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What is the Bible For? 

The two predominant assumptions about the Bible in our culture are these:

• The Bible is an ancient book that possesses a lot of sometimes interesting but archaic stories reflecting the religious beliefs of people ignorant of the important truths we know through science and evolved civilization. Anyone who reads the Bible or sees it somehow as relevant for life in the 21st century is a backwards fool.
• The Bible is God’s rule book. If we follow the rules of the Bible God rewards us, gives us good things in this life and takes us to heaven when we die. If we violate God’s rules we get punished with calamity now and hell after death.

Almost everyone who believes the first would agree that at least two of the rules in the second bullet point “you shall not commit adultery” and “you shall not murder” should be rules for everyone.

No matter how much license is offered by the ever evolving sexual revolution the rule against “cheating” seems to hold. The commandment “you shall not commit adultery” in the ancient world primarily told men they ought not to sleep with another man’s wife. Today we naturally broaden that to not cheat on your own spouse.

Neither do people have a problem with the command not to murder. Taking another person’s life even in a libertarian age crosses a line that should not be crossed.

What surprises people who hold to one or the other bullet point above is that today’s story, the second most famous story of David’s stories, cuts against both points.

For those who imagine that the Bible is simply a list of rules that disqualify people from communion with God we find this man after God’s own heart breaking them consciously, getting caught, punished and then restored.

For those that imagine the stories of the Bible have nothing to do with enlightened modern life today you will find that 2 Samuel 11 and 12 is as fresh today as it was three thousand years ago when the events first took place.

“When you’re a star they’ll let you do it, you can do anything…”

When then candidate Donald Trump was caught on tape speaking the truth the world pretended it was “shocked! shocked!”

1 Samuel 11 finds King David sending for Bathsheba even though he had dozens of wives and concubines to sleep with. “when you’re the king they’ll let you do it, you can do anything…” And David did.

The details of the text are important. Bathsheba was bathing for ritual purity insuring that we the reader would know for certain that the child conceived would be David’s alone.

The Duplicity The Law Produces Continue reading →