Ep 67: Prophets, Kings, and Terrible Men with Aaron Higashi

00:00Stories of David and Goliath, stories of David dancing in front of the arc.

00:05That's the image that you have of David in your mind as a child, and you try and come

00:09back to these stories as an adult, and you find all these stories are compromised.

00:14There's not a single one of these classical stories that is not in some way overshadowed

00:18by these issues that you're probably going to pick up on as an adult.

00:21So what now, how can we take something from the story now that our more adult perspective

00:26on these characters has sort of come to light?

00:31Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:35And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:36And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:41the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about

00:46the same.

00:47How are things, Dan?

00:48Things, I mean, it's not 110 where I live, so things are doing pretty good.

00:53I'm pretty happy.

00:54It's 76, which, you know, I have sweat beating up on where my hairline used to be when it

01:01gets this warm, but at least it's not 76 inside.

01:04So yeah, it's, but where it is warmer is is Phoenix, which is which is the homeland currently

01:13homeland.

01:14Yes.

01:15Of our of our guest, Aaron Higashi returning champion.

01:20Thank you so much for coming back on the show.

01:22Long time listener, second time caller.

01:25Yeah, exactly.

01:26Well, we appreciate you calling in today.

01:28We had something entirely different planned, but Aaron's kind of a hard guest to get rid

01:33of.

01:34So, no, hopefully I hope so Aaron, Aaron is here to talk about a book you've got coming

01:43out shortly entitled, first and second Samuel or one and two Samuel, if you're nasty or

01:50normal people, part of the Bible for normal people, Empire, a guide to prophets, kings,

01:58and some pretty terrible men.

02:00Yes.

02:02And this comes out, you you message me and said, Hey, I got this coming out on July 23rd.

02:07And I was like, Hey, that's my birthday.

02:09I'm going to be turning 44 the day I'll get you a copy.

02:12Well, I, I, that was part of the deal, I thought, but, but I would appreciate that very much.

02:19I also have birthdays.

02:21So I'm just throwing that out there.

02:23That's exciting.

02:24I'll send you one too.

02:25I would love it.

02:27But I do my mom.

02:28I think that's it.

02:29That's it.

02:30Okay.

02:31How many copies is Pete giving you?

02:33You get a, you get a good deal.

02:34I just got, I just got in the one so far, but really I'm supposed to get yeah.

02:37This is like the, the one they, before they actually send it off for.

02:41Okay.

02:42Okay.

02:43So yeah.

02:44Got you.

02:45Mass printing or something.

02:46Well, I wanted to say congratulations on the book.

02:48I didn't know you were even working on this book, but this is an exciting volume because

02:52first and second Samuel are not the books that gets a very popular commentaries on them.

02:59Like there are commentaries out there on them, but there are other books that have a lot

03:03more commentaries.

03:04And first and second Samuel is chock full of interesting stuff, interesting stories.

03:09And there's a lot that people don't understand about it.

03:11So I'm, I enjoyed reading through this and excited for it to get out.

03:16Yeah.

03:17Yes.

03:18Yeah.

03:19Stuff is often told to children too.

03:20Yeah.

03:21It's the stuff we get exposed to very early on, whether it should be or not.

03:25It is.

03:26Yeah.

03:27It is told to children.

03:28That's right.

03:29I want, I want to start us off by saying that in let's call it preparation for this, for

03:35this interview.

03:36Let's call it that it's not real prep work, but look, I do what I can.

03:41I'm not, look, you guys did, you know, post graduate levels of prep work.

03:45I hit Google and what I, and one of the things that I googled was like summary of Samuel

03:52one and summary of Samuel two.

03:55And I want to hit you with what the first idea of like, I, so, so then it said, what,

04:03there was a thing that said, what is the main message of first Samuel?

04:05What is the main message of second Samuel, Samuel?

04:08And I'm just going to start by throwing these out at you and just seeing how you respond

04:13to them.

04:14I think they might have nailed it.

04:16And I just want to see.

04:17So this, so this article says that the main message of first Samuel or the key theme of

04:23first Samuel is God is king of the universe and always has been and always has been.

04:31Does that feel right?

04:34Kingship is a major theme in first and second Samuel.

04:37One of the big features of the narrative is a transition from before this.

04:41We had these charismatic warlords, the judges and people like Joshua who are conquerors

04:48and people like Moses who are also to a certain degree conquerors as well.

04:52But now we have this transition to a monarchy and a lot of the text is trying to navigate

04:57that difficulty of, well, if we have a human king, what role then does God have?

05:02Is God our king also or are we displacing God as king?

05:07And that requires a whole new set of theologies to be worked out, how we balance the sovereignty

05:12of the human versus the sovereignty of God.

05:15So I probably wouldn't say it so triumphantly as that is God.

05:19But it is, who is in charge and what does it mean to be in charge of this people?

05:24I love that.

05:25I love that.

05:26Well, I'm going to jump into the second Samuel, the main message of second Samuel.

05:31We'll see if you agree with this also.

05:33It says the book of second Samuel is all about leadership, choices and Jesus.

05:40Okay, there is some leadership and some failures of leadership.

05:46There are a lot of choices, many of them not good.

05:49I have not seen Jesus anywhere in second Samuel.

05:53What?

05:54But you are doing another read.

05:55You are arguing with the Internet, sir.

05:58How dare you?

05:59That happens.

06:00It's a hazard of the job.

06:03That might actually come back again later in the conversation that I think there is an

06:07expectation when you buy a lot of lay level commentaries, which is what this aims to be.

06:13A lot of people who buy these commentaries are interested in how do I find, I mean a lot

06:18of these are Christians who are buying this, how do I find Jesus in these texts?

06:22And if that's the question you're going into it with, it can be a very difficult task because

06:26there's not a lot of Jesus going around in the entirety of the Hebrew Bible, but especially

06:31these texts where there's so many tragic things happening, so many immoral things happening.

06:38There's nothing edifying in these texts, really, especially at first glance.

06:44And so people are paying big money essentially to get a book to tell them here is where Jesus

06:48is in the text.

06:51And I think it's worthwhile to tell people Jesus is not here in this text.

06:55And if you really dig and wanted to try and find Jesus in this text, I mean I give a suggestion

06:59later in the book and it's an unexpected one, I think.

07:04The only characters in this text who really suffer for the sins of other people are many

07:08of the women who suffer at the hands of David and his poor leadership and poor choices.

07:13Yeah, that's definitely, those are prominent stories in the David story.

07:20I mean, of course, one jumps immediately to Bathsheba, but there are other places where

07:27women kind of get the short end of the stick.

07:30So many places.

07:31First and second, Samuel have a startling number of named women characters who get to

07:37do a wide variety of things and who are often much more than just mother figures, so that

07:43they have ambitions, they're trying to survive difficult circumstances.

07:47But with that large number of named women characters comes a large number of named women

07:51characters who are also suffering almost always as a result of the immorality of the men who

07:57are around them.

07:59So you sort of get to have lots of women in a lot of different social environments coming

08:05from a lot of different social classes.

08:07You get to see all these women characters, but unfortunately it's usually in tragic circumstances.

08:13It's almost a shame that we, I mean, it's good that we think of Bathsheba and the terrible

08:18things that are done to her.

08:19It would be nice if we also knew a little bit more about all the rest of these women

08:24and these stories too, because it is the quantity of them that is surprising and worth remembering

08:32as well.

08:33Do you have a couple of favorites that you want to just highlight right now?

08:38I mean, all of David's wives, even the ones that we often think about or maybe were preached

08:44about, they're like examples of faith and like Abigail, for example, are also victims

08:49of David's violence.

08:50Risba, who doesn't get talked about very much, who is one of Saul's sort of secondary wise

08:55slash concubines and then taken away from Saul first by his general Abner and then eventually

09:03taken into David's household and has all of her sons executed later in 2 Samuel for reasons

09:11that don't even make sense like in the narrative.

09:15But she suffers tremendously as well and then she gets, but she also gets to have this moment

09:19where she stands visual over the body of her sons and that standing vigil convinces David

09:25to give her sons a proper burial.

09:27So again, it's that this woman is suffering terribly, but nevertheless in the circumstance

09:31manages to find a moment to express her agency and persuade some of these powerful men to

09:37at least be have a modicum of respect for her.

09:43But we even have figures like Abigail, you mentioned, who is represented as this virtuous

09:50discerning woman who's married to a guy whose name is idiot, basically.

09:58But even there, the story has been twisted to represent her as supportive of David's rise

10:04to power.

10:05When in reality, this sounds an awful lot like a story where David just came in, killed

10:10the husband, took the wife and then the story is told in a very, very different way.

10:16That makes it sound like he was not just a warlord who was raping and pillaging.

10:23Yeah, that's David's preferred way of acquiring wives is by killing whatever man is involved

10:32and then taking them.

10:33I mean, you could go through a list of David's wives.

10:36He's married to me, call first, who is Saul's daughter, who he sort of purchases at the

10:43cost of Philistine for skins.

10:45Saul is trying to get rid of David, wants him to send him out on this, what's supposed

10:48to be like an impossible quest to kill a bunch of Philistines and bring back their force

10:53skins.

10:54But then wins me call as like a prize for this.

10:58But then eventually he, when he goes on the run from Saul, has to leave me call behind.

11:03But then shortly afterward, takes Abigail, kills Nabal as a result, takes a woman named

11:10Hennulim, who may or may not also be the wife of Saul, who's also named Hennulim.

11:16He's only two characters in the text name this way, marries a woman named Maka, who

11:21is a princess, the daughter of a king in Gesher, which was probably some sort of like peace

11:27negotiation.

11:28It's the marriage to her as a result, Bathsheba, of course.

11:33But all these women are plucked away from other circumstances and taken by David.

11:41So that is, it's a pattern, a whole parade of red flags.

11:45It does feel like you're taking a beloved character.

11:49We talked about David a couple of weeks ago on the show and the historicity and or not

11:55of him, but it seems like you're taking a beloved biblical character and maybe not painting

12:01him in quite the best of lights.

12:03Yeah, I mean, one of the things I wanted to do with this book is comment on the characters

12:10in a way that adults who are reading this more skeptically are still going to get something

12:15positive out of that.

12:17And so I say in the opening chapter, the way that we're going to do that is we're going

12:21to treat these characters as hostile witnesses.

12:24We're going to interrogate them and we're going to end up in many cases finding what's

12:29ennobling in doing the opposite of whatever it is that they do.

12:33And that's sort of a strategy of reversal so that we can still get something meaningful

12:38out of this at the end that also is able to recognize how terrible so many of these characters

12:44are because the, you know, if you're coming back to this text after a long time and coming

12:50back to some of these stories that perhaps you never read, but you just heard about growing

12:53up stories of David and Goliath stories of David dancing in front of the arc stories

12:58of David playing music to sooth saw that's the image that you have of David in your mind

13:04as a child and you try and come back to these stories as an adult and you find all these

13:09stories are compromised by immoralities or David or ambitions of David or the plotting

13:16and scheming of other characters.

13:17There's not a single one of these classical stories that is not in some way overshadowed

13:22by these issues that you're probably going to pick up on as an adult.

13:25So what now what how can we take something from the story now that are more adult perspective

13:30on these of these characters has sort of come to light.

13:35And so a big part of the commentary is, you know, trying to be accurate and finding something

13:41worthwhile even with that accuracy.

13:43Now, I notice in the beginning of the text, you introduce two frameworks that you say

13:49are going to be significant throughout the discussion, fatherhood and ambivalence.

13:54Can you explain the significance of these frameworks for your discussion of one and

13:58two Samuel?

13:59Yeah.

14:00So if you're going to write an academic book, you have to have an angle.

14:04Any academic book has to have an angle.

14:06So I wanted to find an interesting angle that I hadn't seen done before.

14:11I chose fatherhood and ambivalence, a political theological ambivalence because those are

14:17reflective of my life right now.

14:19I'm a father of three daughters.

14:20It's been a lot of my time and emotional energy trying to be a decent father.

14:26And I'm also sitting in a very, you know, difficult political landscape where I find myself with

14:31all these political convictions, but it's very difficult to act on those convictions,

14:35very difficult to turn those convictions into any actual change in the world.

14:41And those are themes that I think we can see a lot of in these texts because first and

14:47second Samuel covers a period of like a hundredish years because it's a multi generational

14:52story.

14:53We're introduced to Eli, who is a parent figure to Samuel, who then anoint Saul, who is of

15:00the generation above David, and then we get to see David's children, right?

15:03We get to see all these generations on full.

15:06Because of that, we get to see how these characters are fathers.

15:09We get to see how they interact with both the generation before them and the generation

15:13after them.

15:14We get to see how they have inherited negative habits from the generation of men who have

15:18come before them and how they replicate those habits and the generation that comes after

15:23them.

15:24There are very few new sins in first and second Samuel.

15:27It's almost always a recycling of old pains and traumas that have been handed down.

15:33And that idea of what I'm trying to do in my own personal life is to do better than the

15:39generation that came before me, and I am seeing these characters struggle and so often fail

15:43to do that.

15:45So it resonated with me to talk a little bit about fatherhood and that theme of fatherhood

15:50expands out to parenthood in general towards the end of the text.

15:54So it's not like hyper fixated on being a man, but on parenting in general.

16:00And then ambivalence, a political and theological ambivalence.

16:03How does God, God's sovereignty, God's will, how is that manifest in the world, if at all,

16:11and where and how can I find it?

16:13And those are questions that loom large over the texts of first and second Samuel.

16:18Because this is a story of a transition from a more tribal affiliation to having a monarchy.

16:25There are big questions there about what is God's relationship to the king?

16:31Is the king ship something that God approves of?

16:33And there are some passages that are very strongly say, yes, absolutely.

16:37God is hand picked to these people.

16:39This person, this man is going to be your king.

16:42I have said so.

16:43And then you will turn the page and you'll have a character saying God hates having a

16:47king.

16:48What did God think?

16:49This was a good idea.

16:50Having a king is sinful.

16:51How dare you ask me for a king?

16:54And then you'll turn the page and man, thank God we had this king because this king just

16:58saved us from this terrible thing and everybody seems to be on board with it.

17:02And then you turn the page and it's this is the worst king in the world and God is going

17:07to get rid of this king and replace him with somebody else.

17:10So that kind of whose side is God on in these stories is terribly ambivalent and that ambivalence

17:20matches a lot of people's attitudes.

17:25And is this a reflection in your opinion of the coming together of different traditions

17:31within First and Second Samuel?

17:33It's a product of multiple authorship.

17:36Yeah, absolutely.

17:38There are very clear examples of instances in which you get the same story told multiple

17:46times and that kind of literary, not necessarily double it, but unnecessary repetition as a

17:51telltale sign of original independent compositions that have then been edited together.

17:58So a great example of this, starting in First Samuel 9, you get a story about how Saul becomes

18:03king 9 in the first few verses of 10.

18:06And this is one of the pro monarchical stories where God says, I'm going to pick somebody

18:10to be king, God picks Saul to be king, he is anointed by the prophet Samuel.

18:16And it seems like that's the only story you need to tell about how Saul became king.

18:19But then and you get to the end of First Samuel 10, now Saul is chosen to be king again by

18:25casting lots.

18:27So this random process of divination where they like roll dice or pick sticks or draw

18:34straws or something like that in order to figure out who's going to be king.

18:38And that casts a much less flattering light on Saul because he's hiding from this whole

18:45process.

18:46It doesn't want to be picked to be king.

18:48But then you turn the page and then in First Samuel 11, Saul is empowered by God in the

18:56very same way that many of the judges are in the previous book to sort of take up his

19:01arms and lead an army spontaneously against somebody who is trying to subjugate the people

19:06of Israel.

19:07And again, that one ends with this sort of sweeping charismatic and everybody in the

19:11land is like, oh, Saul's got to be our king.

19:13And he seems like a very effective leader.

19:15And that's so any one of these stories would have been enough by itself to explain how

19:20Saul became king.

19:21But we have three very different traditions with very different theologies trying to explain

19:26this process.

19:27So it seems like they were written apart from each other.

19:30Well, let's get we'll get more into that in just a minute.

19:33Right now we're going to take a break for those of you who are patrons of the show.

19:37It'll go straight on the rest of you.

19:39We're going to pay some bills and we'll be right back.

19:46Welcome back everybody.

19:47I hope that break was as productive for you as it was for us.

19:53One of the things that I wanted to talk about is the fact that this is not a a technical

19:58academic book, this is something that you notice immediately when you begin the book.

20:03This is intended for a more popular audience, but it's also an entertaining book.

20:08I love how you scattered some some very funny footnotes throughout your kind of mocking

20:18the genre a little bit and having fun with the narrative as well.

20:24As you mentioned to us off air, this was intended to be a very character driven story.

20:31And you think the story is entertaining.

20:33Can you talk a little bit about what it was like for an academic to write something where

20:37you were able to kind of unleash your comedic chops a little bit.

20:44That's I mean, that's really an opportunity that the organization, the Bible for normal

20:48people gave me.

20:49And this is only the kind of book that could be written by them and put out by them.

20:55The goal of the entire series for X book for normal people is to bring the best in academic

21:02biblical scholarship to everyday people.

21:05So it's written by me who has an academic semi-series academic with formal academic training.

21:12It's read by academics, it's edited by an academic.

21:15All the praise on the back is by academics.

21:18So it comes from an academic environment, but it's not for academics.

21:23This book is not going to advance the state of the field.

21:26Nobody's going to hold a special SBL session.

21:29Nobody's going to put this in my fester some day or something like that.

21:31It's not that kind of heavy academic book, but it comes from that place.

21:36And so I think part of the benefit of that is that an average everyday reader can have

21:43confidence in reading this, that everything that they see in this text is going to be

21:47something compatible with biblical scholarship.

21:50They're not going to read some commentary later on and be like, oh no, that thing I heard

21:55in first and second, same for normal, but that's not true.

21:58It's been debunked or something like that.

22:00No, this is coming from the best biblical scholarship that we have available to us.

22:05And because it's for a lay audience, I didn't know what to do with the footnotes originally.

22:11Footnotes are usually there to very carefully and very exhaustively justify claims that

22:18you make to show that you've read a breadth of material, that you are engaged in whatever

22:25subject matter you're studying, and to make sure that what you're saying is going to fit

22:31in with what other academics are saying in your field.

22:34But I don't need to do that because if I started citing obscure German texts, nobody who's

22:39reading this would care.

22:41They're never going to look these things up.

22:43So I was at a loss for what to do with the footnotes for a while, and then I ended up

22:48sort of jokingly making them silly puns and commentary that's really just jokes and vibes

22:57and stuff like that.

22:59And occasional Gen Z slang that I only know because I teach undergraduate students.

23:06And then I just ended up leaving them, and that just became a feature of the book.

23:09So there are like three serious footnotes that explain some cultural conventions at some

23:15point.

23:16You snuck them in.

23:18Yeah, my editor was like, "You actually need one here for this?"

23:23I'm actually looking right now at one of the notes that says, "My editor would like me

23:28to point out that ritual purity and impurity don't have any moral connotations in these

23:32texts."

23:33A great suggestion by Carolyn Blythe, edited the book.

23:39So they're a handful of serious ones.

23:43But otherwise I just got to use them to play, and I think a little bit of levity is helpful

23:49in reading first and second Samuel because otherwise these can be very depressing stories.

23:54They're great stories in a literary sense.

23:58These are some of the Bible's most compelling characters, some of its most intricate arcs,

24:04but many of them are also quite sad.

24:06Yeah.

24:07You point out in the book that these stories, we have way more ink spilled about Moses.

24:17And yet we don't know, you mentioned in the introduction that we have no idea what Moses

24:24actually looked like because none of it was spent actually setting the scene, giving us

24:29a description, any of that sort of stuff.

24:32That is, first and second Samuel have our unique in the sense that for biblical literature,

24:41it actually gives us some of that.

24:44It sets the table a little bit for us.

24:46Yeah.

24:47Maybe this really is peak biblical literature, this is the best literary prose writing that

24:55the Bible has to offer in my opinion, in the opinion of several of the scholars that I

25:00drew upon for this book.

25:02Because we get to spend time with characters, we get to see their ambitions, we get to see

25:08them strive for things and fail, we get to see them strive for things and succeed.

25:12We get to see them make very human judgments.

25:16Because Moses has a lot of space dedicated to him in the Bible, the second through fifth

25:22book is he is the main protagonist.

25:24But a lot of that is, God says Moses do this and Moses does that.

25:29So you don't get to spend a lot of time in Moses's head, you don't understand any of

25:33his motivations really, you don't see him struggle much internally, he doesn't get to

25:40play off very many other characters, and all that is essential for characterization.

25:46But we do get to see that for Samuel and Saul and David and many of these major characters

25:51in these texts.

25:53And that's really what brings a lot of these characters to life.

25:56I wanted to ask briefly, one of the things that I always think about when I'm in one

26:01and two Samuel is historicity, there's a lot of arguments within biblical scholarship about

26:09the historical David, Dan mentioned, we talked about that in a recent episode.

26:14Do you think Saul really existed, was that the actual first king of Israel, or do you

26:20think this is a literary creation whose name is playing on their role within the narrative?

26:29I think Saul or somebody like him probably existed because he is deployed in two very

26:37different ways at least by what seemed to be two very different authors.

26:42There is, you know, first Samuel 9 and then a little bit in 11 is kind of pro-Saul that

26:49takes a more positive perspective on Saul, and then all the rest of the material about

26:54Saul is very negative, right?

26:56So this is a character that's being played with in a couple of different ways.

26:59He doesn't seem to be the literary invention of a single author inventing them for polemical

27:04reasons long after the fact.

27:06But a couple of different people have their hands on this tradition of Saul, and I don't

27:11think you would, I don't think two different people would invent the same character for

27:16two different reasons.

27:18That seems less plausible to me than there was an actual person named Saul may have done

27:22some of these things, and then it became useful to sort of project different agendas on him

27:27after the fact, rather than just, why not just invent a different character?

27:31I mean, if you need a good first king, invent somebody else, if you need somebody just to

27:36play off of and be like a foil to David or be the person David overcomes, invent a different

27:41character, but why is this all baked into the same character?

27:46And so, I mean, we have no archeological, there's no epigraphic evidence for Saul.

27:50It's unlikely, I think, that we would ever discover some.

27:53It's remarkable that we have any for David, the little bit that we do have.

27:59So it'll probably always be a literary historical question rather than an archeological sort

28:04of subtleable question.

28:06Talk a little bit about the seeming multiple authorship.

28:13Talk about, first of all, who is presumed or has been traditionally presumed to be the

28:20author of these works, and then who we think, how we react to that now.

28:30Yeah, the presumed traditional authors, both in like the Talmud and an early Christian

28:37tradition, and even to a certain degree in the Bible itself, they later in chronicles

28:41that will be identified this way, are the prophets who are featured in here.

28:44So the prophet Samuel himself, and then Nathan, who shores up a little bit later, and has

28:49a major role in second Samuel, and then the prophet Gad, who is active in both books to

28:55a more minor degree.

28:57So tradition ascribes it to these prophetic figures, and that's the tendency for ancient

29:03tradition to develop around assigning texts to inspired figures.

29:08That's why Moses eventually came to be associated with the Pentateuch or the Torah, why David

29:13comes to be associated with the entirety of the psalmic tradition, and why Solomon comes

29:17to be associated with the wisdom tradition.

29:20It was just easier for ancient people who often didn't have the texts themselves sitting

29:24in front of them, in any workable form, to just think of them in terms of inspired figures.

29:30Just sort of autobiography.

29:32Yeah, or just to have like the nearest person ostensibly in contact with God, it must have

29:43been them.

29:44It's never somebody who doesn't play a significant role.

29:47It's not like, oh, this was authored by Steve, who's Steve?

29:51Just a guy who wrote this, like he doesn't show up, he was taking notes the whole time.

29:56Right, it's almost never ascribe, I mean, Ezra is like one of the few people who tradition

30:01is associated to a figure who also has like an actual scribal role in the narrative.

30:06But generally speaking, yeah, it's just one of the major characters, right?

30:10It's got to be them or associate with them.

30:13Generally speaking, biblical scholarship has disregarded this hypothesis entirely as far

30:17as authorship is concerned.

30:19There's a great diversity of perspectives on who might have written first and second

30:24Samuel.

30:25And when we're talking about who wrote first and second Samuel, we're always talking about

30:28parts of first and second Samuel.

30:31And so there are competing theories about how to break up the text, because we have

30:35an initial opening section that focuses on the house of Eli and Samuel's birth and sort

30:43of his early prophetic activity, then we transition drastically to this arc narrative, where the

30:50Philistines capture the arc of the covenant and bring it back to the Philistine city

30:54states for a while, and then eventually the arc makes its own way back to the lands of

30:59Israel and a rather miraculous and somewhat funny story until a bunch of people end up

31:03dying at the end.

31:04It's funny right up until that moment.

31:08But that seems to be a completely separate thing, and that may or may not connect to

31:12the arc story later in second Samuel.

31:14And then we flash back to the story of Samuel himself and now the people are coming to him

31:19and asking him for a king.

31:21And then the story breaks up into these voices that are in favor of a monarchy and then voices

31:27at least one voice, if not more, that are opposed to a monarchy for different reasons.

31:32Some of these reasons are very old sounding in 1 Samuel 11, where Samuel talks about the

31:39sins of a kingship.

31:40That echoes very strongly something the Gideon said in the book of Judges, which is a very

31:44old sort of tradition, where he says the same thing, "I can't be your king, God is your

31:50king."

31:51And Samuel says the same thing in 1 Samuel 8, and then later in 1 Samuel 11 sort of doubles

31:55down on that same idea.

31:57So that seems to be sort of an old tradition, but then we also get this later voice that

32:02seems to be coming from who biblical scholars call the Deuteronomists, the Deuteronomistic

32:07historian, who seems to be writing later in Babylonian exile, having seen the failure

32:12of the monarchy in Israel, also opposed to having a king, but for very different reasons,

32:18not so much because the king is displacing God, but rather because kings are so prone

32:22to idolatry and this has disastrous consequences for the nation as a whole.

32:28So that inclines biblical scholars to not only dice up the texts in a wide variety of

32:33different ways, but then to assign a variety of dates, I think in the opening I say sometime

32:38between 950, that's the earliest possible, that's the earliest serious argument I've

32:42seen Joel Baden in his book on the historical, David argues for a very early date for the

32:47composition of the stories in the middle of the 10th century BC, all the way up to in

32:51the midst of exile.

32:53And there are arguments even later than that, John van Seter thinks that it's a Hellenistic

32:58text, that these stories about David gallivanting around in the wilderness with a sort of band

33:06of married military men, that this seems a lot like Greek stories, and the authors of

33:13the Bible wouldn't have access to Greek thinking and Greek style stories until the end of the

33:174th century BC at the earliest and probably even later than that.

33:21So that's a huge spread, yeah, and then not only that, I mean, I mean, you could do this

33:26for a while, when we see the Septuagint translation, that's radically different in some places.

33:33In the famous story of David and Goliath, in the Septuagint, it's missing big chunks

33:37of that story.

33:39A lot of the parts of the story that characterize David as young and as naive and as being introduced

33:49to Saul for the first time, a lot of that is missing in the Septuagint version.

33:53And that might be reflective of an earlier tradition, that might be an innovation of

33:57that text, it's difficult to tell.

33:59So this text is in flux for a long period of time.

34:03We don't get a settled version of this until very late in the process.

34:07So that's the generation after generation of people coming back to these stories and

34:11saying, you know what, I have something else to add, or perhaps I have something to take

34:16out, right, that they feel committed to David and his legacy and that they want to say in

34:22how the monarchy began, they want to put their views in here.

34:26And for hundreds of years, that's what people did.

34:29Now something that I like to talk a lot about is rhetorical goals.

34:32And you've talked a little bit about that.

34:35You mentioned the Deuteronomist, ultimately it comes together within a much larger project.

34:41Yes.

34:42But if one of the main rhetorical goals, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, is to validate David's

34:49rise to the throne, or at least claim to the throne.

34:53How do you see that informing where we think this is coming from?

34:58What other rhetorical goals do you see operating within the text?

35:03Yeah, it could be a couple of different things.

35:05I mean, going back to the, the, the Baden text, it could be the case that late in David's

35:11life as he's facing a variety of threats from within civil wars, there were serious questions

35:17about his legitimacy and where he came from and why he has the right to rule.

35:22He is essentially a usurper to the throne.

35:24He's not Saul's son.

35:25He took it by force.

35:28He was aligned with the Philistines at the time that Saul was fighting the Philistines.

35:33And so Saul's death is very fortuitous for David's rise.

35:37There would be serious questions.

35:38Why do you get to sit on the throne?

35:39Why do you get to be in charge not only of the south, but the stories claim also the north.

35:43Why do you get to be in charge of this entire expansive terrain?

35:47And so some of these stories could have been composed as an apology.

35:51This is why David gets to sit on the throne.

35:55If, if composed later, it could be, we could have a similar situation after the fall of

35:59northern Israel in 722.

36:02A lot of the people who are up north would have migrated south, especially like an upper

36:06class of like the intellectual class of scribes and priests.

36:11They migrate south.

36:12They congregate around Jerusalem.

36:14They have their own traditions about David.

36:16And they're probably contesting the traditions in the south, which is much more, you know,

36:20which drives its identity in large part from David.

36:23And so that would be another opportunity for people to be like, hey, we need some new stories.

36:27We need to tell a story about how, no, David really is, you know, we are really legitimate

36:31down here in the south.

36:33You are fortunate to be able to be a part of this.

36:36Our legitimacy goes back a long ways.

36:39And then there'd be even more reason, you know, in exile with having seen how this all

36:43turns out, knowing that it's, that the fate of this monarchical project is to fail eventually.

36:51There could be reasons to memorialize what it would have gone before and perhaps also

36:56some reasons to take a more pessimistic perspective on it and to tell more stories about David

37:00is a flawed figure, which is what we get sort of moving into second Samuel, you get a lot

37:05more of David's flaws closer to the surface of the story and an audience later on might

37:10be more willing to say, you know, look, this is sort of doomed to begin with.

37:15Even our best is not that great.

37:18So there are a variety, that's one of the reasons why biblical scholars date it to so

37:21many different times because the texts can serve so many different rhetorical agendas.

37:32You mentioned the distinction between the north and the south.

37:35You mentioned earlier is what little archaeological data that we have relevant to the history

37:40of the city of David, the Tel Dan inscription being probably the most important one where

37:46we have the Araman Hazayel talking about killing some of these Israelite kings and this is,

37:56they are referred to as a kingdom in the north.

37:59And then we get a king who is of the house of David.

38:03It's not doesn't seem to be talking about a kingdom.

38:06It seems to be talking about a dynastic house.

38:10What do you think the relevance is of this inscription to how we reconstruct our understanding

38:15of the southern kingdom and how it came to be and David's role in that?

38:21I definitely think it attests to a general trend in biblical scholarship of seeing the

38:27north as a much more powerful political entity and the south is either a marginal group that

38:35is affiliated in some way or dependent on them, but this text seems to treat northern

38:43Israel as the main polity worth talking about and then talks about the house of David only

38:51secondarily.

38:52So that seems to confirm a lot of the rest of the archaeology that we have generally

38:56speaking when other nations around this people are talking about what's happening in Israel

39:01and Judah.

39:02They're talking about Israel.

39:04We have Assyrians talking about stuff that's happening in northern Israel, talking about

39:10their kings, talking about trade relations, talking about assassinations, talking about

39:14lots of stuff that's going on up there and they in general don't talk about stuff that's

39:17happening in the south.

39:18It's as though it's a non-issue.

39:20And so the mention of the house of David is sort of similar.

39:22Yes, we took the north, we destroyed many sites there.

39:25Yeah, we also beat up the house of David that's down there as well, but that's not to give

39:30it the same level of prestige.

39:33And so it seems to agree with the broader consensus that Israel is the main polity, which is interesting

39:39because of course the voice that we then get preserved in the texts is sort of the voice

39:44of the one that survived in Judah in the south is the one that ended up surviving longer.

39:48And so they got to write the stories.

39:50So these histories are heavily biased in favor of the south, even though history itself as

39:58it played out the actual power it seems was in the north.

40:02I think it's interesting that what we have largely represents the perspectives of the

40:07south and they talk about longing for the golden days of David's kingdom when Israel

40:13was at its largest and had conquered all its enemies and everything like that.

40:19And it certainly seems based on the data that the Amrids actually are the ones who had the

40:25largest kingdom that part of the world had ever seen outside of the empires around them.

40:31And it seems like the south is wanting to appropriate the achievements of the north in

40:38a lot of ways going so far as to even adopting their identity, identifying as Israel in many

40:45parts of the text, which I find fascinating.

40:50Even in the later part of David's reign, we get some of that tension because David's son

40:59Absalom leads a civil war against David, manages to outstim from the city of Jerusalem

41:04is capital for a short period of time.

41:07And many of Absalom's supporters seem to be, and the text will sometimes just say Israel

41:12is supporting him or the men of Israel.

41:15And it's sort of ambiguous whether or not is this referring to everybody in the land or

41:20is this referring to people in the northern territories specifically.

41:24And so already early in these stories, there's a recognition of the ambiguity and the tension

41:28there between how this word Israel can be used to refer to a particular northern section

41:35or all of it entirely.

41:38And the Bible is going to play on that, different biblical authors are going to play on that

41:42in different ways.

41:43And so Israel becomes a very flexible term to have social connotations, kinship connotations,

41:48political connotations, theological connotations.

41:51And in the hands of different biblical authors, it means different things.

41:54So it's sort of always been a flexible term from the beginning.

42:00Yeah.

42:01And when Absalom finally gets what's coming to him, there's the famous reply of David

42:07O'Abselem.

42:08O'Abselem.

42:09He seems to mourn the deaths of his enemies in a very poetic way, in a way that is kind

42:22of holding him up as like, he really wasn't trying to kill them.

42:27You can tell because he's so upset that they're dead.

42:31Yeah.

42:32And it's interesting to read it both ways.

42:34I mean, you can read it when David mourns the death of Saul, for example, at the beginning

42:40of 2 Samuel, is he really sad that he's, I mean, this opens up the power vacuum that

42:46allows David to become king and then to eliminate the rest of Saul's household and to dominate

42:52these territories.

42:53Is he really sad that he's gone?

42:56And so you can read that.

42:58That's hard to read in like a more straightforward, sympathetic way, but some other characters,

43:02it's difficult.

43:03When he mourns Jonathan's death, is that sincere?

43:08Or is that also, you know, I mean, Jonathan would have been the successor to Saul.

43:13So he has political reason to celebrate that death and personal reason, perhaps, to mourn

43:19that death.

43:20So which, which is it?

43:22Same thing with Absalom.

43:23I mean, Absalom has ousted him from the kingdom.

43:25He's taken over.

43:27He's defeated his army, at least temporarily.

43:30He's taken a lot of his base of power.

43:32He's caused a rupture in the kingdom that David will spend the rest of his life trying

43:35to put down.

43:37At the same time, he says, at that point, oldest son, and he's, he's lost others, you

43:42know, before this in, in fighting and violence and terrible stories.

43:46So is this genuine mourning?

43:48Or is it not?

43:49And it's, it's always interesting to sort of see what the story looks like both ways.

43:54It's difficult to tell.

43:56That's, that's another element of the, both of the ambiguity and, and of the fatherhood,

44:00right?

44:01A father would mourn the death of his son, but David's not a great father.

44:05So is, I mean, the whole reason he was in that situation to begin with is because he

44:10wasn't a good father to Absalom, such that Absalom would betray him, you know?

44:15When we, when you talk about the ambiguity in these stories, when you talk about, uh,

44:20how, how many possible or potential interpretations there could be of these things, do you have

44:27some favorite moments that have like, because some of these stories have prominent traditional

44:34interpretations, traditional, like, you know, the understanding that you get in church or

44:40the understanding that you get, uh, you know, if you read a children's version of the story

44:46of David or whatever, there are, there are all of these, there are these moments that

44:51are given very traditional, uh, interpretations and, and reasons why they're there and what

44:58the meaning is and what the, what the messages and what the moral of the story is or whatever.

45:04Do you have some favorite moments where you, you would quibble with the traditional reading

45:10or the traditional understanding?

45:12Yeah, there are a lot.

45:14I mean, I, I mean, this, this could go a lot of different ways.

45:20I read, I read Jonathan and David's relationship as being sincere, uh, and intimate, um, and

45:27so I, I think a lot, I mean, that, that usually gets preached if it's preached at all or taught

45:32as sort of a, a brother in arms camaraderie.

45:35I think there is something much more intimate happening there.

45:38Jonathan and David's relationship is utterly unprecedented in the Hebrew Bible for the

45:43amount of affection, uh, and, and vivid descriptions of the, of the mutual feelings of the characters

45:50on multiple occasions on literally every scene that they are together.

45:54Yeah.

45:55Um, I, I, I think it's, it's, it's probably beyond the scope of the text to be able to

46:00say that this is romantic or erotic necessarily, regardless, it is utterly unprecedented.

46:07There is no other, the only relationship that gets close to the relationship between Jonathan

46:10and David anywhere in the Hebrew Bible is in the song of songs and, and that is an explicitly

46:14erotic relationship, uh, you can think back, I, I think I do this thought experiment in

46:19the books.

46:20And it, and if not, maybe I should add it in before it goes to bring it to think about

46:25like couples, uh, in the Hebrew Bible, who are described as loving each other.

46:31Can, can you think of any there, there are very few, um, do you know how Moses feels

46:37for his zapora?

46:38Do you know how Jacob feels for his wives?

46:42We have like one line about how Jacob loves Rachel and then, you know, this, this drove

46:46him to, you know, uh, work for all this long time.

46:49But that's about it.

46:50Right.

46:51Do we know what many of these characters felt for one another?

46:54And the answer 99 times out of a hundred is no, we just assume the relationship between

46:59David and Jonathan every time they are together is just, he loved him like he loved himself.

47:05His soul clung to him, he, you know, I, my love for you surpasses the love of women.

47:10You have other characters.

47:11So all condemns Jonathan, you know, that your, your fidelity to David shames the nakedness

47:17of your mother, which has this sexual connotation to it.

47:22Every scene they appear in together, um, they, they are in love and, and, but that's, that's

47:28also overshadowed by the, by the fact that David is the kind of person who might manipulate

47:34somebody's feelings.

47:35And so it's difficult to know if he's in this as much as Jonathan is.

47:40Um, and so, I mean, even there, there's some ambiguity, but I tend to read it as a, as

47:44a pretty straightforward, intimate relationship.

47:48Um, I don't know if you get much morally edifying out of that, except that, you know, love

47:54is good wherever you can find it.

47:55Well, as you've pointed out, there's not like moral edification is not, uh, is not present

48:03consistently throughout these books.

48:05No.

48:06Definitely not.

48:07Well, and I, and that's actually how you punctuate the end of the book as well.

48:11Uh, you come down and say the men in one and two Samuel are some of the most toxic people

48:15in the Bible, they tried and they failed.

48:18Let's try to do better where I think you kind of sign off by suggesting that the best moral

48:24lessons to be taken from the Bible in these books is actually to not do what these heroes

48:32from, uh, Hori antiquity have done, but to learn from their mistakes and to use them,

48:38hold them up as models of toxic and awful behavior.

48:43Is that something, is that something that you, is that the kind of, uh, reading of the

48:48biblical texts that, uh, you think is more necessary these days?

48:53Is this a very traditional reading or is this, uh, does this kind of break the mold of, of

48:58most, uh, uh, commentaries by believing, uh, scholars, it definitely breaks the mold.

49:04I mean, there is, there's a long tendency to try and hold David up as a, as a, as a paragon

49:09of faith and, and all these virtues that, that religious folk, uh, take to be very valuable.

49:14I mean, in the text himself, he's called a man after God's own heart and that's repeated

49:18in the New Testament.

49:19And so, uh, there's been a lot of effort to try and redeem him as a character, uh, and

49:24say, oh, fine people, any given Sunday preaching about how, you know, David has his flaws,

49:29but he still, you know, has looked at all these great things.

49:32I don't think that reading of David is very useful for us today.

49:35We don't need, I don't think in the year 2024 of our Lord, I don't think we need more

49:41stories apologizing for bad men in power.

49:45That's, that's just, we've had thousands of years of that.

49:50And so, and so this story goes in, and this commentary goes in another way.

49:54I know he, he is, he is almost irredeemable, um, and, and the best thing that we can do

50:01with him is, as I said before, often do the opposite.

50:06What kind of father is he, well, he's a distant, um, angry, uh, often, uh, not involved, lashes

50:15out randomly at his children, um, plays his children against each other, is largely apathetic

50:21even in the moments that they're suffering when they come to him, um, clearly does not

50:26model good behavior for them.

50:27It isn't capable of recognizing his own mistakes and so cannot parents, those mistakes when

50:32they pop up in the lives of his children.

50:34And because of that, we should do all the opposite.

50:37We should be involved in our children's lives.

50:39We should model good behavior for them.

50:40We should take their pain seriously.

50:42Um, so he is still useful to us, uh, inverted, he's still useful to us, looked at the other

50:49way.

50:50I, that's, and you know, you talked earlier about, um, quibbles or, or, you know, sort

50:59of post-exilic ideas of maybe kingship and, uh, and, you know, monarchy is not a good

51:06idea. Um, so even then it seems like they were taking, uh, taking David as a cautionary

51:14tale or taking, uh, first and second Samuel as cautionary, uh, in the sense of like, there's

51:19there, there, this, we don't need to be holding this up as, as, as a paragon, as a, as a good

51:25idea.

51:26And you would think that actually in the United States where sort of the lore of our country

51:32is the throwing off of monarchy, that, that, that the idea that your, uh, suggesting which

51:40is to take these stories as, uh, as bad ideas and, and as things that we can sort of reflect

51:48against rather than, uh, rather than hold up as, as good examples of how to behave, you'd

51:56think that we would be, we would be primed for that. Uh, did, do you find, uh, push back

52:02when you, when you say these, when you, when you bring it up in this way?

52:06Yeah, I mean, uh, on, uh, on TikTok and stuff, when I talk about the figure of David, which

52:12I have a couple of times, I mean, because people have been taught to try and find theological

52:18significance and positive things to say about David, it's so deeply ingrained. Um, I, I think

52:24it's less about David, really and more about David's legacy. So I mean, David comes down

52:30as a figure who's important in, in the identity of Jesus for many Christians. Um, and, and

52:38in Jewish communities, David is still, um, sort of a model for what a future king could

52:44be like, uh, and what a future messianic figure might be like, depending on the tradition

52:49that you're looking at. So it's, it's David, the man himself, yes, but more David's legacy

52:55is deeply rooted in these religious traditions. And so I, I think it's probably, it might

53:00be less trying to save David and more try trying to save Jesus, for example, by proxy

53:06because one of Jesus claims to fame is to be a descendant of David and many Christians

53:11see, you know, Jesus has to be a descendant of David in order to fulfill, you know, X

53:16number of prophecies and therefore to be legitimate. Um, so I, I think there is some motivation

53:23there also. Um, you're right. We should be. There is a cultural force to, to be more critical

53:30of, of monarchies. It's just overpowered by this competing cultural force of trying to

53:35save religion, trying to save their religion. And, and I think that's, that's one way that's

53:43I think there are probably a lot of Christians who, who resonate even if not consciously with

53:48the figure of David, because I think the only things that are, that can be viewed as at all

53:53redeeming is if you're looking at this as a, in terms of structuring power, a David was

53:59able to bring this kingdom, uh, together and try to hold it together. However, successfully

54:05achieved according to the tradition, uh, you know, the, the conquest of a bunch of, of

54:10different lands. That's the, the greatest extent of the kingdom of Israel. And a lot

54:15of the ways that David is, is deployed, uh, in the traditions, particularly related to

54:20Jesus Christ is, is trying to structure power and values and boundaries as well. I think,

54:26a lot of people want David, uh, so that they can kind of do the same thing, uh, get to

54:32define who's in and who's out, get to define who's in charge and get to decide what gets

54:38to be used to, uh, to structure power and values and, uh, which I see undergirding so

54:44much of the way people approach the Bible. And it's absolutely undergirding the way

54:49these characters are represented as approaching their, their responsibilities to God. It's

54:54all about, uh, you know, who they are or are not allowing to go down to Sha'ol in peace

55:01and things like that. There's, there's an awful lot of, uh, you know, it's, you need

55:06to kill this person. Um, so that the, the kingdom survives kind of stuff. And, um, and

55:12I think too many people are championing that strong man rhetoric so that their own notion

55:18of, of, uh, some kind of Christian nationalism or Christian identity continues to survive

55:23today.

55:24And for sure, I, I think, you know, the, the Bible is a powerful book. I mean, for better

55:33or for worse, there's so much power concentrated in its interpretation and its deployment.

55:38Um, that's one of the reasons why I wanted, I wanted to write this is to, is to get an

55:43opportunity to lift up other voices that are in the text, um, to structure power in favor

55:48of characters who have traditionally been marginalized in reading this. So I spent a

55:52lot of time talking about, uh, women characters in this commentary. Um, I was deeply informed

55:58by a book by Will Gaffney called Womanist Midrash, which is, uh, uh, which gives short vignettes

56:05about all the women characters, both named and unnamed and like the first 11 books of

56:10the Bible. Um, so that was, I actually got the idea for writing this in a more character

56:14driven manner from, from that text. Cause I thought her presentation of these women characters

56:18was so great. Uh, and that helped temper a lot of my sensitivities to, you know, championing

56:23the cause of the women characters here. So, I mean, I, I am also using this commentary

56:28to sort of structure power in a particular way, but I hope it's to structure power in

56:32a way that's more advantageous for those who have been traditionally marginalized by readings

56:37of this text. Well, I, it's a wonderful book. It's so much fun. And I think a lot of our

56:45listeners and viewers are going to want to get their hands on a copy of it. I hope so

56:50too. So, uh, so how, what, how can people get it? Where, where do they go? Um, by the

56:57time this goes up, hopefully, um, I will, I will have a link to be able to put somewhere.

57:02It's already, if you search my name on Amazon, uh, it will, the Kindle edition will come

57:07up for, I don't, I don't know if it's available for preorder yet, but, um, I'm, I'm sure that

57:12I, I will supply you with a host of links to go on YouTube pages and all this stuff for

57:16people to be able to order. And they'll be able to find a link on my TikTok at ABH Bible.

57:20Um, and there'll be a launch part. There'll be a lot of ways for you to get your hands

57:25elsewhere with people. It's going to be, yeah, absolutely. It's probably going to get annoying

57:30drive by a biblical scholarship is a new, uh, a new venture that I think whatever needs

57:35to be done, it'll get your hands on. So there is, uh, there is preorder available for the

57:40Kindle edition for $9.99 on, uh, on Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get out there and get it,

57:47kids. And then you also have a forthcoming first and second chronicles for normal people.

57:52Have you read that yet? Or, or do you need, uh, do you need somebody at Baharlah Kanya

57:57and, uh, that'll be my fall project. No, I, I, I just signed off from the contract. I'm,

58:03I'm very grateful to also be able to do first and second chronicles for normal people. It's

58:08a perfect, it'll be a perfect companion piece to, uh, first and second Samuel, because so

58:12much of first and second chronicles is a dramatic retelling of the stories. Yeah. Uh, and we

58:17get a very different picture of David in the store. We get, uh, an actually good David,

58:21uh, an unrecognizably good David, first and second chronicles, uh, it'll be very interesting

58:27to have them, you know, sitting side by side. Well, we look forward to having you back to

58:31talk about that when, uh, happy to be, when that's, when that's ready to go. Yeah. Well,

58:37Aaron Higashi, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate, uh, for those who

58:42are interested in more conversation with Aaron, which, uh, which we will have, you can go and

58:49become a patron of the show where you can get not only that, but, uh, you know, a, a,

58:55an early and ad-free version of every episode, uh, that would be patreon.com/dataoverdogma.

59:03We really appreciate it. If you could, uh, help us out by becoming a patron. Uh, if you

59:09have anything that you'd like to say to us, our email address is contact@dataoverdogmapod.com

59:16and we'll talk to you again next week. Bye everybody.

59:25Data Over Dogma is a member of the airwave media podcast network. It is a production of

59:29Data Over Dogma Media LLC. Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.