this story. Here\u2019s the\u2014I\u2019ll do the, like the sillier of the problems first\u2014Is that you read the David story, you get to what some might call the boring parts, which is sort of the listing of the warriors who are in David\u2019s army among David\u2019s fighters, and what their exploits were. This is a little sort of Homeric section of, you know, pithy kind of descriptions, \u201cAh, then there was this guy who fought three lions with his bare hands in the valley of whatever, he was a great warrior. And then there\u2019s this other guy who faced down 50 enemies by himself.\u201d And then we read about \u201cthis one guy, Elhanan who killed Goliath,\u201d and then like, describes Goliath perfectly. You know, Goliath, this giant of a man, this giant Philistine from Gath, who had a spear like a weaver\u2019s beam, right? Like these exact precise descriptions. You\u2019re like, \u201cwait a second, I don\u2019t think there are two Goliaths. That seems unlikely.\u201d And so this at least raises the possibility, to my mind, probability, that this list of David\u2019s warriors exploits was sort of a something of an independent, freestanding kind of thing. And somebody came along was like, \u201cWell, David needs a killer story to like, vault him into position of fame. Let\u2019s just take this one.\u201d And so David gets this expanded version of the story about killing Goliath.\u00a0<\/p>\n I mean, that at least raises some questions about the validity of this story. The bigger and better problem is this: we almost all of us play this remarkable sort of\u2026remarkable logical trick in our heads when we read the Bible. It doesn\u2019t happen just here, it happens all over the place, where somebody would say like, to a reasonably you know, well read biblical reader\u2014\u201dTalk to me about like, how it is that David becomes famous, or rises to some sort of some sort of fame.\u201d And you\u2019ll hear, \u201cOh, well you know, obviously he killed Goliath, that was a big one, you know, when he was a kid. And you know, when Saul was having his sort of fits because the Spirit of God was troubling him, David soothed him with the lyre.\u201d This is\u2014these are two incredibly famous images of David, again, both of them well preserved in art and that sort of thing. So we\u2019re familiar, I think. The David-playing-the-lyre-for-Saul stuff is deeply connected with David being the author of the Psalms, these are longstanding big kinds of traditions about David.<\/p>\n The problem is in the biblical text they don\u2019t go together, even though they\u2019re in chapters right next to each other. So let me explain what I mean by that. In 1 Samuel 16 we meet David for the first time. And we meet David for the first time when Saul has, you know, this evil spirit from God has been put on him, and he\u2019s struggling a little bit with it. And they\u2019re like, \u201cWe need to find someone who can soothe this guy.\u201d And someone\u2019s like, \u201cThere\u2019s this kid I heard of, David\u201d who has already in a sort of side moment, has already been secretly anointed by Samuel as king in a Cinderella-style selection process where they like go through all the brothers and then it\u2019s like \u201cOh, it must be the younger one whose heel fits in the shoe.\u201d Samuel has anointed David in secret and then somebody fortuitously is like, \u201cOh, I hear this David kid can play the lyre.\u201d And David is brought to Saul and plays the lyre and Saul is soothed, and he\u2019s like, \u201cI like this kid. I\u2019m going to keep him by my side as my arms bearer,\u201d is what Saul says when David plays the lyre for him in chapter 16. And then Saul sends a note to David\u2019s father, Jesse, and is like, \u201cHey, just to let you know, I\u2019m going to keep your kid with me as my arms bearer. And he can play the lyre for me.\u201d Awesome. That\u2019s all well and good. And then we get to chapter 17 and Saul\u2019s out there on the battlefield of the Philistines, and\u2026where is his arms bearer? He\u2019s home with his dad. And that\u2019s weird, first of all. And then when David does show up, and he like, goes out into the battlefield, he\u2019s like, you know, facing off with Goliath, Saul turns to his general and goes, \u201cWho the hell is that?\u201d And you\u2019d think the response would be like, \u201cThat\u2019s your arms bearer. I guess he\u2019s like A-WOL, or has been.\u201d But you know, they\u2019re like, \u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019ll find out who that is\u201d as if they\u2019ve never seen him before.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n So there are two introductions to David.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s two introductions to David and they both do the same thing, sort of functionally, right? They both bring Saul\u2014bring David into Saul\u2019s court. Because the end of the Goliath story is the same, right? You know, Saul sees David do this brave thing. He\u2019s like, \u201cHey, why don\u2019t you come hang out with me? I\u2019m going to tell your dad,\u201d right? So, you\u2019ve got these two stories that are functionally a doublet. How did David, a nobody kid, end up hanging out with Saul in the royal court? One story is because he plays the lyre so nicely. And one story is he faced down Goliath. But they don\u2019t, they absolutely don\u2019t go together. Leaving aside the question of like, is one or the other historically accurate, the presence of two competing stories in the text right next to each other doing the same thing and not working together? Kind of that in itself raises for me at least the question of: Okay, so who\u2019s responsible for writing and constructing these stories? There\u2019s someone trying to accomplish something. Again, this is, you know, what\u2019s the aim of the text, what\u2019s the aim of the writer? It\u2019s to get us to know that David is worthy, that David is special, that David is destined for great things, even though David will spend the next many chapters denying that he is in any way.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The only thing I would mention before we move on from that is when you read the book and read the story as spin, as you know, this is trying to defend the way in which David came to the throne, so to speak. That David and Goliath story, I always love the part where he goes\u2014when he first shows up on the scene, he\u2019s like going around asking, \u201cWhat happens again if I kill this Goliath?\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, well, you know, you basically get\u2014you get the daughter of the king in marriage, which basically puts you in line, you know, for the throne.\u201d And then he keeps asking, it says that he asked a couple of times, and then his oldest brother basically gets really mad at him because he\u2019s like, \u201cI know you. I know what kind of person you are. You\u2019re out to get something out of this.\u201d And just\u2026For me, growing up, I always read that story as the older brother is just jealous and, clearly, you know, is going against God\u2019s will and all of this\u2014but then when you read it in the context of the whole story, you\u2019re like, well, maybe he did. Maybe he did know his brother.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s a funny thing that happens actually\u2014just you know, while we\u2019re on the topic, it\u2019s a funny thing that happens where there are people in this story who say the true things about David sometimes. You know, Saul says the right thing. Saul\u2019s like, \u201cYou are trying to get my throne,\u201d and he turns to Jonathan, who is, you know, enamored with David. And he\u2019s like, \u201cYou\u2019re siding with this guy? You\u2019re just going to hand him our, you know, our legacy, our Throne, our inheritance, the kingship?\u201d He looks at all these people around he\u2019s like, you know, he sees David come back victorious from battle and he\u2019s like, \u201cMan, the people love him. Next thing he\u2019s gonna want is to be in power.\u201d And he says all these things and then he tries to kill David repeatedly, both in his court and then chasing him down. He\u2019s like constantly accusing David of wanting to usurp the throne. All of which I think is almost certainly true! But the story presents Saul as crazy. So it\u2019s as if they\u2019re recognizing the fact that people were for sure saying these things about David. But what kind of person would say this? Right? Only a crazy person would think that David actually wanted that. And they literally put it in the mouth of somebody who they portrayed as crazy. Even though everything Saul says actually comes true.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s like they have to\u2026I mean, back to David and his elder brother Eliab and the accusation basically that David is ambitious. From what Jared read, you get that impression. And it seems like that creates a little bit of a tension in a-man-after-God\u2019s-own-heart business. I think at least it does. But there\u2019s a sense in which naming it might be better than not mentioning it at all.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I think that\u2019s a really nice observation. And I think that, again, this is part of what happens in spin is, you know, \u201cpeople are going to tell you that it was like this, but it wasn\u2019t.\u201d But you have to say the first part, right? Saying the first part actually does some rhetorical work for you. It makes it so that you\u2019re not\u2014it makes it sound less completely made up in a sense. It\u2019s like, \u201cNo, I know that this is what people are saying, and even though it might look this way, and it might even look this way to people at the time, you know, to the people around him.\u201d But David gets all of the opportunity to prove over and over again that he wanted none of this, right? When Saul tries to kill him and David sneaks up on him twice and is like, \u201cI could have killed you, but I didn\u2019t. See how honest I am? See how little I want this? You\u2019re chasing me down for no reason at all.\u201d When Saul and Jonathan die and David weeps and wails, and he has this wonderful lament over them. You know, he demonstrates again and again, in his own words, that he didn\u2019t want it. But you\u2019re right, the people out there who lay accusations against him, they\u2019re part of the story too.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Right. And like right after that, with Eliab, you know, accusing his brother of ambition, that\u2019s when you get to the actual narrative of the killing of Goliath. And David comes out looking really good there. It\u2019s like, yeah, all that stuff\u2026\u201dBut look at what he did.\u201d And he\u2019s like super Israelite here, he\u2019s like total king material, right? He\u2019s honoring the Lord, he\u2019s defying the armies of the Philistines, and he just goes at it in pretty short order. So yeah, I can see your point of having both of those elements in the narrative. It\u2019s not just, you know, a nice tale that only props up, you know, your leader. It acknowledges the problems, but then sort of deflects them a little bit.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I mean, one of the things\u2014I don\u2019t know how far down this rabbit hole you want to go, but you know, one of the things that I consider a really nice sort of data point for reading David\u2019s story in Samuel as apology is the other story of David in the Bible, which is, you know, the retelling of it in the Book of Chronicles\u2014which is hundreds of years later and well distant from any events and has none of the bad stuff in it. There\u2019s not a single hint of negative anything about David, he\u2019s perfect. There\u2019s no rebellion against him. He has no problems with Saul. Right? Everything is totally whitewashed, and polished and cleaned up in a way that, once you\u2019ve read Samuel, reads as ridiculous in a sense. But it\u2019s clear that at that point, they don\u2019t need to be convincing you that David is great. Right? They can just, you know that David is terrific at this point, when Chronicles is being written, you know, hundreds of years later. Which is why when you go back then to read Samuel, you\u2019re like, man, they\u2019re both acknowledging all this bad stuff. Not just the bad things that happened, but the bad things people were saying and rebutting it directly. That suggests so strongly to me that they must have felt\u2014someone must have felt the need to do this, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n People must have known what happened, known what was saying, even maybe thought some nasty things about David. And these writers were like, okay, well, how do we make sure that sort of the history written by us, the victors, makes it clear that David was in fact, great? There\u2019s an argument being made in that text that, again, is not at all dissimilar\u2014and it\u2019s so easy these days to turn to politics, but you know, you could watch whichever your preferred news channel is and get essentially the same kind of thing happening. Where, you know, we\u2019re going to talk about what\u2019s going on, but our guy is going to come out looking great and the other guy is going to come out looking bad. \u201cCan you believe they\u2019re saying this stuff about Trump or Biden or whomever? Can you believe they\u2019re saying that stuff about him? That\u2019s just jealous pettiness. Here\u2019s what\u2019s really going on.\u201d You know, I think we\u2019re just all super familiar with it, even if we don\u2019t think about it, you know, as being the same thing. We\u2019re familiar with it from today\u2019s political and media landscape. We just don\u2019t really usually think about the Bible as playing politics and media, but it is.<\/p>\n [Ad break]<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well Pete mentioned earlier, we know, the David and Goliath story is one famous story, an example of how we can talk about the shape of the story of David. The other is Bathsheba. But I would broaden that out, just kind of like what we did with Goliath in the introduction of David and all of that, to just kind of David\u2019s relationship with women, in general, is problematic. And maybe you can talk a little bit, maybe we start with Bathsheba, but I\u2019d like to talk about it in the context of the other women in David\u2019s life and how they end up being married to him.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, as I said at the beginning, David\u2019s got a lot of wives sequentially. And they basically all, at least the ones that we know anything about, are\u2026like the deaths that happen around him, the marriages that happened around him are also usually to his political benefit. At least as presented to us in this story. So we have, you know, David marries Saul\u2019s daughter Michal, which is something of an unexpected twist. He was supposed to marry a different one, but Saul kind of rescinds that offer and David ends up marrying Michal instead. That\u2019s a big deal if you are interested in getting into the kingship, but that\u2019s advantageous to him. But it doesn\u2019t go anywhere, that particular marriage. Perhaps because she\u2019s childless? The story presents it\u2014or, I mean, she becomes childless at a certain point. But also because he gets kicked out of the court, you know, after they\u2019ve been married. She helps him run away. The famous you know, \u201cdoll in the bed\u201d trick.<\/p>\n He marries Abigail\u2014this story that I was mentioning earlier where Abigail\u2019s husband Nabal (or Nah-ball), in inexplicable divinely ordained circumstances that benefit David who has been on the run from Saul, and, you know, [David] runs this protection racket with this rich guy Nabal [and] ends up with all of Nabal\u2019s vast amounts of wealth and animals and land and his wife. That\u2019s, you know, clearly advantageous. Weirdly, the one marriage that is not seemingly politically advantageous is the Bathsheba one. Which is kind of a fascinating blip as it were in the story of David. Bathsheba and her story are really, not to complicate things too much, are really part of the Solomon story. Which is to say, I think we\u2019ve got something similar going on with Solomon that we do with David, which is people writing the story of Solomon in a way that makes Solomon look good and necessary, because Solomon also should not have been the next king after David. He was the fourth son, what was he doing? How did he end up in power? It\u2019s the same kind of questions, right? How did this guy, this fourth son end up in power? \u201cWell, first son, the eldest son died and the second eldest son committed treason against his father and the third eldest son committed treason much later\u2026So anyway, that\u2019s how he ended up as king.\u201d<\/p>\n But the Bathsheba Story is one that I think is unabashedly bad for David. And that\u2019s one of the reasons I think it so captures the imagination. And certainly, it\u2019s one of the reasons that it has been, sort of weirdly, a favorite story even for people who read this text very literally and to take its morals very seriously. Because Bathsheba\u2019s story, and you guys probably know this better than I, the Bathsheba Story is where people turn to to say, \u201cDavid sinned just like everyone else. He was a guy just like everyone else. He was a man and he had his flaws but even, you know\u2014what the story teaches us is that even the flawed person who sins can be redeemed and welcomed back.\u201d Somehow, when you love David a lot, and Jewish and Christian tradition really loved David a lot, even the story that makes him look most terrible like the Bathsheba story somehow becomes a point in his favor. But the Bathsheba story itself is I think a unmitigated disaster narratively, at least, for David. He sees a woman, he decides I\u2019m going to take that woman, he does. He has her husband killed in a particularly vicious sort of way, not before trying to, you know, sort of get out of trouble for having impregnated her. He has Uriah killed and is delighted by it. And then is only shown the error of his ways when the prophet Nathan is like, you know, famously, \u201cYou\u2019re the [rich] man\u201d in the parable of the rich man and the poor man. But there\u2019s no political benefit to David from that particular pairing. Which is why I think it stands out. It\u2019s also the longest episode of David and one of his wives. And Bathsheba is the only one who comes back again in the story, as she does later when David is very old and she puts Solomon on the throne. But it\u2019s a\u2014yeah, it is the episode that in a sense, humanizes David as we\u2019re reading the Bible, it humanizes David even as it is simply more straightforward about what a bad guy he is.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n He certainly is.<\/p>\n Jared\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, can I ask one more question because I think this is fascinating, and it\u2019s a little more conjectural, but I think it\u2019s interesting enough to mention. And that is Ahinoam, how she functions in this text.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, so 98% of the people listening to this are gonna say \u201cwho?\u201d I would guess. Because, I mean, I grew up knowing these stories, and even I was\u2026I mean, it\u2019s such a passing thing. It just says in like one little passing verse relatively early in the story, you know, \u201cand then David married Ahinoam.\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cAlright, well, that didn\u2019t mean much to me.\u201d But there are only, there\u2019s only two times that someone with that name is mentioned in the Bible. One is here with David marries this person. And one is earlier when we learned that that\u2019s the name of Saul\u2019s wife. And I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a huge leap to suggest that maybe one of the things that David did in his unrelenting desire for power was to sort of steal Saul\u2019s wife. Now, that may sound like a kind of crazy thing, but the ability to sleep with the king\u2019s wife is the ability to commit a coup. This is, in fact, exactly what Absalom will do back to David later in the story. Absalom will sleep with David\u2019s concubines, thereby asserting his power. If you can do that and get away with it, you\u2019re the king. I think that\u2019s a pretty good rule all around: if you can sleep with the king\u2019s wife and live to tell the tale, you probably are king now.<\/p>\n And I think this is what\u2014I think potentially this is maybe what David did\u2014he slept with Saul\u2019s wife. The problem is he didn\u2019t get away with it. Because Saul then starts pursuing him and kicks him out of the court and starts chasing him around the country. You know, the other little bit of evidence for this is Ahinoam disappears from Saul\u2019s story after this, and when Saul has future children, they\u2019re said to be born from his concubine Rizpah. So we have both Ahinoam showing up in the David story and disappearing from the Saul story at the same time. Now, I would suggest that this is potentially the same kind of spin, it\u2019s just spin through incredibly strong downplaying. You know, they couldn\u2019t deny the fact I guess that David married Saul\u2019s wife, but they don\u2019t make it into a story. They accomplish it simply by removing her from Saul\u2019s, you know, family tree and simply, there\u2019s one verse of like, \u201cAnd David married Ahinoam, anyway, where were we?\u201d And then it goes on from there, because that would be\u2014it is such a manifest coup attempt to sleep with the king\u2019s wife. It is speculative, but you know, one of the things I guess I want to say in the big picture is it\u2019s all kind of speculative. In a sense, what we\u2019re trying to do here is not necessarily to say straight out, \u201cAh, this is what actually for sure happened,\u201d because in a sense, that\u2019s just as bad as being like, \u201cWhat the Bible says is exactly what actually happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n What I\u2019m really after here is to think about why the Bible tells stories the way it tells stories. What are the authors trying to accomplish? And even if, you know, we disagree about the likelihood of this or that reconstruction of what may have underlaid the stories it\u2019s told, it\u2019s really a question of like, how do we read the Bible? That I think is what\u2019s really at stake here.<\/p>\n Pete\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You know, the big picture\u2014what I\u2019m hearing and for you kids at home, the message of the David story is not \u201cbe like David.\u201d It is\u2014maybe it\u2019s to accept the kind of literature that the story is and to read it as an adult, you know, with asking questions of genre and purpose. I love the question, you know, why was the story ever written this way? I think that alone is just a great thing I think for people to walk away with, from an episode like this. Thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with us, and great talking to you about David.<\/p>\n Joel\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, guys.\u00a0<\/p>\n Outro\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Jaunty outro music plays] You\u2019ve just made it through another episode of The Bible for Normal People. Thanks to our listeners who support us each week by rating the podcast, leaving a review, and telling others about our show. We couldn\u2019t have made this amazing episode without the help of our Producer\u2019s Group: Brian, Tracie Falconburg, Shelly Shepherd, Mark Kupets, Michelle Mastin, Jeanne and John Hawkins, Tom Hoy, Justin Bodeutsch, Drew & Regina Forsyth, and Bryant Culpepper! As always, you can support the podcast at patreon.com\/thebiblefornormalpeople, where for as little as $3\/month you can receive bonus material, be part of an online community, get course discounts and much more. This episode was brought to you by The Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Prescott, Savannah Locke, Stephanie Speight, Tessa Stultz, Nick Striegel, Haley Warren, Jessica Shao and Natalie Weyand!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n