The gospel according to Harper Lee

“Arthur Radley just stays in the house, that’s all,” said Miss Maudie. “Wouldn’t you stay in the house if you didn’t want to come out?”

“Yessum, but I’d wanta come out. Why doesn’t he?”

Miss Maudie’s eyes narrowed. “You know that story as well as I do.”

“I never heard why, though. Nobody ever told me why.”

Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. “You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist–”

“That’s what you are, ain’t it?”

“My shell’s not that hard, child. I’m just a Baptist.”

“Don’t you all believe in foot-washing?”

“We do. At home in the bathtub.”

“But we can’t have communion with you all–”

Apparently deciding that it was easier to define primitive baptistry than closed communion, Miss Maudie said: “Foot-washers believe anything that’s pleasure is a sin. Did you know some of ‘em came out of the woods one Saturday and passed by this place and told me me and my flowers were going to hell?”

“Your flowers, too?”

“Yes ma’am. They’d burn right with me. They thought I spent too much time in God’s outdoors and not enough time inside the house reading the Bible.”

My confidence in pulpit Gospel lessened at the vision of Miss Maudie stewing forever in various Protestant hells. True enough, she had an acid tongue in her head, and she did not go about the neighborhood doing good, as did Miss Stephanie Crawford. But while no one with a grain of sense trusted Miss Stephanie, Jem and I had considerable faith in Miss Maudie. She had never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in our private lives. She was our friend. How so reasonable a creature could live in peril of everlasting torment was incomprehensible.

“That ain’t right, Miss Maudie. You’re the best lady I know.”

Miss Maudie grinned. “Thank you ma’am. Thing is, foot-washers think women are a sin by definition. They take the Bible literally, you know.”

“Is that why Mr. Arthur stays in the house, to keep away from women?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me. Looks like if Mr. Arthur was hankerin’ after heaven he’d come out on the porch at least. Atticus says God’s loving folks like you love yourself–”

Miss Maudie stopped rocking, and her voice hardened. “You are too young to understand it,” she said, “but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of–oh, of your father.”

I was shocked. “Atticus doesn’t drink whiskey,” I said. “He never drunk a drop in his life–nome, yes he did. He said he drank some one time and didn’t like it.”

Miss Maudie laughed. “Wasn’t talking about your father,” she said. “What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best. There are just some kind of men who–who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

[Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird]

Tamar’s tragic story and the ever-present war on women

My thoughts on the devastating story of Tamar, as found in 2 Samuel 13. Same format as before. Text exerpted from The Message unless otherwise noted.

Some time later, this happened: Absolom, David’s son, had a sister 
                                                                                                 ^ It’s unfortunately common for misogynistic men throughout history to blame their crimes against women on the women themselves. “Women in patriarchal culture are surrounded by messages that negate or trivialize their existence. Their bodily sexual presence is regarded as a dangerous threat to male purity and, at the same time, as a justification for constant verbal and physical abuse. They experience their bodies as constantly vulnerable to assault and are told, at the same time, that they deserve such assault because they ’cause’ it by their sexual presence. Similarly, women find their own viewpoints and judgments of events trivialized, and this trivialization is justified on the grounds that women are inherently stupid, uninformed, lacking in authority, and incapable of forming significant understandings. Thus they are alienated from their own minds, from being able to trust their own perceptions. These judgments upon the woman’s body and mind are, in turn, used to justify women’s exclusion from cultural opportunities and leadership. Women are asked to accept this, too, as normal, natural, divinely sanctioned.” –Letty M. Russell 

who was very attractive. Her name was Tamar. Amnon, also
                                                                             ^ The actual criminal, the primary male perpetrator–but also just one of many men who habitually devalued Tamar, and doubtless other women as well. 

David’s son, was in love with her. Amnon was obsessed with his

sister Tamar to the point of making himself sick over her. She was

a virgin, so he couldn’t see how he could get his hands on her.
                                                                   ^ This is clearly not about “love”. 

Amnon had a good friend, Jonadab, the son of David’s brother
                                 ^ The second male responsible for the crimes committed against Tamar. 

Shimeah. Jonadab was exceptionally streetwise. He said to Amnon,

“Why are you moping around like this, day after day–you, the son

of the king! Tell me what’s eating at you.”

“In a word, Tamar,” said Amnon. “My brother Absalom’s sister. I’m

in love with her.”

“Here’s what you do,” said Jonadab. “Go to bed and pretend
^ Helpful advice, man to man. How lovely.  

you’re sick. When your father comes to visit you, say, ‘Have my

sister Tamar come and prepare some supper for me here where
                                  ^ I’ve read that the king’s permission was required here because it would have been unusual to request food prepared by a specific family member. I also find it interesting that the lure, the bait-and-switch tactic here employed, is meal preparation, a task long used to define a woman’s “place” and draw boundary lines for her prescribed gender role. “Get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!” didn’t arise out of nowhere.

I can watch her and she can feed me.’”

So Amnon took to his bed and acted sick. When the king came to

visit, Amnon said, “Would you do me a favor? Have my sister Tamar

come and make some nourishing dumplings here where I can watch

her and be fed by her.”

David sent word to Tamar who was home at the time: “Go to the

house of your brother Amnon and prepare a meal for him.”

So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house. She took dough,
^ And look what a nice girl this kid is. Her brother makes a really abnormal request, but he’s sick, so okay, she’ll do it. 

kneaded it, formed it into dumplings, and cooked them while he

watched from his bed. But when she took the cooking pot and

served him, he wouldn’t eat.

Amnon said, “Clear everyone out of the house,” and they all

cleared out. Then he said to Tamar, “Bring the food into my

bedroom, where we can eat in privacy.” She took the nourishing
                                                                                          ^ Her goal is to nourish and heal her brother, and his goal is only to harm her. 

dumplings she had prepared and brought them to her brother

Amnon in his bedroom. But she she got ready to feed him, he

grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, sister!”

“No, brother!” she said, “Don’t hurt me! This kind of thing isn’t

done in Israel! Don’t do this terrible thing! Where could I ever show

my face? And you–you’ll be out on the street in disgrace. Oh,

please! Speak to the king–he’ll let you marry me.”
            ^ In light of the fact that such a marriage would have been illegal, not to mention her natural feelings of abhorrence at the idea, I think it’s safe to say that this is a stalling technique that unfortunately failed.

But he wouldn’t listen. Being much stronger than she, he raped her.
^ When men refuse to listen to women, sexism, discrimination, devaluation of women have all already occurred.  

No sooner had Amnon raped her than he hated her–an
^ Unfortunately, this attitude also seems to be commonly held. “Analysis of rape perpetrators has been argued to reveal a pattern of hatred of women and pleasure in inflicting psychological and/or physical trauma, rather than sexual interest; rapists often plan a rape before they choose a victim. Rape is also used world-wide as a technique of war…” [Source] Regarding the last sentence: this matches up perfectly with the unfortunate but true prediction that David and his family would continue to live lives of extreme violence.

immense hatred. The hatred that he felt for her was greater

than the love he’d had for her. “Get up,” he said, “and get out!”

“Oh no, brother,” she said. “Please! This is an even worse evil than

what you just did to me!”

But he wouldn’t listen to her. He called for his valet. “Get rid of
^ But of course! He’s a pig. 

this woman. Get her out of my sight! And lock the door after her.”
^ “This woman.” Tamar has now become a “common woman”, a slut, a whore in Absalom’s eyes. Here’s something to think about from Cheerful Megalomaniac: “[My high school English teacher] spoke constantly about something that she called the ‘Virgin/Whore Dichotomy’. She would say, if you are a woman in this society, your name is Mary. No one sees you, they will just see The Virgin Mother, or Mary Magdelene*. Once you earned ‘whore’ status it was very difficult to go back again, although if you got married, popped out a kid, and pleased the patriarchy enough, they might let you be seen as a mother….The virgin/whore dichotomy plays into many of the popular rape myths, by making any woman that is not a virgin, a whore, and a whore is ‘unrapeable’ according to rape culture. Therefore, any woman that so much as kisses you can be raped guilt free and called a ‘cock-tease’. I am not saying that all people think this way, or that it’s even taken to this extreme very often. However, I think that the virgin/whore dichotomy is one of the underlying constructions that allows men to control women’s sexuality, and excuse rape.” Excellent summary. And sometimes, as in this story, the transformation from “virgin” to “whore” is so rapid that even a woman becomes a whore, becomes dirty, in a man’s eyes the moment he touches her. *Oh, and if you’re wondering, there is NO BASIS WHATSOEVER for the very commonly-held belief that Mary Magdelene was a hooker. None. Anywhere.

The valet threw her out and locked the door behind her.
^ All Absalom’s servants played a minor role in the crimes against Tamar, but the valet gets to play a special part. He gets to personally manhandle Tamar and violently escort her out of her brother’s house. Male perpetrator #3.

She was wearing a long-sleeved gown. (That’s how virgin

princesses used to dress from early adolescense on.) Tamar

poured ashes on her head, then she ripped the long-sleeved

gown, held her head in her hands, and walked away, sobbing

as she went.
^ This is such a sad paragraph! Tamar is beyond grieving for what’s happened to her and its inevitable consequences on the rest of her life. But she sets a strong example for women who have been raped. She put the blame where it belonged: on her rapist. “To turn public and to denounce is not a habit in cases of sexual violence….Questions like, ‘What clothes were you wearing…, what were you doing…at this time in this place, why do you walk alone, or what did you do to provoke the desire of this man?” make the victim…the “cause” of violence. Taking into account this reality of silence around sexual violence, the attitude [of] Tamar was full of courage…Despite what normally happens with victims of sexual abuse, Tamar makes public her outrage, tears up her tunic, put her hands over her head and goes out walking and [exclaiming with] protests and screams. She shows her body, her fury and revolt….The victims are never fragile people. Quite the opposite…[often expressing] the qualities of success, beauty, force, energy, vitality, [everything that] has positive value in society. The victim is someone that can be the target of envy, [who] has something that the predator doesn’t possess….An approach that only sees woman as a victim makes a passive human being of her, unable to make decisions and give a sense to life….Tamar was not a defenseless victim who lowered her head and accepted the threats and…violence. She defends herself and argued to keep herself free and save her dignity. She exercised power.” [Source]

Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has your brother Amnon had
                 ^ #4. Especially note his really crappy response to his sister’s devastation. Insensitive? To say the least. In trivializing Tamar’s experience and essentially telling her to “just get over it already,” Absalom endorses the violence that has occurred against her. He switches sides later on, but only after two years of watching his sister deteriorate in agony.

his way with you? Now, my dear sister, let’s keep it  quiet–a
^ A pleasant little euphemism for rape, now isn’t it? “Had his way with you” implies a tone of jocularity, joking around–which fits perfectly with the rest of his gem of a speech here. “His question anticipates the answer. It makes the fact visible….[The counsel] of a brother is: ‘Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.’ The silence. This is the rule for women that suffer sexual violence or any other kind of violence. The silence is the ally of the violent…” [Source]

family matter. He is, after all, your brother. Don’t take this so

hard.” Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, bitter and
                       ^ So she’s living with her brother who clearly doesn’t understand or care what she’s going through. She’s forced to live with the knowledge that no one cares; she internalizes her trauma because she can’t share it with anyone. 

desolate.

King David heard the whole story and was enraged, but he didn’t
^ #5. So he gets supermad, but so what? Big deal. It doesn’t sound like he even confronted his son. There was certainly no change in their relationship. His anger was shallow and inconsequential because it evaporated without leading to action and justice. 

discipline Amnon. David doted on him because he was his
^ And so he succeeded in passing his own penchant for domination on to his son(s). Excellent. 

firstborn. Absalom quit speaking to Amnon–not a word, whether

good or bad–because he hated him for violating his sister
                                    ^ The longer he lives with Tamar, the more he becomes aware that this isn’t something she can just “get over”–it has ruined her entire life, removed all her prospects, and made her an object of shame in the eyes of society. It becomes something he can no longer ignore or laugh off.

Tamar.

Two years went by. One day Absalom threw a sheep-shearing party
                                                                               ^ This is SO off-topic, but I cannot skip over this. I think this is absolutely hilarious. It makes me think of like a quilting bee, or a corn-shucking party, or something. A barn-raising. I totally bet they had a squaredance when all the sheep were sheared! 

in Baal Hazor in the vicinity of Ephraim and invited all the

king’s sons. He also went to the king and invited him. “Look, I’m

throwing a sheep-shearing party. Come, and bring your servants.”

But the king said, “No, son–not this time, and not the whole

household. We’d just be a burden to you.” Absalom pushed, but
               ^ Maybe I’m just reading into this, but sounds to me like David’s actually blaming Absalom now for Amnon’s crime. The whole “I-don’t-want-to-burden-you” is a common form of manipulation, sometimes classified as mental or psychological abuse. I don’t think that in this case it necessarily goes as far as abuse, but certainly manipulation. David is trying to guilt his not-favorite son into accepting his favorite son and forgetting his offenses. As a favor for good old dad. Ugh.  

David wouldn’t budge. But he did give him his blessing.

The Absalom said, “Well, if you won’t come, at least let my brother

Amnon come.”

“And why,” said the king, “should he go with you?” But
^ This appears to me to back up my interpretation of David’s “burden” card. “Why should HE go with YOU?” clears Amnon of blame and tacks all the guilt on Absalom: he is guilty of being ridiculously unforgiving of his brother, in David’s eyes. Of course, nowhere does Tamar figure into the equation.  

Absalom was so insistent that he gave in and let Amnon and all the

rest of the king’s sons go.

Absalom prepared a banquet fit for a king. Then he instructed his

servants, “Look sharp, now. When Amnon is well into the sauce

and feeling no pain, and I give the order ‘Strike Amnon,’ kill him.

And don’t be afraid–I’m the one giving the command. Courage! You

can do it!”

Absalom’s servants did to Amnon exactly what their master

ordered. All the king’s sons got out as fast as they could,
            ^ This makes me curious. Did they all fly like bats out of hell because they thought crazy Absalom had gone homicidal and might kill some random siblings? That doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t specify how many sons were present, but there were certainly quite a few. They could have easily taken Absalom between them. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I think this says something about the character of the other brothers: that what they were really afraid of was that Absalom had adopted a new crusade and intended to kill Amnon and the others like him. 

jumped on their mules, and rode off. While they were still on the

road, a rumor came to the king: “Absalom just killed all the king’s

sons–not one is left!” The king stood up, ripped his clothes to
                                 ^ Despair of this depth is never shown for his daughter Tamar. Idle “outrage” is all her rape excited in her father.

shreds, and threw himself on the floor. All his servants who

were standing around at the time did the same.

Just then, Jonadab, his brother Shimeah’s son, stepped up. “My
              ^ He’s a weird friend. A creepy guy, to say the least. He’s Absalom’s “good friend” but easy come, easy go. Interesting.

master must not think that all the young men, the king’s sons, are

dead. Only Amnon is dead. This happened because of Absalom’s

outrage since the day that Amnon violated his sister Tamar. So my

master, the king, mustn’t make things worse than they are,

thinking that all your sons are dead. Only Amnon is dead.”

Absalom fled.

Just then the sentry on duty looked up and saw a cloud of dust on

the road from Horonaim alongside the mountain. He came and told

the king, “I’ve just seen a bunch of men on the Horonaim road,

coming around the mountain.”

Then Jonadab exclamed to the king, “See! It’s the king’s sons

coming, just as I said!” He had no sooner said the words than the

king’s sons burst in–loud laments and weeping! The king

joined in, along with all the servants–loud weeping, many

tears. David mourned the death of his son a long time.
^ The death of a violent, abusive son engenders more grief and anger than does the rape of a good daughter. The only one who mourned the “death” of Tamar’s dignity was Tamar herself, and eventually Absalom. 

When Absalom fled, he went to Talmai son of Ammihud, king of

Geshur. He was there three years. The king finally gave up trying

to get back at Absalom. He had come to terms with Amnon’s
^ David continues to pin the blame on Absalom. I’m not going to get into the whole revenge bit–I’m not going to revere Absalom as a holy avenger or say that murdering Amnon was the correct way to handle things. I believe that violence leads to more violence. Of course, you can also take that to mean that Amnon got what was coming to him. But however you read this part, I do find it interesting that after two years of witnessing firsthand the devastation his brother had caused, he could no longer allow himself to be silent and let his sister’s rape go unnoticed. Absalom’s anger led to action, to seeking for justice, in direct contrast to their father’s indifference.

death.

Finis

Bathshebaaaa. part II

And now, ladies and gents, without further ado, part the second of my Bathsheba rant/reflection/whatever. Translation, The Message, unless otherwise noted. Same formatting gig as beforeeeee.

2 Samuel 12

But God was not at all pleased with what David had done, and sent

Nathan to David. Nathan said to him, “There were two men in
^ Nathan! Why doesn’t anyone EVER talk about Nathan? I should probably do some research on him and see what I can find. He sounds like he’d get along well with Micah and Amos. The “minor” prophets are my fave, I must confess.

the same city–one rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge
^ This is actually the first clue that something’s wrong. I wrote on my notes that “there’s already injustice going on between rich & poor” before anyone ever makes a move. If you doubt this, read the next sentence. Micah 4:4 says (in reference to a time of peace brought about as a result of God and people loving each other), “Each man will sit under his own shade tree, each woman in safety will tend her own garden.” There is no justice, or safety, or peace, or security, unless it exists for everyone. If this catches your interest and you want to read more about it, I recommend every book Jim Wallis has written, in particular, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.

flocks of sheep, herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one

little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with

him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate

and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter

to him. One day a traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too

stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a

meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared a

meal to set before his guest.” 

David exploded in anger. “As surely as God lives, ” he said to

Nathan, “the man who did this ought to be lynched! He must
             ^ I think this is interesting. Q: How often do we condemn something and then turn around and do it ourselve? A: I don’t even want to know. 

repay for the lamb four times over for his crime and his
                             ^ Hm. 

stinginess!”

“You’re the man!” said Nathan. “And here’s what God, the God
^ Actually, David was “the man”–and worse. The fictional rich creep didn’t kill his guest.

of Israel, has to say to you: I made you king over Israel. I freed

you from the fist of Saul. I gave you your master’s daughter
                                    ^ I remain unconvinced that this ridiculous example of a polygamous family is somehow ordained by God. It should certainly be included, however, in a survey of the Bible’s contents on the subject of marriage. A “biblical view of marriage”, to be accurate, should include polyamorous relationships, concubines and harems, the equation of women with livestock, etc. Just because something’s “biblical” doesn’t mean it’s right. 

and other wives to have and to hold. I gave you both Israel and

Judah. And if that hadn’t been enough, I’d have gladly thrown in

much more. So why have you treated the word of God with brazen

contempt, doing this great evil? You murdered Uriah the Hittite,
                                                                  ^ One interesting piece of commentary I read pointed out that Uriah was a foreigner–which is obvious, since he’s clearly called Uriah the Hittite all the freaking time–but extremely interesting if you think about how often foreign and non-Isrealite people groups are villified and demonized in the Bible. They are generally written of as being godless heathens who would corrupt your entire nation in a heartbeat. And here is a foreigner, clearly a better man than the Isrealite king himself, who ends up sinking to scumbag level. Certainly challenges (okay, knocks the block off) the concept of the supremacy of any race or people group, even individual people. Don’t write someone off just because they’re different from you. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Think of everyone the same. Something to think about.  

then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with an

Ammonite sword! And now, because you treated God with such

contempt and took Uriah the Hittite’s wife as your wife, killing and
                                                                                            ^ NLT says, “From this time on, your family will live by the sword…” (Or, in my favorite phrasing, “All who use swords are destroyed by swords,” The Message.) Hello? Seems to me the entire nation is already living by the sword..Anyway: there’s no denying this cycle of violence is clearly a bad thing, its own punishment and consequence.

murder will continually plague your family. This is God

speaking, remember! I’ll make trouble for you out of your own

family. I’ll take your wives from right out in front of you. I’ll
           ^ I find this to be extremely disturbing. I also remain unconvinced that the transfer of women, as sexual property, from one man to another, is somehow ordained by God. Not to mention the whole “sexual property” bit in general.  

give them to some neighbor, and he’ll go to bed with them

openly. You did your deed in secret; I’m doing mine with the whole

country watching!”

Then David confessed to Nathan, “I’ve sinned against God.”
^This sentence makes me lol. Haha, ORLY? 

Nathan pronounced, “Yes, but that’s not the last word. God
                                        ^But I loooove this line. 

forgives your sin. You won’t die for it. But because of your

blasphemous behavior, the son born to you will die.”

After Nathan went home, God afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife

bore to David, and he came down sick. David prayed
                                                   ^ Hm. Out of curiosity, I’m now wondering what would have happened if David had pulled an Abraham. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

desperately to God for the little boy. He fasted, wouldn’t go out,

and slept on the floor. The elders in his family came in and tried to

get him off the floor, but he wouldn’t budge. Nor could they ge

t him to eat anything. On the seventh day the child died. David’s

servants were afraid to tell him. They said, “What do we do now?

While the child was living he wouldn’t listen to a word we said.

Now, with the child dead, if we speak to him there’s no telling what

he’ll do.”

David noticed that the servants were whispering behind his back,

and realized that the boy must have died.

He asked the servants, “Is the boy dead?”

“Yes,” they answered. “He’s dead.”

David got up from the floor, washed his face and combed his hair,

put on a fresh change of clothes, then went into the sanctuary

and worshiped. Then he came home and asked for something to

eat. They set it before him and he ate.

His servants asked him, “What’s going on with you? While the child

was alive you fasted and wept and stayed up all night. Now that

he’s dead, you get up and eat.”

 ”While the child was alive,” he said, “I fasted and wept, thinking

God might have mercy on me and the child would live. But now

that he’s dead, why fast? Can I bring him back now? I can go to

him, but he can’t come to me.”

David went and comforted his wife Bathsheba. And when he slept

with her, they conceived a son. When he was born they named him

Solomon. God had a special love for him and sent word by Nathan

the prophet that God wanted him named Jedidiah (God’s Beloved).

Joab, at war in Rabbah against the Ammonites, captured the royal
^ Look at him! He’s sneering, I swear! If he had any respect for the king, it’s long gone now, and can you blame him? 

city. He sent messengers to David saying, “I’m fighting at Rabbah,

and I’ve just captured the city’s water supply. Hurry and get the

rest of the troops together and set up camp here at the city and

complete the capture yourself. Otherwise, I’ll capture it and get all

the credit instead of you.” So David marshaled all the troops, went

to Rabbah, and fought and captured it. He took the crown from
                                             ^ Another culture decimated. Think of all the music, the literature, the technological inventions, that were lost. This history of violence and domination theology is such a tragic part of Israel’s story. 

their king’s head–very heavy with gold, and with a precious stone

in it. It ended up on David’s head. And they plundered the city,

carrying off a great quantity of loot.

David emptied the city of its people and put them to slave
^ Oh, this is really an excellent example of a “man after God’s own heart”. Why do people pick up on the fact that a “man after God’s own heart” raped a married woman and murdered her husband, and totally blow over the destruction of an entire culture, the enslavement of an entire people group, just a few verses later?!

labor using saws, picks, and axes, and making bricks. He did

this to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and the whole army

returned to Jerusalem.

Finis

Bathshebaaaa.

Sorry, I guess that kind of looks like a sheep! Oh well!

Last week (I think) at my church, the word in the air was David-and-Bathsheba. You can find the whole story in 2 Samuel 11 &12; it’s also referenced in the Qur’an in Sura XXXVIII 20-25. What happened (at church, I mean) is that this was the sermon, and then in my college class, we each individually reflected on the same text to see what secret things we would find in it. For the most part, my comrades all saw a story of temptation, of carelessness and wrong choices and betrayal and whatever. Definitely in there, there’s no denying. I saw things a little differently. For instance, I was really bothered that not one person examined the character of Bathsheba. For pete’s sake, there are few enough women in the Bible anyway, and I’m pretty well sick of people leaving them out of discussions about the stories they are in. Here I will print out the text for you (exerpted from The Message, unless otherwise noted), and I’ll show you in bold the words or phrases that interested me and in italics my thoughts. In Parts I and II, because double-spacing makes it so darn long. Savvy? 

2 Samuel 11

When that time of year came around again, the anniversary of the
^ The NLT version says, “In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war”–notice the entire culture of violence that’s already going on. A winner-takes-all mentality. Militarism and no doubt a lot of nationalism.

Ammonite aggression, David dispatched Joab and his fighting men

of Israel in full force to destroy the Ammonites for good. They laid

siege to Rabbah, but David stayed in Jerusalem.

One late afternoon, David got up from taking his nap and was

strolling on the roof of the palace. From his vantage point on the

roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was stunningly

beautiful. David sent to ask about her, and was told, “Isn’t this

Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?” David

sent his agents to get her. After she arrived, he went to bed with
^ Someone mentioned the obvious: David had how many hundred wives? It’s not far-fetched to assume David was a sex addict. Whatever David wanted, David got. The “grown-up”–and I use that term loosely–equivalent of a 9-year-old boy who discovers pornography and subsequently comes to believe that women were created to service his desires.                

her. (This occurred during the time of “purification” following
         ^ Here the senior pastor said something that I found offensive. He must have been using a different translation and not bothered to check the meaning of the purification listed; he said that Bathsheba in this instance was a perfect example of “legalism”, i.e. meticulously following a bunch of minor rules while ignoring the glaringly huge offense she had just committed. Excuse me? Bathsheba committed? It is also common philosophy at this church, apparently, to excuse soldiers for crimes they have personally committed because all the blame passes over them and lands directly on their supervisor. Yeah, that makes sense–let’s not blame soldiers for killing innocent civilians, but let’s do blame a woman for her own forced sexual encounter with the king.

her period.) Then she returned home. Before long she realized

she was pregnant. 

Later she sent word to David: “I’m pregnant.”

David then got in touch with Joab: “Send Uriah the Hittite to me.”

Joab sent him.
^ Keep an eye on Joab and see what you think. The common reaction to Joab in my class was that Joab was a fine, upstanding general or whatever…he respected David so much that he was willing to do anything for him, no questions asked, blah blah blah. Eh. I’m not convinced.

When he arrived, David asked him for news from the front–how

things were going with Joab and the troops and with the fighting.

Then he said to Uriah, “Go home. Have a refreshing bath and a

good night’s rest.”

After Uriah left the palace, an informant of the king was sent after

him. But Uriah didn’t go home. He slept that night at the palace

entrance, along with the king’s servants. 

David was told that Uriah had not gone home. He asked Uriah,

“Didn’t you just come off a hard trip? So why didn’t you go home?”

Uriah replied to David, “The Chest [the Ark of the Covenant] is out

there with the fighting men of Israel and Judah–in tents. My master

Joab and his servants are roughing it out in the fields. So, how can

I go home and eat and drink and enjoy my wife? On your life, I’ll

not do it!”

“All right,” said David, “have it your way. Stay for the day and I’ll

send you back tomorrow.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem the rest of

the day.

The next day David invited him to eat and drink with him, and

David got him drunk. But in the evening Uriah again went out and

slept with his master’s servants. He didn’t go home.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front lines where the

fighting is the fiercest. Then pull back and leave him exposed so

that he’s sure to be killed.”

So Joab, holding the city under siege, put Uriah in a place where
   ^IMO, Joab knows exactly what’s going on. He might not know about the king’s new fling, but it appears to me that Joab’s a smart guy. He picks up pretty quick on the fact that there’s a reason David wants Uriah out of the way, and the whole thing kept under the rug. So he plays along… 

he knew there were fierce enemy fighters. When the city’s

defenders came out to fight Joab, some of David’s soldiers were

killed, including Uriah the Hittite.

Joab sent David a full report on the battle. He instructed the

messenger, “After you have given to the king a detailed report on

the battle, if he flares in anger, say, ‘And by the way, your
                        ^ Ha! Upstanding general? He sounds pretty smug to me, capitalizing on what he knows is David’s secret weakness in order to cover his butt. He sounds like he’d make a good blackmailer, honestly.

servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’”

Joab’s messenger arrived in Jerusalem and gave the king a full

report. He said, “The enemy was too much for us. They advanced

on us in the open field, and we pushed them back to the city gate.

But then arrows came hot and heavy on us from the city wall, and

eighteen of the king’s soldiers died.”

When the messenger completed his report of the battle, David got

angry at Joab. He vented it on the messenger: “Why did you get

so close to the city? Didn’t you know you’d be attacked from

the wall? Didn’t you remember how Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth got

killed? Wasn’t it a woman who dropped a millstone on him from the

wall and crushed him at Thebez? Why did you go so close to the

wall?”

“By the way,” said Joab’s messenger, “your servant Uriah the

Hittite is dead.”

Then David told the messenger, “Oh. I see. Tell Joab, ‘Don’t trouble

yourself over this. War kills–sometimes one, sometimes another–

you never know who’s next. Redouble your assault on the city
                                                       ^ The NLT says: “Fight harder next time, and conquer the city!” So glib. Ughhh. 

and destroy it.’ Encourage Joab.”
                                   ^ If I had to guess, I’d say Joab was feeling pretty good even without any royal encouragement. He clearly knew that no matter what, his backside was covered.

When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she grieved
^ I see no reason to take this to mean less than what it says. It says she grieved. Several translations say she “mourned for him”, the NCV says she “cried for him”, NIRV says she “sobbed over him”. I think it’s safe to say that she was a woman who loved her husband. Which backs up the idea I introduced earlier in opposition to my pastor, that she was forced into a sexual liason with the king, by the king.

for her husband. When the time of mourning was over, David sent

someone to bring her to his house. She became his wife and bore

him a son. [NLT includes the ending verse: But the LORD was

displeased with what David had done."]
^ You know why it doesn’t say the LORD was displeased with what Bathsheba had done? Because she hadn’t freaking done anything. If she had, you can be sure the writers of the Bible would have been quick to point it out. Certain ones of them in particular had a penchant for villainizing women and overexaggerating their faults–not the other way around.

Finis

 

Up next: Part II: 2 Samuel 12. Up next next: my commentary on this week’s sermon on 2 Samuel 13, the story of Tamar.

What if God was one of us? Just a stranger on a bus.

Hello kids! Today we’re going to learn what bothers me about the Left Behind series. [You know the one.] At least what bothers me the most. Yes, I’ve read them all. I admit I was terribly into them at a younger age. Obviously there’s the surface observation about how cliche and commercial they have become–very true. My discomfiture goes a little deeper, though, past the books themselves, way down deep to the theology itself. As in, the Rapture. There are only two verses in the entire Bible used to “prove” the theology of the Rapture, and these are taken widely out of context. They don’t support such an idea at all, unless you presuppose there will be a Rapture and read your assumption into the text.

Urban Onramps quotes an interview of Brian McLaren by the Charlotte, NC newpaper:
“Q: Today, many evangelicals are fascinated with the end of the world. There’s the popularity of the “Left Behind” books. And talk about the Rapture. Their belief is: Things will get worse, we will have world crises. They say that’s part of God’s plan, to have Armageddon. Is that biblical or is that thinking part of the problem, in your opinion?
“A: I write a good bit about this in the book. And on the tour, one of my talks will be devoted to this subject. I think this is an incredibly important subject. What a lot of well-meaning, committed evangelical Christians don’t realize is that the view of the end-times that they believe is biblical and the historic Christian view is actually a newcomer and an anomaly in Christian history. That view of the end-times was never, ever thought of in Christian history until the 1830s. Now, that doesn’t make it wrong. But it does make it suspect.”

And here’s a thought from makingwisethesimple on the crosswalk forums:

“Are any of you familiar with the shift in scholarly thought away from a Darby or a Schofield view of eschatology? The likes of N.T. Wright, Brian McClaren, and Rob Bell make the case for a physical restoration of creation as being God’s final plan for his people. The aim for us is not to escape this fallen and broken world, but rather it is for us to till and nurture it until God returns to make his dwelling with man, the ultimate form of Emmanuel.

“This brings us to the rapture. Rob Bell makes the interesting point that the verses in the Thessalonian passage referring to the rapture was written by Paul using language that was normally linked to the likes of a coming dignitary. The formula that was used in this culture for such an arrival was that the entire city would come out to meet the dignitary before he got to the city and then as a large group they would all enter the city together. What do we see when we turn to the passage in 1 Thessalonians? A coming ‘dignitary’ arrives and the people are caught up to meet him. Now Paul leaves it there, he doesn’t go on to explain ‘where’ they all go, but perhaps this is because the people he was writing to didn’t need to be told as they would have easily picked it up. It is like us writing a letter to family somewhere and in that letter we make mention of horses, now thousands of years from now an advanced civilisation [sic] may discover that letter and have no idea what these ‘horses’ were because we didn’t give the definition in the letter, but why would we!

“Another interesting point to note is that when we read these verses and we see words like “taken away,” “left behind,” etc., we automatically assume that to be taken is the desirable result and to be left behind is the undesireable. Why do we do that, when in every other account in Scripture to be taken away from the land of inheritance was to be taken away into judgment! Think of the exile for example. In fact I don’t think it would be taking it too far to say that rapture theology is akin to being exiled from our land.”

In addition to its dubious biblical support, it appears to inspire a defeatist attitude in fundamentalists ’round the world, which is exactly what we don’t need.

The people who read books like this religiously [in general--if you are in this category and do not match the following description, I'd like to meet you] appear complacent with injustice, war and many other wrongs in the world because “it’s never going to get any better”. So they never try. They read Blessed are the peacemakers in their Bibles, but when they have a chance to meet peace face to face, it’s almost anathema to them, something to be avoided at all costs. Peace to them doesn’t equal a positive thing–it means that soon and very soon, a dictator will rise to power over the entire world. They believe they’re “guaranteed” 7 years of safety because they’re Christians, and then they can get the heck out of here [or some variation of this]. The only way to vote properly is to choose “the lesser of two evils”, every time, because in their minds, all they can do is just postpone the worst a little bit longer. They’ve really distanced themselves from the world’s problems, which is super easy to do in America but it almost seems like it’s at the core of fundamentalism itself. I’m extremely disappointed with the “church” of today–if such a large group of people put their minds to bettering the world instead of condemning it, think of the possibilities. It always seems to be: “Homelessness? It’s too big to be fixed! Poverty? Not out of my pocket! Deforestation, endangered species, animal abuse? These things are too trivial to let them stand in the way of human rights…not that we’re going to do anything about those either..”

Last week I was looking at this magazine and I found a story about a family with 20–count ‘em! It’s not a typo–kids, 5 of them biological, 15 adopted. I was amazed. We were all sitting around eating lunch, and I read the story to my brothers and my mom. The first words out of her mouth were, “They need to learn they can’t save the world.” WHY? Why, why, why should they be told they can’t save the world when they already are? If their hearts and their paychecks are big enough to accomodate such a big family, more power to them.

It kind of made me wonder. When my parents send out cards every year to all the grads we know, cards that offer encouragement like “Believe in your dreams” and “Go out and change the world”, do they mean it? If they met the same person five years down the line doing meaningful work that had a big impact on the world, would they be happy? Or would they say to themselves, “They’re just trying to take on too much. They can’t fix the world”?

I’m a believer in dreams. I believe we can make a difference, a change for the better. I believe hunger, homelessness, extreme poverty are all solveable and peace is possible. I do not believe the world can only get worse and worse until God pulls us out of it and it deteriorates. The world will only continue down this path if we stand back and let it. No doubt you’re familiar with this line from Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people]  to do nothing.” Am I the only one who doesn’t think that following Christ and saving the world are polar opposites?!

If Christ were coming again tomorrow, I would plant a tree today. –Martin Luther

Read more:

From A Prophetic Voice

“Is the Pre-tribulation Rapture Biblical?”

Aaaaaaaaaaand I’ll be doing some more research and continuing this another day.

Vashti did more than just set the stage for Esther.

I think it’s a shame that in the story of Esther (see?), Vashti’s always kind of disregarded and glossed over. I’ve always liked Vashti. Always have. She always fascinated me. Even when I was little, I always felt like we were the same kind of person, like she was someone I could understand. Not that I don’t like Esther–I think she’s a wonderful example of an empowered, uppity female who couldn’t be kept in her “place”. She’s on my list of heroes slash role models. Vashti’s on the list too..and here’s why:

Other than having the absolute power of life and death over every human being from India to Ethiopia, King “Long Hand” Artaxerxes of Persia was a regular guy. He loved hanging out with his male friends and drinking smooth local wine. But most of all, he loved his dishy wife, Vashti, a simply stunning woman from one of the seven bluest-blooded families in Persia.

In the third year of his reign, Artaxerxes spent six months holding an assembly to show off the winter palace at Susa and its chatchkas to the vassals of his 127 provinces. The formalities over, he pitched a gold tent for 10,000 and began a banquet for his tight pals, where the wine flowed nonstop into those gold goblets. After a week of partying, Long Hand got one of those ideas that probably seemed fun at the time: He would summon his gorgeous wife and show her off. So he sent in a eunuch or two to give Vashti the message.

He hadn’t reckoned on a queen with attitude. A command appearance in front of 10,000 drunken louts was insult enough, but she had the feeling that the king wanted to display all her charms. (Persian law was on her side, too: Even the merest squint by a strange male at anyone’s wife, to say nothing of the first lady, was taboo.) In any event, Vashti said, “No way!”

The king got hot, but to no avail. He sent in more eunuchs to plead pretty-please. Vashti, however, wouldn’t budge from her lavish quarters, where she had a feast and a no-host bar going for her own women friends. Needless to say, the party went downhill from there. A highly irritated Artaxerxes huddled with his top legal beagles, who told him to nip this disobedience thing in the bud. Much as he hated to, he quickly kicked out a memo to everyone in the empire, saying that Vashti was hasta la vista. His counselors were more worried about the queen as a role model than the king’s feelings. To prevent a general epidemic of uppityness, they issued a fierce bulletin to all women, ordering them to treat their men as superiors from then on, whether they were or not.

And what of Vashti, the cool and gutsy queen who just said “No!” 2,300 years before Nancy Reagan thought of it? She was banished; most likely to her quarters or the main harem annex, not from the Earth. That’s how Esther, her replacement, came to take center stage. (exerpt from Uppity Women of Ancient Times, by Vicki León, 1995)