Ep 64: The Historicity of David

00:00Saw was like, "Hey, love what you're doing down there.

00:04Keep up the good work."

00:05Love your work.

00:06Huge fan.

00:08But in the story, it gets turned into David played the harp and soothed the savage beast.

00:14Right.

00:15Yeah.

00:16Another point in the gay column, I'm sorry.

00:20Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:26And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:27And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:32the academic study of the Bible and religion and we combat the spread of misinformation

00:37about the same.

00:38How are things, Dan?

00:39Man, things are good.

00:41I'm out here combatting misinformation like a dang superhero on your t-shirt or something.

00:48It's the amazing Spider-Man today.

00:49Those of you who are listening to us through the listening channels don't get to see that.

00:56Yes.

00:57You're rather famous for it.

01:00You've got two things you're famous for.

01:04There's the sort of the Bible-scholar thing and that's like whatever, okay, that's fine.

01:08And then there's this t-shirt thing that you do.

01:11It is a thing that I do.

01:14It's nice though because when I go speak at universities, I give lectures and like named

01:17lectures.

01:18They're like, "This is the doctor so-and-so lecture," and I show up in a thing t-shirts

01:23and I'm like, "Is this okay?"

01:26And they're always like, "Absolutely, that's what we wanted you to do."

01:29And your institution can't fire you for it because this is it.

01:34This is the only institution you've got.

01:36Yeah, this is as institutional as I get.

01:39We have a great show on deck, don't we?

01:43Yeah.

01:44Speaking of heroes, last week we did a thing called biblical heroes.

01:49Question mark and yeah, it is Enrique Iglesias, really a hero.

01:54Yeah, it turns out he very much is, but so we've got some more question mark heroes here,

02:04but interestingly our first chapter and verse, our first segment is going to involve lady

02:09heroes, which I think is awesome.

02:12And the second, our second half of the show is going to be a history's mysteries where

02:17we discuss David, by popular demand, historicity has come up a few times from listeners, so.

02:27Yeah, they want to know, is this real?

02:31Yeah.

02:32What is historical about the story of yield King David, so?

02:37The biblical figure, one of the most important figures in the Bible, constantly mentioned

02:43that thereafter, and so we'll get to the bottom of it.

02:48And by the end of the show, you will know definitively the historicity of David.

02:55More or less.

02:56I'm making that promise on Dan's behalf, but first let's dive into a chapter and verse.

03:03All right, what are we looking at?

03:08So this is from the book of judges, and we're looking at judges, chapters four and five,

03:16which are both sort of the same thing, but in different form.

03:21Yeah, we've got a bit of a historical narrative going on with our judge.

03:26Well, it's actually about Deborah and Barak.

03:29Yes.

03:30And then we've got the famous song of Deborah and judges chapter five, which is some poetry

03:36that some scholars think may be among the oldest poetry in all the Bible.

03:41This might be really, really old.

03:45Wow.

03:46Okay.

03:47There is disagreement about that.

03:49What is it they're disagreement about?

03:52I think our listeners have gotten to the point where they understand that, like, basically

03:55everything that we say, there's disagreement about it.

03:58Yeah.

03:59Absolutely.

04:00So, so yeah, dive in dive in a little bit.

04:03Yeah.

04:04Well, let's set the table a little bit regarding judges, because the book of judges is a collection

04:11of a bunch of stories about people who judged in Israel.

04:14Right.

04:15And we talked about Samson last week.

04:18Talked about Samson.

04:19Yeah.

04:20Who was one of these judges?

04:21Yeah.

04:22And we get this, and it's kind of like just these serial stories where the narrator is

04:28like, and there was no king in the land.

04:30He did what was right in their own eyes and God, you know, just was annoyed.

04:36So God brought this people to harass them.

04:40And then God was like, maybe I'm not so annoyed.

04:43And so God raises up a judge.

04:45And this is basically a warlord.

04:47This is the person who is fighting back in the absence of a king and kind of a centralized

04:53authority.

04:55And this period in the history of ancient Israel is the book of judges comes from much

05:01later than the time periods they narrate.

05:04But there are probably some historical memories preserved in some of these stories from a

05:09period before the rise of an actual state, when it really was just a bunch of scattered

05:16tribes just trying to survive off the land and they occasionally have to defend themselves

05:23against the Philistines.

05:26Those are the main ones that are the enemies here.

05:29We're going to see there are some Canaanites who are the villains.

05:34And basically they kind of band together under this chieftain, this warlord who's going

05:40to defend them against the people who are encroaching on their territory.

05:44And then as soon as that threat is gone, everything goes back to the way it was.

05:50So it's kind of a weird little kind of seasonal where we're briefly a type of kingdom and

05:58then we're not.

05:59And then we're briefly a type of kingdom.

06:01So they're not kings, they're judges.

06:03But one of these is Deborah.

06:06And so at the beginning of chapter four, the Israelites are again doing what was evil in

06:11the sight of Adonai after the judge, Ahud had died.

06:14Which is basically, that's just the setup for all of these, as you say, all of these

06:19stories kind of start with that.

06:21And there's a lot of like little stories and little things that are thrown in and judges.

06:25Like I read the chapter before this, hoping it would provide me with some context.

06:30It did not.

06:33But you didn't like the a hood story?

06:36No, it was a fine story.

06:37It just didn't give me any context for the Deborah story.

06:40Yeah.

06:41Interesting is that the chapter before this ends with a single, single verse that says,

06:52after him came Shamgar, son of Anath who killed 600 of the Philistines with an ox goad.

06:59He too delivered Israel, but that's the whole story.

07:04Yeah.

07:05Yeah.

07:06Yeah, he didn't get a whole, you know, a whole like big old long thing like like Samson did.

07:11I mean, yeah, Deborah gets two chapters, Samson gets I think three or four.

07:17Yeah.

07:18Yeah.

07:19They, they're major judges.

07:20And then there are minor judges like I'm going to say Shamgar killing 600 Philistines

07:25with an ox goad is a pretty, you know, it's, it's not a thousand with a, a jawbone of

07:31an ass.

07:32But it's still pretty.

07:33That's no small shakes.

07:34I'm just going to say.

07:35Anyway, all I, all I think of is the old Mickey Mouse cartoon where he kills seven flies with

07:42one spot.

07:43And then he opens up his windows and says, I killed seven with one blow and they all

07:48think he's talking about a giant seven giants and they're like, Oh, well, there's a giant

07:53who's harassing us.

07:54Go right.

07:55Take on the giant.

07:56We'll, we'll talk about taking on giants later on.

07:59Yeah.

08:00That's a different story.

08:01So Deborah is in it. So, so the lead into the Deborah story is nothing. There is no lead

08:07into it.

08:08Right.

08:09There's just a guy killing people with an ox goad. And then we jump directly into the

08:13Israelites doing what was, what is evil in the sight of the Lord.

08:17Right.

08:18And they, so they sold them into the hand of King Jabin or Jabin of Canaan, who rained

08:24in hot sore and hot sore as a well, now it's just ruins, but used to be a good sized city,

08:32just north of the Sea of Galilee. You can go visit there. And the commander of Jabin's

08:40army was Cicera, who lived in Haro Shet Hagoim, which probably means Haro Shet of the Gentiles

08:46or of the nations, right, rather than just another part of the name. And then the Israelites

08:51cried out to Adonai for help, because these folks had a bunch of chariots and they had

08:58been oppressing the Israelites for some 20 years. And chariots will help, man. Yeah, that's

09:05that's some high tech worrying stuff. So well, that that's actually something that a lot

09:10of scholars think the invasion of the sea peoples, which happened around 1200 BCE, which

09:17is what caused these people known as the Philistines to occupy the coastal area. That's what brought

09:26them there. They probably brought chariots with them and introduced that technology into

09:32the region, if not them, then it would have been the Egyptians from the south. But these

09:36regions that chariots wouldn't have been incredibly helpful in, you know, these mountains and

09:43everything like that, they're fighting. And so, and I think in judges 19, that's one of

09:48the things that was a judges 19. There's a, there's a story about how it seems to be

09:55saying that God was unable to deliver some folks because right, because I had chariots

10:01and what's God going to do. So a little rich from my blood. Whoa, whoa, whoa, you didn't

10:07tell me they had chariots. What's going on? All right, we get Deborah has introduced it

10:12says at that time, Deborah, a prophet wife of Lapidoth, at least that's what it says in

10:19the NRSV. I did read that that is not the only possible translation of that moment that

10:29Lapid or Lapidoth might meet and it might not have been a person, but a description of Deborah

10:37as being like a woman of fire or lightning or something like that.

10:40Oh, yeah, I don't know that I've looked that up, but that's what Wikipedia said. That's

10:46what Wikipedia says. Okay, what it says in Wikipedia is Lapid translates as touch as torch

10:54or lightning. And therefore, there we go, Lapid, okay, which could be like I could be named

11:02after the notion of, but Lapidoth would be sounds like it would be plural. And so that

11:10could be an abstract plural and abstraction. So a woman of lighteningness of light. Okay.

11:17Yeah. So anyway, but most, I think most, most scholars and you, as since you didn't even

11:25know that that existed, I think it's safe to say no, I didn't. I had not looked at that.

11:29Most scholars probably think that it's just she's the wife of Lapidoth. Yeah, and she's

11:36judging under a palm between Rama and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. So this is

11:41the Northern Hill country and this idea of judging under a palm, we see this a handful

11:46of times like even Saul was by his favorite tree when he's ruling. So that's interesting.

11:53Is do we have a sense of why that is because, you know, a lot of the imagery of like the

11:58Buddha is under the tree and stuff. Yeah, we have, is there a reason why ancient peoples

12:04of Asia are into their wise people being under trees? I, there's got to be some symbolism

12:12associated with, with life or with authority or something like that. There were trees that

12:18could be associated with certain deities and like the date palm could be associated

12:23with a goddess. So there could be some of that kind of stuff lurking in the background.

12:30But I don't know of any special significance associated with this particular one. And

12:33is this a date palm? I think this is a date palm. Yeah, yeah, here's my here's a here's

12:40a question that I have also or rather what one thing we shouldn't do is gloss over the

12:45fact that there's a woman who's being who's declared a prophet and is what and is the

12:52judge is the warlord of this moment. That's that sounds unusual to me. Am I wrong? That's

13:00a, it seems like that's not something that like that, that felt that was very unexpected

13:05to me. Well, they, they certainly don't lead you in there. They're not like, get a hold

13:10of get a load of this. No, it's given no extra oomph in any way. Yeah, we have and you know,

13:19this happens elsewhere. Like when King Josiah finds the book of the law in the temple, they

13:24take it to Hilda, the prophetess. And she's the one who tells the king what to do. And

13:30so every now and then you just have women showing up in positions of power and authority.

13:36And the text doesn't seem to treat it as anything unusual. Of course, anyone who's reading the

13:39text closely recognizes it is quite unusual for for these texts. But whether this is a

13:46literary creation or just a feature of this time period, I don't know, I think both kind

13:53of have ways that they make sense to me. But I mean, either, no matter what it is, I find

14:01it remarkable that it is that it's treated as unremarkable. Yeah, that the fact, you

14:09know, that the fact that this woman was given all of this power and authority and that people

14:13there's no, no ink spilled to question her authority or her power or her ability as a

14:21prophet or anything like that. It is just it's as assumed to be true as any of the men.

14:29Yeah. And we don't really get much questioning until we get to the pseudo Paul and first Timothy

14:37and and our interpolation in first Corinthians 14. That's when the the clause come out. But

14:45so they they're going to go hang out around Mount to bore and they're going to try to

14:51draw Cicera and the enemy out to meet them there. And we've got this weird this weird

14:57thing with where Deborah summons Barak and he shows up and and she tells him what the

15:03plan is going to be. And Barak is just a leader of a he's just an army general of some sort

15:10or something. Yeah. And and he says in verse eight, if you will go with me, I will go.

15:15But if you will not go with me, I will not go. Yeah. Kind of a weird thing. And she's

15:19like, Oh, I'm going to go with you definitely. But he's like, I'm not going if you don't

15:23if you don't come, this is over. There's no way, man. No way. And and she says, I will

15:29surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your

15:33glory. For the Lord will sell Cicera into the hand of a woman. So we do have kind of

15:40a is a bit of a tip of the hat to the fact that that it is unusual that a woman is stepping

15:50into this role. But this is not about Deborah. Right. It's about somebody else. Yeah, I assumed

15:55it was about Deborah when she said that I was I assumed that she was like sort of obliquely

15:59taught referring to herself, but she wasn't. I also think that that's a weird thing to say

16:04to a guy who was just right then showing reticence about going at all to be like. And also you're

16:10not going to get any glory. Some other lady is going to get all the glory. So have fun.

16:15Barrage is like, okay. All right, we'll just go then. And he gathers up his 10,000 men

16:21or whatever it was. And and and armies from other neighboring tribes, I guess. Yeah, this

16:29is something that was pretty common at the time when you had to go to war, you wanted

16:34to get all your friends involved. Yeah. So that you had as much power behind you as possible.

16:41And the Cicera shows up. They get the 900 chariots there and 10,000 warriors are following Barrage.

16:50And then it just says the Lord through Cicera and all his chariots and all his army into

16:53a panic for Barrage. So Cicera like falls off of his his chariot. And I'm thinking of

17:01El Guapo at the end, falling off his horse. You stupid horse. And and Barrage pursues

17:08the chariots in the army. And they're going chasing after him. And then Cicera, he has

17:12fled away on foot. And he makes it to the tent of Yael, Adonai as El is God, wife of

17:21Hebrew, the kenite. Right. It was peace between this, this Canaanite and the and Hebrew, the

17:26kenite. And before we go on, I just want to make it clear. Cicera fleeing. He's the only

17:33guy that made it alive. The his entire army was destroyed by Barrage. And he's running

17:40away on his own. I also want to point out that every time I had to read the word kenite,

17:45all I could think of was Ryan Gosling in the Barbie movie, because kenites got to have

17:53that energy. That's all there is to it. So, so Cicera is defeated already, but yeah,

18:02he himself has has not got got. So there so he has he has fled to his boss's wife's tent,

18:11which I thought was a little bit like, woo, like I was, yeah, at least at least say a

18:19comrades wife's tent. And Jael comes out to meet him says, turn aside my lord, turn aside

18:25to me. Have what is it? What does that mean? Turn aside. Oh, it's just come on in. You're

18:31you're on a you're on a journey in a certain direction. Turn off the road, take the exit,

18:38hop in to the tent. And it says she covered him with a rug, but wasn't a very heavy rug.

18:46And then he asked for a little a little water. He's a little parched. So she gets him some

18:52milk and gives him a drink and tucks him back into his rug. Yeah. And he's like, just keep

18:58a lookout. I'm going to get a little shut eye here. If anybody comes tell him I ain't here.

19:04Yeah. And so she grabs a tent peg and a hammer and just goes in and basically nails his head

19:13to the ground. Yeah. And it's explicit. It's funny because it skips over a lot of details.

19:21But does not skip over any details with this tent peg and hammer like literally went softly.

19:29A jail wife of Heber took the tent peg and took a hammer in her hand. We had to know that

19:36it was in her hand and went softly to him and drove the the peg into his temple until

19:42it went down into the ground. Yep. That is she you got to aim past the target. That's

19:49the trick. That's the key. Yeah. In martial arts to break the board, you got to aim past

19:54the board. That's the trick. So she home girl knew how to drive a stage, man. Yeah, the she

19:59had the fundamentals down. Yeah. So he was really going to get only one shot at that one.

20:06If you if it's a glancing blow, you're you're in trouble. Yeah. He was lying fast asleep

20:11from weariness and he died. Yeah. Yep. So so Jayo gets the glory on that one and which

20:19is so which is funny because she wasn't even part of the she she wasn't even part of the

20:24whole real battle. But she killed the one the final boss, I guess. Yeah. And and Barack

20:31shows up at the tent and you can see him like run into the tent. He's like, I got you now.

20:35I'm going to get the glory and then she opens the door and he's like, Oh, I bet you killed

20:40him already. I mean, Barack was told he knew this was coming. And then we've got we've

20:52got the song of Deborah immediately after that, which tells the same story over again,

20:58but it's just five and it's and it's suddenly a poem and it's like, whoa. But there's some

21:03interesting features of this poem that a lot of people may not notice. You've got and one

21:09of the things that the poem includes is Shamgar. I don't know if you noticed that. You mentioned

21:16that Shamgar who the one who killed 600 Philistines within ox code right after three. Yeah. If

21:22you go into the song, verse six, it says, in the days of Shamgar, son of anath in the days

21:27of Ja'el Caravan ceased and travelers kept to the byways. So they're kind of describing

21:33kind of a Wild West scenario where, you know, it wasn't safe to be out on the roads because

21:39there were brigands, a boot. And so careful, you're going to get killed with an ox code.

21:45Like it's dangerous out there. Yeah. And we have this story about just a basically

21:51how things are, you know, they're causing trouble in the neighborhood. Yeah. Until we have in

21:58verse 12, awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, utter a song, arise, Barack, lead away your

22:03captives. Oh, son of Abi Noam. And one gets the sense that this poem is a lot older than the

22:09narrative. And so the narrative may have been constructed kind of in light of the poem because

22:16Barack doesn't really have much of a role in the story. We have a bunch of people who

22:25are mentioned, they call, they basically say, all right, everybody who's for the Lord for

22:31Adonai come to battle against Cicera the Canaanite. And it rattles off a bunch of names from

22:38E from they set out into the valley following you Benjamin with your kin from Mahir marched

22:44down the commanders and from Zebulon, those who bear the martial staff. And we get a bunch

22:48of of tribes and most of them are the 12 tribes of Israel. But not all of them are here. Okay.

22:58Because it lists those who came and then it condemns those who didn't. Sure. But it doesn't

23:04mention Judah at all. And some of the tribes have different names, like Mahir is a different

23:10one and morose. They did not come to help to the help of the Lord to the help of the Lord

23:17against the mighty. So one one theory is that this may be poetry that's preserved from an

23:25earlier period before they kind of settled on what the 12 tribes were going to be and

23:31what names were going to be that this is preserved from an earlier time. And it doesn't have the

23:37southern tribes. Right. Or it doesn't have Judah. And so maybe this is when Israel just

23:45referred to the kingdom of Israel in the northern hill country. So there's there's a lot of debate

23:52about about what all this means. But it is, I think it's fascinating to think of this poem,

23:59at least the list of tribes as a preservation of the earliest tribes of Israel before they

24:05went mainstream. Yeah. You know, we get the 12 tribes that we know today.

24:11It does occur to me. Is this I don't I don't know what what historians and academics say

24:17about this, but it seems very very possible to me that oral histories were passed down

24:23in song and poetry. Oh, yeah, for a long time. And that maybe that's the origin of many of

24:31these stories. We just don't have the songs that were the origin of these things. Yeah,

24:36as usage like you suggested that this song predates the story. And then the story was

24:42just a reworking of the information contained in the song to make sense of it. I think that's

24:48that makes sense to me just because the narrative contains much more detail. And I think we've

24:55discussed it before, but you don't have historical narrative narrative prose in alphabetic languages

25:02like Hebrew until the late ninth century BCE. And so prior to that, all the texts are are

25:09either like short little missives or they are poetry. And so yeah, absolutely. The stories

25:16from prior to the rise of narrative prose would have been structured around poetry, because

25:22that's one of the ways that's one of the ways to give structure to something in a way that

25:27makes it easier to remember. Yeah, makes it sticky, makes it catchy. Right. So whether

25:33it's meter or whether it's rhyme or whatever it is, that's one of the ways to to help remember

25:39it. Whereas narrative prose, it's the fact that it's being committed to text that facilitates,

25:46you know, it's later access. It's not something that you've got to memorize. So so poetry,

25:52frequently is earlier than the narrative. And we you mentioned time periods. One thing

25:58we didn't touch on is when is this story of Deborah meant to have taken place? And what

26:06time period do we think the text is from? So the book of judges is not incredibly clear

26:14on time periods. It kind of is jumping regionally and chronologically around, but it in general,

26:21it would have been between like 1200 BCE and and Saul toward the end of the 11th century

26:28BCE. So, you know, you've got around a 200 year span. Okay. And but the reality is that

26:36these most of these stories probably come from the 9th or the 8th century BCE. But this poem,

26:43the song of Deborah could come from before that, you know, possibly as early as around

26:48a thousand BCE. So so when when this text was was written or especially the not so much

26:56the poem, but chapter four, rather than chapter five, that was likely written in the in you

27:02say the 800s BCE or the 9th or the 8th century, more than likely the 8th century. So that

27:10would be the 700s. Okay, 700s. But about the 11th of 12th century. Is that what you said?

27:17I've now I've lost the plot. 13th, it's it's probably looking back toward historical memories

27:24from much earlier, but but probably not probably not any further than around 1000 BCE. Okay,

27:32and are there any other texts? We'll be talking more about this, but are there any other non-biblical

27:38texts that affirm any of this story or is this story? Oh, no, it's just here. And we

27:45have no like, there's no way to verify any kind of historicity with this.

27:51There's there's not there are some ways that people will track down like place names, like

28:00it in one of the stories of David, it's like he got the booty and he split up the booty

28:04and the booty went to the people from this town in this town in this town in this town

28:07in this town. And like, if you go dig into a lot of archaeological stuff, you will find

28:14that that those towns weren't inhabited in the time when David was supposed to be alive,

28:20but they were all inhabited in like, you know, the 750s BCE or something like that. So you

28:25might be able to say, so it sounds like this story at least was written in in no earlier

28:31than this time period. But apart from that kind of stuff, there's not really much that

28:35we can do. But there are some fascinating some other fascinating things I wanted to point

28:39out in here. One of the things that I really enjoy is the fact that in verse 20 says the

28:43stars fought from heaven from their courses, they fought against Cicera. And so the stars

28:50are the the heavenly bodies, the host of the heavens. And the host of the heavens just

28:54means the armies of the heavens. And here, they're actually functioning precisely as

29:00Adonai's armies, because they are they're in their courses. They're they're doing what

29:05they're supposed to be doing. But because they're divine beings in their gods army, they are

29:11also capable of being deployed in battle. And so they would explain the confusion that

29:19the that Cicera's army experienced. If they're if they're getting like laser beamed from

29:25the stars, that would explain why they why they went into a panic. Yeah. Um, and then

29:31we have a we have the curse of morose says it says says the angel of the Lord, which is

29:37probably a later part of the text curse bitterly. It's inhabitants because they did not come

29:43to help come to the help of the Lord. And this is a there's a theory about the rise of the

29:48nation of Israel that initially, you know, we have a reference to Israel and the Moneptus

29:54Steely from around 1208 1210 BCE. And it refers to Israel using a determinative for a people.

30:01So it's not a city state. It's not a kingdom. It's not a nation. It's just a people. And

30:06there's a theory that well, there are a variety of theories associated with this. But the

30:11one that I think makes the most sense to me is that these were really just a bunch of

30:15scattered tribes. And if, uh, you know, somebody came to cause trouble from outside, they banded

30:21together and they're like, all right, we're going to become, uh, this, this little confederation

30:27or amfictione, if you want to borrow a term from further west in the Mediterranean. And,

30:33uh, and if you were part of that organization, if they, you know, raise the banner, you had

30:39to go fight. And there was somebody would, would, uh, take up position as the head chief,

30:46the head warlord or whatever. Uh, and, uh, it sounds like some of these folks didn't

30:51come to the battle that they named the tribes that did and they named the tribes that didn't

30:56and, and the tribes that didn't got got shamed for it. But one, yeah, got put on blast.

31:02One theory is that they, uh, this was a seasonal thing. It was an, you know, a situationally

31:08emergent thing. And then at some point, they just decided we need to stay together and,

31:14you know, so and so is going to, um, take up the throne as king. And then you've got the

31:19nation of Israel. Right. And, and then, you know, centuries later, we get the story about

31:25how, oh, Abraham gave birth to Isaac who gave birth to Jacob and Jacob gave birth to all

31:30of the tribes that are now confederated. And so we're all part of the same family. Uh,

31:36and so it, that is probably all a later fictional, uh, literary creation from these tribes that

31:43originally probably were not, um, genetically related, but just happened to occupy the same

31:48northern hill country. Right. Okay. There you go. Uh, after the one of the parts that's

31:56stuck out to me in the song, we'll just get, we're about to move on. But I just, yeah,

32:01they're talking about the spoils of the war. Uh, and we got, we got Jael, Jael takes care

32:08of Cicera in the, in the poem as well. Yes. Yes. That's right. So we, so, so all of the

32:13main plot points line up. Yep. And then it just, just in case you weren't, uh, you,

32:20you were, you were worried that this wasn't a sexist, uh, part of the book, uh, because

32:26there were these women heroes. It does say that in the spoils of the war, and are they

32:31not finding and dividing the spoil? A woman or two for every man spoil. And then so one

32:38of the spoils of war is women for everybody. And then the rest are, uh, died and embroidered

32:43clothes. So those, those are the things of value, I guess. Uh, so there you go. That's,

32:50that's the story of Deborah. Uh, very interesting stuff. Oh, hang on a second. I'm, uh, so I

32:56was, uh, I'm looking at the, the context of this, um, out of the window, she peered the

33:02mother of Cicera gaze through the lattice. Why is his chariot so long and coming? Why

33:08Terry the hoof beats of his chariots? Or why is this lady's make answer? Indeed? She answers

33:13the question herself. Are they not finding and dividing the spoil? A woman or two for

33:19every man's spoil of died stuffs for Cicera, a spoil of died stuffs embroidered, two pieces

33:23of died work embroidered for my neck as spoil. This is Cicera's mom. Oh, I miss that. What's

33:29what, why is Cicera taking so long? Dinner's getting cold and then goes, oh, he's, he's

33:35on the war path. He's, uh, he's raping and pillaging. He's, uh, gathering his, his, his

33:41women. Yeah. Women, uh, women or two. Okay. There you go. And then, um, so that's actually

33:46a disappointment. We don't, we don't know if women were divvied or not. She, that, that's

33:52just Cicera's mom just daydreaming. Okay. Coming back with a bunch of extra virgins.

33:57Yeah. Too bad. He's a tent peg now. Yeah. He, he did. And then she says, so perish all

34:04your enemies. Oh, I don't know. But may your friends be like the sun as it rises and it's

34:10might that that is in that such a, I don't think I have taken note of who is doing the

34:17talking there before, but that's such a poetic way to end this. It's like we got the battle.

34:23We got Jael nailing his head into the ground. And then it's like pans to cut to like the,

34:30I, I'm thinking of, of like in a little, a Truscan estate on the hillside and she's looking

34:35out the window and the, and the, the, uh, the curtains are flapping in the breeze and she's

34:40going, you're, and she's, yeah, she's dreaming about all of the embroidered stuffs that she's

34:45going to get. Yeah. And when her son comes back a victor, a rather ominous drawing to

34:52a close of, uh, yeah, weird narrative. Okay. I don't know. I never know. That's really,

34:58that's really interesting. Okay. Cool. Well, we, you know, you live and you learn and we,

35:04we both didn't catch that until just now. I love it. Uh, let's move on to histories,

35:11mysteries. And who is the, the mystery guest for today? Well, I guess we already talked

35:19about it. It's no mystery. We are. We already mentioned David. Yeah. Um, but, but yeah,

35:24I mean, I mentioned earlier that, that many people have written in to us to ask us to

35:29talk about David, uh, the history, the historicity of David, um, and also his son Solomon, maybe

35:35we can touch on that a little bit as well. A little bit. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, let's start

35:39with, well, I mean, you can start wherever you want. I will say that I, uh, grew up. And

35:47the only thing I knew about David was that he killed a giant, which you ruined for us

35:53in a previous episode because you're welcome. Uh, cause that wasn't David or was it or was

35:58it? Uh, and then, uh, when I actually read some of the, of the book, uh, I learned that

36:06he had a very special relationship with a guy named Jonathan, uh, we won't get into

36:10that too much, but it does seem very intense. Uh, but, but Jonathan, but there's this whole

36:19thing about, um, Saul who is, uh, the king and all this. Anyway, it's a big, long story.

36:27And a lot of, of time is spent on the rise of David on David being pursued by Saul. Uh,

36:37and then eventually David becomes king. Yeah. It becomes like kind of the most important

36:41king in the history of Israel. Would that be fair to say? Uh, I think so because a lot

36:48of the prophetic material, a lot of the stuff coming in the exile and after is all about

36:53that longing for the glory days of the Davidic kingdom. And David, David's dynasty lasts

37:00longer than any other dynasty associated with the nations of Israel or Judah. So his line

37:08is the longest reigning one.

37:10You know, we talked about these scattered tribes and all this stuff. He's kind of credited

37:18with consolidating everybody and like, and he's credited with, he took Jerusalem and then

37:25sort of made that home base and, uh, talk more about sort of the contributions that he made,

37:33uh, theoretically, we're going to get into whether there was a he or not and well, similar

37:40to the stuff with the judges, we have Saul, we have David, we have Solomon, and then we

37:45get the Jeroboam and the Rehoboam. It God identifies somebody who says, you're my guy.

37:51And then, you know, he just can't lose for a little bit. And then it turns out he was

37:57a loser the whole time. And so God's like, you're no longer my guy. This is my guy.

38:01So like it happens with Saul. It happens with David. It happens with Solomon. It happens

38:06with all the, all of the king. So the, this cyclical thing that we got going on with the

38:10judges continues to go on. And there's a sense in which the story kind of bleeds from the

38:15judges, at least that, um, the structure of these polities kind of bleeds into what's

38:23going on with Saul and David, because basically Saul is just the warlord who happens to be

38:30in charge when Israel decides, Hey, we're just going to stick together as this larger unit

38:36rather than break back up into our tribes. Uh, so that's, that's probably what happens

38:42when, uh, when Saul, if Saul is historical, uh, takes the throne and David, when we look

38:49at the narratives, uh, that talk about David's rise to the throne, we've got a handful of

38:55different things. There are things that are related to Saul. There are things that have

38:58nothing to do with Saul. And there are things that are very clearly literary inventions

39:03intended to, um, pump David up and just make it seem like he was the chosen one all along.

39:10Right. Because it is confusing because Saul, because David is not Saul's son, which would

39:15be the traditional, uh, way that, uh, you know, mode of succession to a kingship. Yeah.

39:23And that's, and that's a great point. David was not Saul's son. So why is David king?

39:28And so a lot of these stories are, are kind of intended to, uh, spackle over the, uh,

39:34the holes in the story and, um, and it feels that way. You could, you could, you can feel

39:40that as you're reading the narrative, like it feels like, Oh, this is, you're just plugging

39:44holes here. You're not telling and David and Jonathan is the exact same. Jonathan is

39:50Saul's son. Jonathan would be the heir to the throne, but from the instant the two of

39:55them are in the same room together. They can't keep their hands off each other. And Jonathan,

40:00like Jonathan, the, the, the little covenant ritual that they do that some people compare

40:06to a marriage. Jonathan gives him all of the symbols of his royalty. Basically Jonathan

40:13is saying you are the rightful heir, not me. And so that's very clearly this literary invention

40:20covering the holes, trying to make it seem like David got there through, uh, you know,

40:25no fault of his own. He wasn't, you know, he wasn't a warlord who just took over. Right.

40:30He, uh, you know, Jonathan's son, um, said this is the man. Yeah. And, uh, and when it

40:37comes to Jonathan and David's relationship, you got a lot of strong feelings on all sides

40:41of this, but there are two, I think decent books that cover the historical David one by

40:46Joel Baden called the historical David and the other by Jacob Wright, who we have had

40:50on the show called David King of Israel and Caleb in biblical memory. And they all, then

40:54they both talk about this to some degree. But, um, you know, you don't, they, they didn't

41:00have a concept of a homosexual person or a heterosexual person. Sex was a lot more

41:05fluid than that. Um, you know, just like for someone who may be spending the rest of their

41:10life in prison, they might be, uh, find themselves in a little more, um, fluid orientation than,

41:17uh, than otherwise. Uh, and so it, it wouldn't be entirely unheard of if this was a, a

41:24romantic relationship between David and Jonathan. We don't really think in earliest Israel,

41:31they really had a lot of concern for this kind of thing. Okay. The only concern we get is

41:36like post-exilic, uh, holiness code, priestly authors who are like, everything's supposed

41:42to be clean and everybody's got to be clean. We got to purge the land. Like that's happening

41:49centuries down the road, uh, in this little minority group. And so I don't think we have

41:55the data to say one way or another that this was or was not a remote romantic relationship.

42:00It's certainly plausible. I mean, the, the data is you read the book and you'd go, Oh,

42:06well, that seems really, really clear. Well, yeah, he says that he loves him more than,

42:13um, is love for him exceeded the love of women, which could just, could just be, um, you

42:21know, hyperbole. Um, but it also could mean the love was functioning as that we're constantly

42:29praising each other and hiding behind rocks and giggling. I don't know. It was just, it's

42:34just an, it, it feels very clear to me. Um, but the, but the, then on the other side of

42:41the question there's also the idea that yes, in order for this story to work, we need Jonathan's

42:50buy in right to David in order for him to give up his birthright of the kingdom. And so,

42:57and so having him that sort of worshipful of this kid who is not even, I mean, is he

43:05even a, he's like, I don't know if there's no real concept of nobility here, but he's

43:10the son of a like sheep farmer or something. Yeah. Yeah. This is Jesse's is the youngest

43:16of eight sons of Jesse. And, and when you go back in, in time, if you were the eighth

43:21son, nothing was coming to you. Yeah. Nobody gets a crap about you. Yeah. You either went

43:27to join the army or the clergy. Right. You had one of those two things. And so, um, David

43:33probably is a warlord, uh, who was operating in the south when, you know, whether it was

43:40Philistines or whoever put in pressure on them, David was probably in charge of, of

43:45some groups. And it's actually very close to the story of Jetha that you, um, I don't

43:49know if you recall, Jetha was, uh, this judge is 11. So it starts off that Jetha was the

43:54son of a, a man and a sex worker. Okay. And so, Jetha grew up in this guy's household,

44:02but all of this guy's legitimate sons were like, Hey, we don't like you. And you're not

44:07going to inherit anything. And they end up driving him off. And so he runs off and he

44:11becomes a, a merc. He like becomes the leader of a roving band of social outcasts and misfits.

44:22And it says the exact same thing about David that he went out and he attracted all of the,

44:27the misfits and the outcasts and they became, you know, a roving band of, uh, of mercenaries

44:34or warriors. And so he seems to have kind of made a name for himself as a warlord and

44:38was probably, uh, in charge of the groups that were taken care of, fending off the,

44:45the encroachment of the Philistines in the Southern territory. And that's probably how

44:49he got in good with Saul. Saul was like, Hey, like love what you're doing down there.

44:56Keep up the good work. Love your work. Huge fan. But in the story, it gets turned into

45:02uh, David played the harp and soothe the savage beast. Right. Um, yeah. Another point in the

45:10gay column. I'm sorry. But then, and, and it's weird, uh, Saul's like, who is this young

45:17man? I love the cut of his jib. And, uh, and then, you know, he finds out who he is. And

45:22then the next chapter. Saul's like, what are we going to do about this battle with this

45:26Philistine and David is out there and he's like, who is this young man? I like the cut

45:30of his jib. And is, and you know, you're like, you it's David again. It's still David. You

45:37already liked his jib. His jib is already currently liked. What are you doing? You know

45:42this man. And, um, and then we get the, you know, the story with the, uh, with Goliath,

45:48which has been appropriated, um, from, uh, Al-Hannan. And so so many of the stories are

45:55very clearly just ways for later authors to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, David, David

46:00was legit. He, you know, had right to be king. It wasn't like he just, uh, killed all the

46:06right people like as most kings, uh, find their way to the throne. Right. Um, but yeah,

46:12I think the, the historical David was probably a warlord, uh, somebody who left the family

46:18and went off and, and, uh, joined a group of, uh, of, uh, mercenaries and, and warriors.

46:25And they made a name for themselves. And, uh, Joel Baden makes an interesting point in,

46:30in his story about the historical David that the text keeps saying that David just won

46:35battle after battle after battle against the Philistines, but never discusses any territory

46:41changing hands, uh, which suggests that these are, these are not significant battles. This

46:47is not really changing the tide of anything, which means it's probably just these skirmishes

46:52going on at the border. Um, you know, in, in the no man's land and, uh, along the borders,

46:58which supports the notion that he was just, you know, a warlord just out trying to, um,

47:05just a bunch of highwaymen and wayfarers. Yeah. And not the, uh, not the, oh gosh, now

47:10if not the Chris Kristofferson highwayman, not the good kind of highwayman, but, um,

47:18and, uh, and there's a theory that most scholars don't think there was ever a United Kingdom.

47:24Oh, okay. That is that there was a Northern Kingdom of Israel and then there was a Southern

47:29Kingdom of Judah. The earliest reference that we have to both of these political entities

47:36is the Tel Dan Steely, which we said there's not a lot going in there, but it's this air

47:41man named Hazael who says, yeah, I killed all these. I killed this guy. He was the king

47:45of Israel and this guy. He was the king. And then, uh, it, he refers to another guy from

47:52the house of David. He doesn't say the, the kingdom of Judah. He just says from the house

47:57of David, which means this is probably a dynastic successor and there's not yet an actual kingdom

48:03in Judah. Uh, and so there's a theory that I kind of like that David was trying to take

48:09over the kingdom of Israel from Saul. Uh, and it didn't really work out well enough.

48:17And he made his way south, took over Jerusalem and then was like, fine, I'm going to start

48:23up my own kingdom and, um, starts up a little, um, uh, chieftain or some, uh, chieftain or

48:30something like that in, uh, the south in Judah with Jerusalem as the capital. Uh, and then

48:38that becomes, you know, Israel's little brother until a round seven 22 BCE when, um, we got

48:46Tiglath, police are the third, uh, coming in and, uh, destroying the northern kingdom.

48:52And then Judah is all that's left. And so Judah kind of appropriates the identity of

48:57Israel, the traditions, the literature, the, the history. Uh, and Judah is the one telling

49:04the story from then on out. And so, but because Judah is part of the Davidic dynasty, not Israel's

49:11dynasty, David becomes, um, the main man, the, uh, and then they just, so they, they inject

49:20the, the David story into all of these other stories that they're, that they're appropriating

49:25or, or, or, or, or, you know, set it in among those other stories or something.

49:30Yeah. So, and, and they're probably, these, these stories were probably in circulation

49:34for a while. There were the, the early traditions about, uh, David, where he's going and, and

49:40he's even participate. You know, he's, he's like, they represent him as kind of undercover,

49:45uh, fighting for the Philistines for a while. Yeah. For a minute there, he's like, he's

49:51like going from Philistine guy to Philistine guy, being like, Hey, let us hold up here

49:57with you. And I'll, and, and like he keeps, he keeps siding with all of the wrong people.

50:02It's weird. And you have this, uh, there's a story of, um, Nabal and Abigail that, uh,

50:11that is an interesting story, um, where he shows up at this, uh, at Nabal's house. And

50:19first off, the name, Nabal means fool. Okay. So like right off the bat, this is very clearly,

50:28uh, fictional. Right. Um, and, and says, Hey, we've been protecting your crops, uh, from

50:33the, all the roving mad men, uh, a real kind of, you got a lovely store here. It'd be, I

50:40would hate to see something happen. Right. Yeah. He's running a protection racket. Yeah.

50:46And, um, and Nabal's like, get off my property. And, um, you know, just runs him off and,

50:51uh, later on, uh, David comes back and they kill Nabal and everybody else. And then David

51:00marries Abigail. Uh, and it's, this is another way that like you can imagine how this went.

51:06He's running a protection racket. Nabal doesn't buy into it. So he's like, all right. Well,

51:12it'll just kill you. And, uh, but the way the story is told in, in the Bible, they represent

51:19in a ball as like this, oh, this idiot who is like, um, you know, doesn't listen to the

51:25Lord and is doing everything wrong. And Abigail is out there, uh, kind of behind the scenes

51:30helping David out so that, uh, uh, that, you know, David will be, will be merciful. And

51:36then I think it even has God killing the ball instead of David. Oh, wow. But it's very clearly

51:43a sanitization, sanitizing. Right. I am not, I'm, I think the, uh, the cycle of benzaprene

51:50is still affecting my ability to form words, but, um, nice, but, uh, it's, it's a sanitized

51:57version of, you know, a tale as old as time, right, uh, for the Wild West, where that kind

52:03of thing goes on. So, um, yeah. Was Abigail, Abigail was, wasn't Dave, was that David's

52:10first wife? David took a lot of wives. Yeah. He took a, he took a handful and, and something

52:17that, uh, is pointed out that, um, oh, is it, is it to David or Solomon? Does Nathan say,

52:25yeah, I think Nathan tells David that, um, the Lord gave you all of your master, or,

52:31you know, your master's wives into, into your bosom. I think that was Nathan, uh, telling

52:37David that, um, but I don't remember. It was kind of a way. I mean, it was kind of a way

52:44of consolidating a bunch of trial. Like he, it seems like he would go in and sort of

52:50like when he would take over a tribe, he'd just marry somebody from that tribe, you know,

52:58prominent woman from that tribe. And then, yeah, they're, they're his now, yeah, sort

53:02of sort of thing. Yeah. Uh, and then yeah. I don't remember if Abigail was his, uh, first

53:09wife or not. Okay. Uh, yeah. At one point in the book of chronicles, I guess it lists

53:17his sons with, with various wives. So there's, you know, a whole, a whole bunch of things.

53:24The most famous son being, uh, Solomon by Bathsheba. Bathsheba is his wife from a pretty sketchy

53:33moment in his history. I mean, it's funny if anyone jumps to the defense of David, if,

53:40if they have the impulse to say, why is Dan saying David was such a bad dude? Um, read

53:48the book because like the stuff, he's, he doesn't do good things. The whole, the whole

53:54debt Bathsheba thing is such a shocking story to me. You know, he sees her, he sees her on

54:02the roof of, you know, naked on the roof of her building and like, well, it doesn't even

54:07say roof or, Oh, right. He could be looking through. I'm, I was imagining it on the roof.

54:13He could be looking, you were thinking Leonard Cohen. You saw her bathing on the roof. Right.

54:17Yeah, maybe that's it. Yeah. But, but he sees her like bathing. Uh huh. He's, he's a peeping

54:24Tom. Uh, brings her in, does not give her many options. Uh, just, oh no, no options.

54:32Takes her. Yeah. Uh, has her. And then her husband comes back and you know, these hit

54:39tights and their anger and management issues. But, but actually her husband's like awesome

54:45to him, but he doesn't want, uh, her husband to know what happened and sends him and then

54:54sends him back to the front to the war front and, uh, with instructions for him to be killed.

55:01Yeah. At least put him in a situation where he was definitely going to die, even though

55:06he showed himself to be, uh, much more of a man of God than, than David. He was like,

55:11Hey, go home. Um, you know, the, the, the tech says, uh, wash your feet, which is, which

55:20is a euphemism. Right. Um, and, um, and what he says, like the game here, right, is David

55:29is worried that he got Bathsheba pregnant and he doesn't want her husband coming home

55:33to find, uh, a pregnant wife. So he's like trying to trick him into going and having

55:38sex with her so that it's plausibly his kid. Yeah. Cover it up. And then, uh, and then

55:45he doesn't, he won't like no, I'm loyal to you. Well, and he's, he doesn't want to, uh,

55:52the idea seems to be that he's a warrior. And if he's neat, if he's going to stay in God's

55:56favor and have God looking out for him on the battlefield and if he's going to be a pure

56:00warrior, then, um, you know, no sex before a fight kind of rule you got. Um, so he sleeps

56:07outside of the bed chamber. So that, uh, so he maintains his ritual purity so that, uh,

56:15so that he can, uh, he can do well in battle. Unfortunately, it does not work. Yeah. Well,

56:20it does. I don't know how well he did in battle, but when the rest of the army takes a step

56:25back and just lets it lets the other army have at him, uh, you, it doesn't matter how well

56:30you do. You're, you're still going to lose. Yeah. And, and as we've, uh, we spoke about

56:35before in our episode on, uh, on women covering up, uh, this was totally David's fault. Yeah.

56:45That, uh, Bathsheba wasn't doing anything wrong. Bathsheba had absolutely no agency.

56:50Yeah. And, uh, Bathsheba was just, um, doing what she was required to do as, uh, as a woman

56:57of this time period. Yeah. There was no, there's no mention of her being a seductress or anything

57:02like that. It, it, that argument just falls flat on its face. If anyone were to make it,

57:10um, it's a, it's a fascinating story. He's an interesting anti-hero, um, but it sounds

57:18to me like you're convinced that there was a David at least. I think it's more likely

57:26than not that there, that there was some kind of historical David. Um, I think these, some

57:31of these stories about this, uh, warlord who just kind of was roaming around with a band

57:37of, of, uh, you know, men who could have been Mary, um, that, uh, we can, we can, we can

57:44either confirm or deny the Maryness, but, uh, and, uh, there seems we're probably perfect

57:51every time. Uh, as, uh, as the show says, um, I, I think that's more likely than not.

57:57I don't know that we can know anything really about this individual, but, but I, I think

58:03the, the start of this dynasty that is named in the tell Dan Steely, uh, I think that's

58:09gotta be, um, embedded in the foundations of, of those social memories. And so some features

58:16of, uh, of David are probably historical. Okay. Well, there you have it friends. Uh, maybe

58:23we'll come back to David at some point, cause there's a lot, uh, of David stuff, but, uh,

58:29for now we'll leave it at that. Thanks, Dan. Uh, if you guys have, would like to now, Dan,

58:37you and I are about to go and record our after party. Uh, that's more bonus content that we

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59:04none of those things appeal to you, we'll just see you again next week.

59:08Bye everybody.

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