Ship of Fools: David and Bathsheba

Thread: David and Bathsheba Board: Kerygmania / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

The Incident

Seems like out English translations have problems with this story.

Instead of saying "David slept [with Bathsheba]" I think it should be translated, "David took her."

In other words, the story is about a rape, not consensual sex between two adults.

Host note: corrected spelling

[ 07. June 2017, 22:40: Message edited by: Moo ]

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

The whole issue of consent was kind of foggy, in that period. You didn't actually need to discuss sex with the woman. All you needed to do was cut a deal with her father or brother, and you were in good shape. David's actual sin didn't really involve sex. (Samuel didn't discuss it.) It involved offing Uriah to cover the theft of his wife.
The text doesn't even consider Bathsheba's intent. For all we know she was delighted to shag David, the way there are women (we must assume, somewhere, because there are stupid women) who would even now be willing to shag Donald Trump. Or, Bathsheba might have rationalized it by thinking this would advance her husband's career.

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

Could some Kind Host please correct the spelling mistake in the thread title?

[Paranoid]

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Brenda Clough

quote:
The whole issue of consent was kind of foggy, in that period.

......or any period one cares to mention?

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

The mind boggles. trumpy as King David grabbing pussy because when you're famous they just let you do it.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The whole issue of consent was kind of foggy, in that period. You didn't actually need to discuss sex with the woman. All you needed to do was cut a deal with her father or brother, and you were in good shape. David's actual sin didn't really involve sex. (Samuel didn't discuss it.) It involved offing Uriah to cover the theft of his wife.
The text doesn't even consider Bathsheba's intent. For all we know she was delighted to shag David, the way there are women (we must assume, somewhere, because there are stupid women) who would even now be willing to shag Donald Trump. Or, Bathsheba might have rationalized it by thinking this would advance her husband's career.

But the text does say that God was displeased with what David had done, not with what David and Bathsheba had done.

I think rape is probably about right. David was king, so there was a power gap beyond male-female. He had to ask who she was when he saw her bathing on the roof, which would appear to have been her mikveh, and he sent for her simply because he thought she was beautiful and he wanted himself some of that.

Realistically, she was probably a teenager—old enough to have passed puberty and to be married, but she hadn't had a child yet. Messengers just showed up at her door at night and told her the king had summoned her because he wanted her.

Yeah, consent may have been quite a different deal then, but realistically speaking, I imagine she had very little choice.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

Realistically, she was probably a teenager—old enough to have passed puberty and to be married, but she hadn't had a child yet. Messengers just showed up at her door at night and told her the king had summoned her because he wanted her.

Yeah, consent may have been quite a different deal then, but realistically speaking, I imagine she had very little choice.

She would have had next to no choice, I'd say, but where did you get the first quoted paragraph from? It may well be right but I can't think of any basis in the text for it apart from the call by the messengers.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Brenda Clough
quote:
The whole issue of consent was kind of foggy, in that period.
......or any period one cares to mention?

I would say that now, in this era, we are finally approaching real consent. For women of the right nationality, the correct socioeconomic class, etc. Up, in other words, from zero.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

Realistically, she was probably a teenager—old enough to have passed puberty and to be married, but she hadn't had a child yet. Messengers just showed up at her door at night and told her the king had summoned her because he wanted her.

Yeah, consent may have been quite a different deal then, but realistically speaking, I imagine she had very little choice.
She would have had next to no choice, I'd say, but where did you get the first quoted paragraph from? It may well be right but I can't think of any basis in the text for it apart from the call by the messengers.

No, it's not in the text, per se, except to the extent that no children with Uriah are mentioned. It's just deduction/informed speculation from what is known about the culture generally. And it might be wrong.

Girls were considered women at puberty. Often they were betrothed at around 9 or 10, and then married around the time of puberty, say 12 or 13. Clearly Bathsheba was not barren, so if the lack of mention of any child with Uriah indeed means that she had no children yet when David slept with her, it's not unreasonable to take from that that she hadn't been married long. Even if she and Uriah had been married 3 or 4 years, that could still have her in the 16–17 year old range.

Meanwhile David was considerably older and was king.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

... and since the average healthy couple has an 85% chance of a pregnancy in their first year together, I'm guessing it was a very recent marriage, and Bathsheba quite a young teenager. She is after all the granddaughter of Ahithophel, David's counselor, who turned against him after this episode and supported his son's rebellion. So there at least is one man who took the impact on his granddaughter very, very seriously. And the fact that he is apparently in good health at the time of his suicide (able to ride, travel, plot, etc.) suggests he is not what we would consider "old"--let's say maybe sixty at most. Yet his granddaughter is married.

I really do think the Lord considered the rape as well as Uriah's death--he does characterize Bathsheba as a hapless innocent lamb, which is about as exonerating as you can get. Uriah's death probably got the emphasis after "you are the man!" because there was no possibility whatsoever of making reparations to him, unlike Bathsheba, who was still alive to receive them. (Anybody else think this might have something to do with the reason David designated her next son as heir?)

[ 08. June 2017, 04:44: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Yes, you could both be right, but as the Scots would say "not proven".

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Yes, you could both be right, but as the Scots would say "not proven".

Which is why I said "realistically, she was probably a teenager." We can't be sure from the text, but in context it seems more likely than not.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I'd describe it as a real possibility.

I recall the last time it came up in the lectionary. The woman who did the reading was then in her early 80s. She would have known the account for most of a long life, and probably read it in church more than once - then her preparation for reading it this day. She got to verse 15 and the enormity of what David had done really struck her as if she had just read it for the first time - she stopped, stunned, and found it hard to finish the reading.

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:

quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Brenda Clough
quote:
The whole issue of consent was kind of foggy, in that period.
......or any period one cares to mention?
I would say that now, in this era, we are finally approaching real consent. For women of the right nationality, the correct socioeconomic class, etc. Up, in other words, from zero.

Is it safe to assume that most sex for most of human history, in or out of marriage, would be considered non-consensual if not outright rape by modern standards?

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

No, of course not. Most relationships are unequal (perfect symmetry is always rare) but most men are not rapists. What we have now, that was very rare in the past, was the awareness of this.
Charlotte Bronte's curate husband sincerely adored her. But she married him, not for love (at the outset) but because she had to marry her father's curate and no other man would do. It would never have occurred to Arthur Nichols to deplore her lack of options; that was life. I resort to a historical example only because we can safely discuss them without dragging personalities into itt; there are many interesting cases in modern life in the tabloids.

Posted by Callan (# 525) on :

I think that it is interesting that the trope, "oh, but she led him on, the filthy little slut" is nowhere deployed in the Bible. Which given that David is one of the good guys and the Bible is not quite the feminist manifesto is quite telling.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Gramps

quote:
n other words, the story is about a rape, not consensual sex between two adults.

This is not a story about rape or consenting sex, IMO. It is not principally about the treatment of Bathsheba but the treatment of Uriah. As has been pointed out, the behaviour of Bathsheba is not censured. Indeed, Nathan sees her as an innocent "little ewe lamb'.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Exactly. Not only does she not have agency or free will, nobody expects her to, not even she herself. (Recall that it is she who engineers Solomon's succession. There is no notion that she could pick up the ball herself and run with it.) Not even God (through his prophet) expected her to have anything to say about it one way or another. Swapping out a dumb animal for a grown woman in the metaphor made perfect sense to everybody.

It is not the better conditions for women now that we can congratulate ourselves for. God knows we have a long row to hoe on this one. But the mere awareness has to come first, and we at least dimly now have that, some of us, for some of us. Before you can do it, you have to be able to imagine it, and now we have. Go, us!

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Exactly. Not only does she not have agency or free will, nobody expects her to, not even she herself. (Recall that it is she who engineers Solomon's succession. There is no notion that she could pick up the ball herself and run with it.) Not even God (through his prophet) expected her to have anything to say about it one way or another. Swapping out a dumb animal for a grown woman in the metaphor made perfect sense to everybody.

It is not the better conditions for women now that we can congratulate ourselves for. God knows we have a long row to hoe on this one. But the mere awareness has to come first, and we at least dimly now have that, some of us, for some of us. Before you can do it, you have to be able to imagine it, and now we have. Go, us!

Er--she's not of the royal house, so the best she can expect legally is to put her son on the throne. She does an admirable job of politicking and it works.

I don't think we need to fault Nathan for em-parablizing her as a "dumb animal." If he had started off telling a story about two men and a woman, even David would have smelt a rat. To get under his radar, it needed to be a parable, and it needed to be something that could conceivably happen and contravene Israel's laws, thus requiring a judgment from the king.

As for her having anything to say--well, I doubt the king's wives were hanging around the judgment hall very often, and particularly not Bathsheba, with a newborn. I suppose Nathan could have called her in--but to what purpose? IMHO Nathan is concerned primarily with neither Uriah nor Bathsheba, both of whose situations are past mending. He is concerned with David the sinner and criminal here.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

It's worth having a look at Nathan's whole parable of the ewe lamb (and I agree with Lamb Chopped, Nathan needed to do this via a parable, and a masterful one it is).

I find it interesting that when Nathan pronounces God's judgment on David, he says that punishment will come in the form of the child dying (which it did) and also by having his wives taken:

quote:
Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. [vv. 11-12]

So, a death for a death, and also an adultery for an adultery.

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

BC:

quote:
Charlotte Bronte's curate husband sincerely adored her. But she married him, not for love (at the outset) but because she had to marry her father's curate and no other man would do.

Errr, this is a tangent but do you have any evidence to suggest that Charlotte did not love Arthur, or that she "had" to marry him? Her father vehemently opposed the match, and she had to stick to her guns to get married at all. And even then her father refused to attend the service - he changed his mind on the morning of the wedding.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

There's a great fat biography, THE BRONTES, by Juliet somebody (I am not at home where I could look at the book) which she wrote after perusing all their letters. Charlotte was on the fence about marrying Nichols and mentions it in letters to friends. But because he was the curate she could, by marrying him, ensure that her father could die in his post. Nichols would do most (or all) of the work and the two of them could live at Haworth and take care of Patrick in his declining years. And as a matter of fact she made a superb choice. She grew to love him. And even after she died, 9 months after the wedding, he continued to live in the parsonage and take care of Patrick until the old man finally did die.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Really I doubt any choice is ever entirely free. There are always constraints of some sort, even if no human being actively worked to put them there. That's just what it means to live in a real environment with definite properties. Add in other people also trying to live, and you'll get ... constraint.

Most of the time it's innocent IMHO--just more of the real world that free will gets to work on. In Bathsheba's case, that world involved an older husband who was away at work a lot (innocent) and who had a predatory commander-in-chief (not). That sucks. She did the best she could with it, and IMHO Nathan respected that. David, too, after his repentance seems to have manned up (oops) decent-humaned-up and tried to atone for what he did to her. A lot of kings would have swept her away to some dark corner of the harem and never seen her again.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

I don't think it is warranted from the text to say that David raped Bathsheba. Certainly the word used for lying with her has no such connotation - though it is very often used for sex. Rape or not rape is as others have said a hard question to answer here.

It is interesting, however, that apart from an initial identification she is not named in the story at all, until after the baby has died and David consoles her and lies with her (same word again as at the beginning of the story). The effect, ISTM, is to emphasise her powerlessness, and to take any sense of agency from her. She is very much someone who is done to rather than an actor. It may not have been rape, but the story makes clear where the power lies.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

Later on she does have power in ensuring her surviving son becomes king and she becomes the king's mother (which seems to have been an official role with real power). One could easily spin a lot of the later events as her taking a slow revenge on David's family other than her own son.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I am absolutely certain there have been novels. The scenario clearly cries out for treatment in fiction. You can imagine the several different approaches. The feminist empowerment novel, in which the raped teen gradually secures political power and then revenges herself. The romance, in which the child-bride is Awakened by the handsome older monarch and much hot sex ensues. The Christian inspirational novel, in which after sin (the prophet gets a big role in this one) there is expiation and then forgiveness and reward. These books must be out there, or someone could write them.
(But it ain't me, babe.)

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I am absolutely certain there have been novels.

There is The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks. It's narrated by Natan (Nathan) and is about David, but Batsheva (Bathsheba) is certainly a significant character.

I found it a good read.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I am absolutely certain there have been novels. The scenario clearly cries out for treatment in fiction.

Not to mention the 1951 movie with Gregory Peck & Susan Hayward (imaginatively called David and Bathsheba--how DO they come up with these titles?). And, of course, the life of David has been done several times in the movies and, naturally, that would include the story.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Mamacita

quote:
I find it interesting that when Nathan pronounces God's judgment on David, he says that punishment will come in the form of the child dying (which it did) and also by having his wives taken:

in other words the moral framework of this story is one very different from what we would regard as just and fair today, though the notion that earthly rulers, however powerful, are answerable to a higher authority, has a universal dimension.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

Torgny Lindgren's Bathsheba focusses on her as the main protagonist. There's a 'blurby' 1989 review of the English translation from Publisher's Weekly. The Bathsheba story, and David's reaction to the death of the child is also a major theme of Joseph Heller's God knows which has a very different flavour.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Actually you know what it would be great as: opera. Lots of costumes, big sets, Nathan sung by the bass while David is the tenor, naturally Bathsheba is the soprano.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

....of course, its only over when the 'fat lady sings', and I seem to recall that Rembrandt's Bathsheba was somewhat comely.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

There are at least two operas/oratorios named "David and Bathsheba"—one by David Thompson and one by Ståle Kleiberg.

I'm thinking soap opera.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

My first serious study of the David saga took place during the whole Bill Clinton drama, and I found the parallels stunning ... the unlikely yet promising young ruler, born into near-poverty, whose appetites are almost his undoing.

As for Bathsheba, I had somehow picked up the notion that she was a temptress (which I guess is out there in popular culture somewhere), but having a closer understanding of the story, that bias irritates the bejeezus out of me... similar to the Mary Magdalene/prostitute thing.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

There are two parts of the story that does not ring true for me, but I am open to an explanation. The first has to do with where Bathsheba is performing the rite. Seems to me the rite would have been done in a special pool set aside for that purpose. It is my understanding archeological digs have determined the pool would have been more of a community pool. It seems Bethsheba's pool was a private bath.

The second part is when she would have cleansed herself. Again, it is my understanding that it would have been done seven days from when the menstruation began which would mean the rite would have happened before ovulation. However, I see other information that says it could have been 12 days from when menstruation began. Now that would have been about right for ovulation.

I would love to have this explained.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

There is nothing in the text to indicate that this was a full-scale mikvah bath of the sort familiar from a thousand years later. She is simply taking a bath. There's also the fact that we don't really know what the parameters were on post-menstrual baths in David's day--we know what tradition turned into later, but Moses' law doesn't specify half the stuff that turns up later.

The stuff about menstruation and irregular periods is in Leviticus 15:

quote:
19 “When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. ... 25 “If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. ... 28 But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean.

I've snipped the passage to focus on timing issues. This appears to say (though one could argue with it) that the seven-day uncleanness period begins when the bleeding stops (see v. 28). The average woman's period is about seven days. So a period plus seven more days would result in a) a very sexually frustrated husband and b) a date basically right on the nose for ovulation. No wonder God promised the people of Israel major population growth.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

LC

Look at verse 4 (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.)

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Yes. It does not say this was a mikvah bath of the style popular hundreds of years later. Moses commands taking a bath, pure and simple. Nothing about "living" water, nothing about having one's hair unbound or jewelry off or ... etc. etc. The fancifications that got added on to that basic bath were not there from the beginning, and we should not assume they existed (particularly in the full-blown form) at the time of David.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

What interests me more is that she was bathing on the roof. Hauling enough water up to that level cannot have been a small task. I deduce it was the only place she had some possibility of privacy. (Was there not a similar incident in the Susannah and the elders story?)

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

I wonder how well-off Bathsheba and Uriah were? I ask because, if they were "well-heeled", they would have had slaves or servants to take the water up to the roof.

It might, one presumes, not have been more than a couple of storeys up; and I doubt if she bathed in a huge infinity pool!

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
What interests me more is that she was bathing on the roof. Hauling enough water up to that level cannot have been a small task. I deduce it was the only place she had some possibility of privacy. (Was there not a similar incident in the Susannah and the elders story?)

Maybe there was a special container for bathing in collected rain water. That doesn't seem likely in present day Israel, but this was over two thousand years ago. Maybe it was wetter then and such a thing would be practical.

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

The account actually does not say she was on the roof, if you read it, just that David saw her from his roof. I assumed it meant that he got a good angle of vision into her private chamber through a window. Also remember that buildings were not very many stories tall then.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

They did collect rain water. Plus, it's easy (well, possible [Razz]

) to bathe out of a large bucket using a cloth. You don't have to immerse yourself! You can also pour it over your head. Or sit in it, if you have a container large enough.

Any of this would work, and would be most easily undertaken on the rooftop of the average house (away from the edge and its high visibility) or if you had one, in an enclosed courtyard. You sure don't want to do it inside given ancient floors and wall material. Nor would you be likely to have much room or privacy for such maneuvers, given the number of people who lived on top of one another in ancient homes.

I rather doubt Bathsheba was expecting a voyeur on the roof of the palace. I suspect she thought she had arranged for privacy quite well and was surprised to realize she had missed something.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

On a similar note.

There's just a lot of me that wonders if the lack of consent relating to Dinah and Sechem (Judges 34) was him not getting the consent of Judah and co... (and a bit that wonders more cynically what Dinah's feelings actually were*)

Whichever way round the patriarchy doesn't exactly come off well, and it doesn't make much long term difference.

* which are never mentioned. Though the ESV has 'seized' in the first verse, before the 'tender words', so would need some (rather easily explainable) assumption of bias and an unreliable narrative (or stockholm syndrome).

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
On a similar note.

There's just a lot of me that wonders if the lack of consent relating to Dinah and Sechem (Judges 34) was him not getting the consent of Judah and co... (and a bit that wonders more cynically what Dinah's feelings actually were*)

Whichever way round the patriarchy doesn't exactly come off well, and it doesn't make much long term difference.

* which are never mentioned. Though the ESV has 'seized' in the first verse, before the 'tender words', so would need some (rather easily explainable) assumption of bias and an unreliable narrative (or stockholm syndrome).

Here is a link to the Dinah story Genesis 34:1-31

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Note the brothers' justification: Shall our sister be treated as a whore? Not, you hurt our sister. It is not her feelings or autonomy that is important to them. It is her sexual purity which, once clouded, affects their own status.
Nor does the text go into Dinah's feelings in the matter in any way. If she were a calf or a dog, it would be much the same.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

The writer of Genesis doesn't go into feelings etc. much at all, as I recall. He lets us draw our own conclusions, and any judgment is apt to be subtle (as when Jacob is dying and gives Simeon and Levi the boot in terms of the succession, basically on account of this episode.)

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

I never know what to make of this kind of history. I know it's old - really, really, old. When the world was this rough all over, as it seems to have remained much later in the times of the early church, it's easier than it is now to see the attraction of withdrawing to sit on a pole in the desert.

And to be honest, there's plenty of days it seems like a good idea now.

[ 21. June 2017, 11:26: Message edited by: mark_in_manchester ]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

THE HISTORICAL DAVID: THE REAL LIFE OF AN INVENTED HERO – JOEL BADEN suggests that the story was by supporters of Solomon to discredit those who thought Davidic kingship should pass on through his line only – that Bathsheba is Solomon’s mother is a lie/device to legitimise his reign.

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