{"id":1097,"date":"2013-11-03T21:14:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T21:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/11\/king-david-misunderstood.html"},"modified":"2013-11-03T21:14:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-03T21:14:00","slug":"king-david-misunderstood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/11\/king-david-misunderstood.html","title":{"rendered":"King David Misunderstood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Religion students at Yale Divinity School blame Dr. Joel Baden for \u201cruining\u201d King David for them. Baden insists this was not his intention.<\/span><\/div>\n
But in his new book,\u00a0The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero<\/i><\/a>, the Old Testament professor digs into the past of this hero of the faith and argues the iconic Biblical character has been misunderstood. He says that he found someone more animated than the glorified felt-board action hero many have come to know. Here we talk about his controversial findings and why he thinks we should ignore his critics to believe what he says.<\/span><\/div>\n
JM: What is the false caricature of King David which you believe needs to be\u00a0<\/b>dissembled?<\/b>
<\/b>
JB: In the New Testament, David is described with a brief and powerful\u00a0phrase<\/a>:\u00a0\u201da man after God\u2019s own heart.\u201d It\u2019s hard to imagine a more positive description\u2013after all, this is what every person of faith strives to be. The most famous story from the Bible about David provides plenty of support for this image of him. Almost everyone knows of David\u2019s\u00a0encounter with Goliath<\/a>, the bravery he shows when the rest of Israel is afraid to confront the giant, and his remarkable statement of trust in God: \u201cYou come at me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the ranks of Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
This premier example of faith in action is counterposed with the other popular\u00a0conception of David, as the composer of the Psalms. \u00a0When we read and hear\u00a0the\u00a0words<\/a>\u00a0\u201cThe Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,\u201d there we have the same faith expressed in song. These texts and traditions stand behind our cultural view of David not only as Israel\u2019s greatest king, but also as the paradigm of a great God-fearing person. When we add in the ancient belief that David is the direct ancestor of, and even model for, the Messiah\u2013a belief common to both Judaism and Christianity\u2013then David\u2019s apotheosis is essentially complete. \u00a0Even in his lowest moments (the affair with Bathsheba<\/a>, in most people\u2019s eyes), David is an exemplar of human repentance and divine forgiveness.<\/span><\/div>\n
David is the undisputed hero of the Hebrew Bible. Tradition, both in the Bible itself and thereafter, has only increased his standing. (The narratives in the Bible of David\u2019s life, for example, never claim that he actually wrote the Psalms.) There is some real basis for the glorification of David: he was an authentically important (this word is not even strong enough) historical figure, a man who changed the course of human history: the founder of a nation and, in many ways, of a religion.<\/span><\/div>\n
The question I try to address in\u00a0the book<\/a>\u00a0is, which parts of the story are glorification, and which parts are more historically plausible? This isn\u2019t a question of denying David\u2019s achievements as a national leader, or even his existence (as is relatively common in biblical scholarship). But the David of the Bible, and even more so the David of popular tradition, is a nearly perfected human being. This is theologically a fine thing, but I wanted to explore whether it could be true historically as well.<\/span><\/div>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Religion students at Yale Divinity School blame Dr. Joel Baden for \u201cruining\u201d King David for them. Baden insists this was not his intention. But in his new book,\u00a0The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero, the Old Testament professor digs into the past of this hero of the faith and argues the iconic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nKing David Misunderstood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Religion students at Yale Divinity School blame Dr. Joel Baden for \u201cruining\u201d King David for them. 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