David The Cuck & Bathsheba The Slut

Reconstructing The Original Narrative Of David And Bathsheba

David and Bathsheba is once again trending on Twitter. Carmen Imes put it on my radar during this latest round. She had posted a thread regarding the matter, which led to Christianity Today asking her to write an article.

Much of the debate centers around whether Bathsheba seduced David or David raped Bathsheba. Since the Bible emphasizes placing the blame on David, Imes also places the blame on him but stops short of calling him a rapist. That’s an extremely simplified summary and I encourage you to check out the article, as she is sincere in her examination of the text.

Having said that though, Imes misses the original intention of the text. The text was created as propaganda: The Biblical author had taken an existing narrative about David and Bathsheba and spun it in a new direction, and believe it or not, that new direction makes David look good, or at least better than he did in the original narrative.

The original narrative can be reconstructed using a method I’ve developed called Reconstructive-Reading. I’ll attempt to lay out what actually happened between David, Bathsheba and Uriah.

David’s Son or Uriah’s Son?

Sometimes, Biblical authors had a hard time fitting parts of the original narrative into the new narrative, thereby creating a glitch. To start, we need to go to the end of the Biblical narrative of David and Bathsheba and notice one of the glitches in the text: When Bathsheba’s child was alive, David mourned and fasted, when her child died, he rose and ate. Of course the Biblical author does the best that he can to explain the odd behavior:

Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child died, you got up and ate food.” And he said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, and the child may live.’ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I am going to him, but he will not return to me.”

2 Samuel 12:21-23

Biblical authors used many propaganda techniques, and the passage above uses one that I call “Begging the Answer”. Biblical authors would insert questions into the narrative, questions that the original narrative would have answered differently, but the Biblical narrative provided new answers to those questions. The servant’s question in the above passage is an example of this technique.

But some might say, “Hey, that’s just the kind of guy David was, there’s nothing strange about it at all. He knew the power of God”. But was he really that kind of guy? The glitch is made glitchier in the Absalom narrative, where David has the exact opposite behavior regarding that son who died:

Then it was reported to Joab, “Behold, the king is weeping and he mourns for Absalom.” So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people, because the people heard it said that day, “The king is in mourning over his son.”

2 Samuel 19:1-2

This raises the question: Why would David celebrate Bathsheba’s son dying in the original narrative? I propose it was because it was actually Uriah’s son. Let’s take a look at the narrative with this in mind.

Uriah’s Wife Or David’s Wife?

Another propaganda technique that Biblical authors used, I refer to as “The Redundant Lie”. This is a claim that the Biblical author unnecessarily repeats because he is trying to change the narrative. One of the most frequent claims in this narrative is that Bathsheba was Uriah’s wife. In her Christianity Today article, Imes also notices the frequency in the text:

He violates Uriah’s marriage covenant, which the narrator reminds us of by repeatedly calling her “the wife of Uriah.”

The narrator repeatedly does that because Bathsheba was not Uriah’s wife, but David’s wife the entire time in the original narrative.

With the Biblical author trying to change the parentage of Bathsheba’s son, he makes sure to let us know that Bathsheba was not pregnant with Uriah’s son before David had a chance to get her pregnant. Imes points out that Bathsheba’s bath is connected with parentage:

This was no ordinary bath, either. She was purifying herself ritually following menstruation (2 Sam. 11:4). This practice indicates that she was a pious keeper of Israelite purity law (and also that she was not already pregnant, which is important to the question of parentage).

I propose that parentage was being addressed because the Biblical author was trying to change it.

Why Didn’t Uriah Go To His House?

Now when they informed David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,”

2 Samuel 11:10a

Ruh-roh! Sounds like there’s a fox in the hen house! Of course the Biblical author provides an explanation as to why Uriah did not go down to his house. It was well known that Uriah did not go to his house, so the Biblical author could not claim that he did, but he doesn’t want to place him in the palace either, because that’s when Uriah impregnates Bathsheba in the original narrative, so the author threads the needle and places Uriah at the gate.

Marry, F*ck, Kill

Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this certainly deserves to die!

2 Samuel 12:5

If Uriah impregnated David’s wife in the original narrative, then we would expect David to be angry about it. But without Uriah impregnating Bathsheba, there’s no reason for David to be angry, so the Biblical author inserts the story about the stolen lamb, but, for the original reader, it wouldn’t have been clear who did the lamb stealing, so the author has to explicitly have Nathan say to David, “You are the man!”

You have struck and killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword

2 Samuel 12:9

If Uriah impregnated David’s wife in the original narrative, then we would also expect David to want to kill Uriah, and the quote above may indicate that David did it personally. The Biblical author provides a new reason for David to kill Uriah and places that death on the battlefield.

A Plausible Misunderstanding

The original reader would have been comparing the Biblical narrative to the narrative they had heard. With this in mind, the Biblical author provides plausible misunderstandings in order to provide the original reader with a reason to assimilate the new narrative: “Oh, you thought that Uriah slept with David’s wife, no that was Absalom later in the narrative”:

This is what the Lord says: ‘Behold, I am going to raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.

2 Samuel 12:11

“Companion” is a bit odd here. There’s a little more flexibility in the Hebrew but still, Absalom was David’s son (not really, but that’s another blog post) and not his buddy, like Uriah was.

This “Plausible Misunderstanding” is combined with “A Plausible Ignorance”: “Oh, you never heard that part of the narrative before? That’s because it was done in secret.”

“Indeed, you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and in open daylight.’”

2 Samuel 12:12

The Blame Game

Many seem to revel in calling David a rapist, others seem to project their own fears in being seduced by Bathsheba. We may never know what really happened, but with the above Reconstructive-Reading, I think we can say that David did not rape Bathsheba and Bathsheba did not seduce David. It looks like Uriah was the bad guy all along. But did Bathsheba seduce Uriah? We know even less about Bathsheba in the Reconstructive-Reading than we do in the Biblical narrative, but if Uriah had violated Bathsheba and she was not a willing participant, then there would be no need for the Biblical author to change the narrative. However, the narrative was changed because David got cuckolded and for an ancient king, that’s bad for your reputation, not to mention your ego.

Imes ends her article with this:

The ongoing debate about this story shows the importance of returning to a text again and again, attending to its details, and remaining open to the possibility that we have missed or misconstrued something.

Reading with others is essential to that process. We all miss things, because we’re all embedded in communities that have shaped what we notice and what we don’t. Sometimes our failure to realize this impairs our ability to see what’s right in front of us.

In this case, Bathsheba deserves another look.

It does indeed. Perhaps Christianity Today will ask me to write an article (Ha!)