Category: One Year Skeptic

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Old Testament

Today’s reading is very confusing, mostly because it deals with a lot of people that I only half remember and never bothered to become familiar enough with to keep straight. So let’s review who they are and their roles in today’s readings:

• Zadok and Abiathar: priest. David sent them back to Jerusalem with the ark with Absalom rebelled. They act as go betweens for David and the eldars of Judah.
• Amasa: Absalom’s commander over the army. David bribed him with leadership over his army if Amasa could get Judah to recognize David as king again. He is later killed by Joab.
• Joab: David’s commander over the army. David replaced him with Amasa to win back the people of Judah. He later kills Amasa with an underhanded dagger to the stomach (presumably because of jealousy).
• Shimei: The man who cursed David as he fled from Jerusalem. David shows him mercy.
• Abishai: One of David’s warriors and Joab’s brother. Loyal to David, but has a murderous streak. This shows in today’s reading when he declares that Shimei should be killed for having cursed David.
• Ziba: A former servant of Saul and a servant of Mephibosheth. He told David that Mephibosheth was trying to take over Jerusalem in the king’s absence. 
• Mephibosheth: Jonathan’s son and Saul’s grandson. He claims that Ziba deceived him and David and that he had wanted to flee to David. It is unclear which of them, if either, is telling the truth. David decides to split Mephibosheth’s land between the two showing that he is also uncertain about who is trustworthy.
• Barzillai: Brought David food and supplies while he was fleeing from Absalom. David rewards him, but since Barzillai is an old man, he asks the the reward go to his son, Kimham.
• Sheba: A new character. Stirs up yet another rebellion against David.

When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to look after the palace and placed them in seclusion. Their needs were provided for, but he no longer slept with them. So each of them lived like a widow until she died.

New Testament

We finish the Gospel of John today, and with that we finish the gospels! Hurrah! Onto something new. But first we must finish today’s reading.

Jesus appears again to a number of the disciples. As they fish unsuccessfully, he blesses them with fish. One of the disciples recognizes Jesus and Peter swims to him. Jesus charges Peter with taking care of his sheep (three times). Then the author of the gospel claims to have really been there and that, therefore, his testimony is reliable. Remember, however, that the gospel of John is unlikely to have been written by an eye witness.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm seems to be a full one, but ends rather abruptly. The last two verses are:

I am tired of living
among people who hate peace.
I search for peace;
but when I speak of peace, they want war! 

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Old Testament

Absalom is defeated and dies and then David is very sad. Joab rebukes him for being so depressed over the death of someone who was trying to kill him.

The beginning of Absalom’s death scene is kind of entertaining:

During the battle, Absalom happened to come upon some of David’s men. He tried to escape on his mule, but as he rode beneath the thick branches of a great tree, his hair got caught in the tree. His mule kept going and left him dangling in the air. One of David’s men saw what had happened and told Joab, “I saw Absalom dangling from a great tree.”

It is especially entertaining because when Absalom was first introduced, his wonderful hair was described. That same wonderful hair became his downfall.

New Testament

Another resurrection account. Not particularly consistent with the rest of them, of course.

Psalms and Proverbs

We finish up the super long psalm with ר (resh), ש (shin), and ת (taw).

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Old Testament

Ahithophel and Hushai (David’s spy) give Absalom conflicting advice. Absalom decides to take Hushai’s advice. This is because,

the Lord had determined to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel, which really was the better plan, so that he could bring disaster on Absalom!

So the Lord could make Absalom take advice that would lead to his defeat but could not jigger things to prevent the situation from getting to this point in the first place (e.g., by giving David the strength to stick around and nip this situation in the bud)?

Hushai also sends a warning to David. As part of that, we get to hear about folks hiding in a well. Always amusing.

New Testament

Today we read something rather interesting:

Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene.

So Jesus’ mother’s sister was named Mary? Umm, wasn’t his mother named Mary? So are they both named Mary? Or is John just pulling from a different tradition where Jesus’ mother is not named Mary?

Then Jesus dies and is put in a tomb. Hmmm, I wonder what will happen next.

Psalms and Proverbs

פ (pe), צ (tsadhe), and ק (qoph).

The current proverbs are about kingly behavior. It is not particularly interesting in and of itself, but it is an interesting contrast to the behavior David is showing in the OT readings.

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Old Testament

David continues to flee like an upstart instead of standing his ground like the established king that he is. Mephibosheth repays David’s kindness by trying to take over the throne as soon as David flees. Absalom shows he has no clue what he has gotten himself in for by blindly taking advice from Ahithophel.

New Testament

Does anyone like Jesus from the Gospel of John? I know people like what he has to say, but does anyone like Jesus as he is presented as an individual in this gospel? (And yes, I realize that to some people this question is meaningless because they only see one Jesus across the gospels.)

In any case, Jesus is tried before Pilate. Pilate tries and tries to save him, but the Jews will not have it, so Pilate eventually orders Jesus crucified. Jesus is humiliated and beat and then hung up on the cross.

Psalms and Proverbs

ס (samekh) and ע (ayin).

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Old Testament

I have internet. Hurrah!

Fake reconciliation! Fake reconciliation going the other way! Rebellion! Flight! Very exciting.

David seems to be the type who does not engage in much self reflection, but can see himself in a story when it is made obvious. We first saw this a couple days ago, when David sees that his behavior with Bathsheba and her husband is wrong only after the prophet Nathan gets a visceral reaction out of David with a story.

Today, we see something similar as Joab tries to reconcile David and Absalom. Joab gets a woman to tell a tale of murder between brothers to the king. David says that he would protect the woman’s living son even though he had committed murder. The woman asks the king why he would do that for her but not his own son. David has an, “ah hah!” moment and lets Absalom return to Jerusalem.

However, David’s reaction when Absalom returns is confusing. Today’s reading opened with the line,

Joab realized how much the king longed to see Absalom.

 But then we read that after Absalom returned,

Then Joab went to Geshur and brought Absalom back to Jerusalem. But the king gave this order: “Absalom may go to his own house, but he must never come into my presence.” So Absalom did not see the king.

Either the king had very mixed feelings toward Absalom (understandable) or Joab was wrong in his reading of the king’s feelings.

Absalom resents this false reconciliation and expresses his displeasure to Joab (by way of burning a barley field). Joab then arranges for Absalom  to appear before the king, and the two seem to really reconcile.

But it seems that Absalom only cared about the appearance of reconciliation. As soon as he had the king’s favor again, Absalom starts scheming behind David’s back to win the hearts the people and start a rebellion.

In response to this threat, David flees. It makes one wonder how strong a king he actually was that he had to flee at even the thread of a rebellion.

New Testament

Today we read about Jesus’ betrayal and arrest. You may notice that in the Gospel of John, Jesus never prays to have this torture taken from him. That scene is part of what humanized Jesus. Leaving it out was clearly an intentional decision by the author of this gospel. That author did not want Jesus to be a suffering human who prays for God to change his mind. Such a Jesus is not consistent with the Jesus who is perfectly at one with God.

Psalms and Proverbs

מ (mem) and נ (nun).

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Old Testament

Heads up! I’m out of town for the weekend, probably without internet, so I will be posting the posts for this weekend on Monday.

Onward to today’s untopic, an extremely unpleasant one. Rape and murder. David’s son Ammon rapes his sister Tamar. Tamar’s full brother Absalom hides his anger for two years and then murders Ammon. I’m going to punt on this one. This whole story is so distasteful that I do not feel like getting into further commentary. I’ll just say this, why was Ammon not punished? (I am sorely tempted to add some profanity to the phrasing of that question.)

New Testament

John’s Jesus does not seem that emotionally involved with humanity, or even with his own fate.

Psalms and Proverbs

כ (kaph) and ל (lamedh).

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Old Testament

David is punished for sleeping with Bathsheba and having her husband killed. The punishment: God kills their newborn son.

Of course, I think it rather terrible that God killed a baby for the sins of its parents, but I am also reminded of opinions I have heard on abortion. Some people say that abortion should be illegal, even for women who were raped. They say the child does not deserve to be punished for the sins of its father. Compare and contrast that view with this story.

New Testament

I realized today the point of all of Jesus’ blabbing in this gospel. Here’s what I think: The gospel of John was written something like 50 years after Jesus was crucified. By this point, it was probably pretty clear to Jesus’ followers that the “the end is near” tone taken in the other gospels was no longer holding water.

Jesus’ followers needed to start transitioning their religion from an end times religion to one that could last for an arbitrarily long period into the future. To handle this, the emerging church needed some way of being able to claim authoritative revelations and now and in the future. Thus, the author of John really stresses the importance and authority of the Holy Spirit.

Psalms and Proverbs

ט (teth) and י (yodh). 


Also, today’s first proverb proves that I, the evil atheist, am useful!

The Lord has made everything for his own purposes,
even the wicked for a day of disaster.

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Old Testament

David offers to restore land and wealth to Jonathan’s crippled son, Mephibosheth. That’s nice of him. There’s always the possibility that David did this to keep Saul’s only known living descendant under his eyes, but given that Mephibosheth was never presented as much of a threat, I’ll take this story at face value.

David and his armies also kill a lot more people, but all that killing is just to set the stage for what happens next: the Bathesheba incident. One spring, David did not go out to war with his men. Instead, he stayed home.

Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her; and when she came to the palace, he slept with her. She had just completed the purification rites after having her menstrual period. Then she returned home. Later, when Bathsheba discovered that she was pregnant, she sent David a message, saying, “I’m pregnant.”

I wonder what Bathesheba thought of being propositioned by the king.  I can only assume that saying “no” was not really an option, regardless of what she thought of the king. Thus, I wonder, was what happened between David and Bathsheba closer to rape or adultery?

In any case, once Bathsheba reveals that she is pregnant, David tries his hardest to get her husband to go home and sleep with her. After that fails, he has Bathsheba’s husband sent to the front lines of battle where he is killed. Now this is pretty terrible, but, at least, we will read later that this whole affair was the one time David sinned (now, I don’t buy that it’s the only time, but it shows how terrible this situation was).

As soon as Bathsheba finishes mourning for her husband, David sends for her and marries her. Again, I wonder what she thought about this. Tradition has that they loved each other, and maybe later readings would show that, but, as far as we have seen, Bathsheba has no reason to love David.

New Testament

Blah blah blah, obey my commands and great things will happen. Blah blah the Father blah blah. The command itself is a pretty good one, “Love each other.”

We also get a passage today about how the world will hate and persecute Jesus’ followers.

Psalms and Proverbs

ז (zayin) and ח (heth).

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Old Testament

God tells David through the prophet Nathan (new character?) that he should not build a temple for God. Instead, God will establish a dynasty that lasts “forever” (yes, I know the Christian interpretation. No I don’t buy it.) and David’s son will build the temple. David then thanks God.

We then read about more of David’s military victories. Now, I consider David’s habit of killing whole cities of people to be quite terrible, but today we read about something that is, in some ways, worse.

After this, David defeated and subdued the Philistines by conquering Gath, their largest town. David also conquered the land of Moab. He made the people lie down on the ground in a row, and he measured them off in groups with a length of rope. He measured off two groups to be executed for every one group to be spared. The Moabites who were spared became David’s subjects and paid him tribute money.

David is using a pseudorandom method to save one third of the people and executing the rest. Imagine the scene. Lying on the ground, soldiers standing guard next to you. The rope is measuring people off. Some people could tell which group they were in before they were measured off. Others were nearer the boundaries. The boundary divides father from son, friend from friend, husband from wife, sending one to be executed and the other to live. It’s cruel and sickening.

New Testament

Jesus continues blabbing. Currently, he is going on about the holy spirit. I am sure that all of this is very inspiring to those who believe, but to me, it’s like hearing someone go on and on and on about the importance of having the right belief about pink unicorns. It is pointless and boring.

Psalms and Proverbs

ה (he) and ו (waw) today.

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Old Testament

Ishbosheth is murdered in his bed. David proves to still dislike those who kill royalty and has the murderers killed. The text reads very oddly. In addition to there being redundant information in two of the paragraphs (the lineage of the murderers), there is also a random, completely out of place feeling, insert about Jonathan’s crippled son Mephibosheth. This paragraph says that he was crippled and then he is not mentioned for the rest of today’s reading. Very odd.

Now that Ishbosheth is dead, David is able to become king of all of Israel. He wins the city of Jerusalem, which was controlled by Jebusites. This passage has more awkward bits.

On the day of the attack, David said to his troops, “I hate those ‘lame’ and ‘blind’ Jebusites. Whoever attacks them should strike by going into the city through the water tunnel.” That is the origin of the saying, “The blind and the lame may not enter the house.”

Buh wah? That doesn’t even make sense. I am starting to wonder if this section of this book underwent some major corruption at some point. The foot notes do not indicate this, but there are so many parts that are just bizarrely awkward to read.

David has the ark moved to Jerusalem, and God has a temper tantrum. Reminds us of the old days of the Torah!

But when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand and steadied the Ark of God. Then the Lord’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him dead because of this. So Uzzah died right there beside the Ark of God.

Come on God, the dude was just trying to help.

This incident kind of pissed off David, so he left the Ark at someone’s house for a few months before brining it back to Jerusalem. This leads to some marital strife.

But as the Ark of the Lord entered the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window. When she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was filled with contempt for him.

…

When David returned home to bless his own family, Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him. She said in disgust, “How distinguished the king of Israel looked today, shamelessly exposing himself to the servant girls like any vulgar person might do!”

David retorted to Michal, “I was dancing before the Lord, who chose me above your father and all his family! He appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the Lord, so I celebrate before the Lord. Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes! But those servant girls you mentioned will indeed think I am distinguished!” So Michal, the daughter of Saul, remained childless throughout her entire life.

The easy reading of this passage is that Michal, Saul’s daughter, is proud and haughty and resents David’s behavior. God, however, approves of David’s behavior and so strikes Michal barren for criticizing her husband.

However, there are at least two ways of reading this passage that are more interesting. Michal was Saul’s daughter and David’s first wife. If she had had a son with David, he would have had a super legitimate claim to the throne despite all the other children he has had by this point. This would have gotten in the way of the story which will build on a narrative of Solomon becoming king. Hence, the story needs to make it clear that Michal did not have children.

Another way of reading this passage is that Michal’s comments were not about David’s behavior at all. Consider this passage from earlier,

After moving from Hebron to Jerusalem, David married more concubines and wives, and they had more sons and daughters.

Michal is David’s first wife. She was given to another man whom she seem fairly happy with and then David forced her back to him. By the time we get to today’s reading, David had the six additional wives named in yesterday’s reading plus “more concubines and wives”.

Thus, this exchange could really be about David’s licentious ways. Notice that the mention of servant girls (young, nubile servant girls) is nearly as much a focus of Michal and David’s conversation as the dancing itself. In particular.

Michal: How distinguished the king of Israel looked today, shamelessly exposing himself to the servant girls [Why were you flirting with those servant girls? It made you look like an idiot!]

David: But those servant girls you mentioned will indeed think I am distinguished! [They didn’t think so. Watch as I go seduce one of them into my harem.]

New Testament

Jesus predicts Peter’s denial. This is another of those few stories that overlap between the Gospel of John and the synoptic gospels. This is followed by more blabling.

Psalms and Proverbs

ג [gimel] and ד [daleth] today! This psalm is a good review of the alphabet.

If you listen to constructive criticism,
you will be at home among the wise.