The legend of how King David saw Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, bathing naked, lusted after her, sent messengers to bring her to the royal palace, had sex with her, impregnated her, and then had her husband effectively murdered to prevent him from finding out is one of the most famous stories in the Hebrew Bible—but also one of the most routinely misunderstood.
Many Christian readers have interpreted Bathsheba as a depraved and nefarious seductress who deliberately bathed in a location where she knew David would be watching in order to seduce him, caused him to lust after her, and gleefully betrayed her husband to have sex with the king. There is, however, absolutely nothing in the Biblical text to support this interpretation. In fact, in the text itself, all the evidence strongly indicates that David spies on her without her knowledge or consent and then rapes her. Bathsheba, far from being a malicious temptress, is actually an innocent rape victim who has been wrongfully victim-blamed for far too long.
Background about the Deuteronomistic History
Before we talk about the story of David’s rape of Bathsheba itself, let’s talk about sources.
The legend of David and Bathsheba occurs in the Deuteronomistic History or DH, which is a continuous narrative of the history of the nations of Israel and Judah spanning from the death of Moses to King Amel-Marduk of Babylon’s release of the deposed Judahite king Jehoiachin from prison. It consists of the Book of Joshua, the Book of Judges, the Book of Samuel, and the Book of Kings. (Christian Bibles typically follow the Greek Septuagint in splitting the Book of Samuel and the Book of Kings into two books each: First Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings. In the Hebrew Bible, though, First and Second Samuel are one book and First and Second Kings are one book.)
Ever since the work of the German Biblical scholar Martin Noth in the early 1940s, scholars of the Hebrew Bible have generally recognized that these four or six books share compositional roots and were most likely at one time a single work. Although Noth originally held that the Deuteronomistic History was composed by a single author living in Babylon during the Babylonian captivity (lasted c. 597 – 539 BCE), most scholars today now believe that it was in fact composed through a series of multiple editions, redactions, and expansions.
The earliest proto-version of the DH was most likely composed during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (ruled 640 – 609 BCE). Later, during the Babylonian captivity, one or several authors heavily edited and expanded the work. Various authors most likely continued to edit and expand the work to a lesser extent throughout the ensuing Achaemenid Period (lasted c. 539 – c. 332 BCE) and into the Hellenistic Period (lasted c. 332 – c. 37 BCE). Eventually, the text became finalized into the version that has been passed down to the present day.
The DH extensively cites several more ancient written works of narrative history, including the “Book of the Acts of Solomon,” the “Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah,” and the “Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.” The history frequently refers its readers to these accounts, implying that these accounts may have provided more detailed information.
Unfortunately, none of the more ancient sources on which the DH relies have survived to the present day and they are only known to have existed at all from the citations to them in the Hebrew Bible, meaning it is impossible to assess how accurately the DH summarizes them and it is unclear how much older than the DH itself these sources really were. Finally, the DH only cites these earlier works of narrative history in reference to events that are said to have taken place after David’s reign, starting with the reign of his son Solomon, indicating that these works may not have covered the reign of David.
As I discuss in this post I wrote back in July 2019 (which has some issues, but I still stand by the conclusion), it is not entirely clear whether David was a real, historical person. The oldest surviving securely datable text that scholars generally agree mentions David is the Tel Dan Stele, which dates to sometime between c. 870 and c. 750 BCE, around one or two centuries after the time when David himself is supposed to have lived.
Although many apologists have tried to claim that the stele definitively proves that David was a real king, all it really proves is that, by the time the stele was inscribed, the kings of Judah were claiming descent from someone named David. I personally think it is more likely than not that there was really a historical David of some kind or another, but the evidence for his existence is still extremely tenuous at best.
In any case, even if David was a real person, the vast majority of the stories about him that are recorded in the Deuteronomistic History are still most likely predominantly a mix of legend and literary fiction. Some of the stories may contain some kernel of truth, but, whenever one does, whatever truth there may be is always so thoroughly enmeshed with legends and fiction that it is impossible to separate them. These stories are therefore best understood from the perspectives of folklore and literature, rather than history.
ABOVE: Fresco from the Dura-Europos synagogue in Syria, dating to the middle of the third century CE, depicting the prophet Samuel anointing David
The Biblical account in 2 Samuel 11–12
The Second Book of Samuel chapters 11–12 narrates the story of David and Bathsheba. 2 Samuel 11:1–5 describes the incident in which David first spies on Bathsheba from the palace rooftop and then orders that she be brought to him so that he can have sex with her as follows, as translated in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):
“In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.”
“It happened, late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, ‘This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.’ So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, ‘I am pregnant.’”
Upon learning this, David first tries to get Bethsheba’s husband Uriah to have sex with her so that he will be able to pass the child he has impregnated her with off as Uriah’s own. Uriah, however, insists on strictly obeying the ancient tradition, which prohibits soldiers who are on active duty from returning to their homes and sleeping with their wives.
After multiple failed attempts to get Uriah to have sex with Bathsheba, David, in desperation to cover up his crime, orders for him to be sent to the front line of battle where the fighting is thickest so that he will be killed in combat. David’s orders are fulfilled and Uriah dies.
ABOVE: Bathsheba at Her Bath, painted between c. 1645 and c. 1650 by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi
Following Uriah’s death, 2 Samuel 11:26–27a describes the fate of Bathsheba:
“When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.”
After this, the prophet Nathan confronts David over his rape of Bathsheba, which he portrays as a heinous crime and abuse of power against her husband Uriah. 2 Samuel 11:27b–12:15 describes the confrontation between Nathan and David as follows, as translated in the NRSV, with the divine name restored:
“But the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh, and Yahweh sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, ‘There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.’”
“Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, ‘As Yahweh lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.’”
“Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your bosom and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of Yahweh, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.’”
“‘Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says Yahweh: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and in broad daylight.’”
“David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against Yahweh.’ Nathan said to David, ‘Now Yahweh has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned Yahweh, the child born to you shall die.’ Then Nathan went to his house.”
Notice that both the narrator of the story and Nathan expressly place all the blame solely on David and none of the blame on Bathsheba; Nathan does not rebuke Bathsheba, nor does he ever at any point condemn or criticize any of her actions.
ABOVE: Illustration from the Paris Psalter (BnF MS Grec 139), a Byzantine illustrated manuscript dating to the tenth century CE, folio 136 verso, depicting the prophet Nathan rebuking David for his rape of Bathsheba and subsequent orchestration of her husband Uriah’s untimely death
Arguments that David raped Bathsheba
As most of my readers are already aware, I am an atheist and my interest in the Bible is purely academic. Unfortunately, all the papers I have been able to find so far that specifically argue that David raped Bathsheba are written from sectarian Christian perspectives and published through sectarian publishers. They also all tend to assume (naïvely, I think) that the story of David and Bathsheba really took place historically. Nonetheless, they do make compelling arguments and some of them actually get into the Hebrew.
Richard M. Davidson, a professor at Saint Andrews Theological Seminary, a Seventh-Day Adventist seminary, systematically lays out the textual details and evidence that David raped Bathsheba in a numbered list form in his paper “Did David Rape Bathsheba?: A Case Study in Narrative Theology,” published in the Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 17/2 (Autumn 2006): 81–95.
The Baptist theologians David E. Garland and Diana R. Garland, who are both professors at Baylor University, which is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), present a less technical and more rhetorical argument that David raped Bathsheba in their chapter “Bathsheba’s Story: Surviving Abuse and Loss,” published in the book Flawed Families of the Bible: How God’s Grace Works through Imperfect Relationships, published in March 2007 through the Evangelical Christian publisher Brazos Press.
Although neither of these sources are perfect, I will be drawing to some extent on both of them in the sections that follow, as well as adding some arguments of my own.
The recent controversy
The most recent hubbub over David and Bathsheba arose after Rachel Denhollander, a survivor of sexual abuse and professional advocate for fellow victims of sexual abuse and sexual violence, argued at the Caring Well Conference, hosted by the theologian Russell D. Moore, the former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), that the story is of one of rape. Denhollander declares:
“David didn’t fornicate; David raped. And, if you understand the power dynamics and you understand the Hebrew and you look at the Levitical examples and discussion of rape and you understand what Nathan is saying in his parable, it is abundantly clear from that text that David raped. But, more often than not, pastors take passages like that and they minimize, downplay, or completely twist what happened.”
As soon as someone posted a video of Denhollander saying these words online on 10 July 2022, conservative Christians on social media immediately lashed out, attacking and denouncing her as an incompetent exegete, if not an outright heretic, for her analysis of David and Bathsheba.
Owen Strachan, the Provost and Research Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary and a professional fundamentalist apologist, swiftly issued a tweet in which he roundly castigates anyone who interprets David as having raped Bathsheba as engaging in “unsound interpretation—with devastating consequences,” not-so-subtly implying that, if someone says that David raped Bathsheba, it could lead them to embrace progressive social values and hence follow the path to eternal damnation in the unquenchable fires of Hell:
Megan Basham, a professional commentator for the right-wing propaganda outlet The Daily Wire, also chimed in with a tweet of her own, accusing interpreters who claim that David raped Bathsheba of “twisting Scripture to make a story about sin into one about power dynamics” (completely ignoring the fact that the Deuteronomistic History itself is very much concerned with power dynamics and the central theme of the entire story, which the prophet Nathan highlights through his parable in 2 Samuel 12, is David’s abuse of his power as king):
Given this recent uproar, I figured I should write a post explaining in detail how the text of 2 Samuel 11–12 supports the conclusion that David raped Bathsheba and why the conservative Christians who condemn this interpretation are wrong.
No, Bathsheba wasn’t intentionally bathing “on the roof” in order to seduce David
The first way people have tried to claim that Bathsheba consented to or even personally initiated sexual relations with David is by claiming that she was intentionally bathing totally naked on the roof of her house in full public view, where she knew David would be able to see her, in order to seduce him so that he would have sex with her. Here is one example of a tweet that tries to make this exact argument:
This claim, however, is simply a blatant misreading of the text. Throughout the whole story, David is the only person who is ever described as being on top of any roof; Bathsheba is never at any point described as going anywhere near any kind of rooftop. According to the actual text, David is standing on top of the roof of the palace looking down on the city below. Bathsheba is bathing at an unspecified location—most likely in her own home.
Davidson argues in his paper that archaeological evidence indicates that the standard residential home in Jerusalem during the monarchic period consisted of three roofed rooms built around a central unroofed courtyard, amounting to a total of four “rooms” total.
The central, unroofed courtyard is the place where the inhabitants of a house most likely typically bathed. This courtyard would have been enclosed from all sides except for the entrance, which could have been easily covered by a curtain or door when someone was using the courtyard to bathe, leaving the courtyard only externally visible from above.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons showing the basic space distribution of a “four-room house” of the kind that was typical in the city of Jerusalem throughout the monarchic period. The central courtyard is most likely where the inhabitants of a home typically bathed.
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Davidson further argues that the royal palace, which he identifies with the “Large Stone Structure” excavated by the Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar, was the highest building or at least one of the highest buildings in the city in David’s time and that a person standing on top of the roof of the palace would have had a unique vantage point to see into the courtyards of the houses in the Kidron Valley below.
Even if one does not accept Davidson’s identification of the palace of David with the Large Stone Structure, the text of 2 Samuel 11 itself repeatedly indicates that David’s palace is located at a high point above most of the city and that Uriah and Bathsheba’s house is located in the valley below. Verses 8–13 of the chapter notably describe the journey of going from the palace to Bathsheba and Uriah’s house as one of “going down” (yārad in Hebrew).
Thus, the most parsimonious interpretation of 2 Samuel 11:2 is that David is standing atop the roof of the royal palace looking down into the enclosed, private courtyard of Bathsheba’s house to spy on her. In other words, David is not just being a skeevy voyeur; he’s also abusing his position as the king and owner of the highest rooftop in the city to spy on an ordinary woman in her most private moments.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a portion of the Large Stone Sturcture, which Davidson identifies with the palace of David, overlooking the City of David
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a portion of the Large Stone Structure overlooking the Stepped Stone Structure, overlooking the City of David
The popularity of the misconception about Bathsheba bathing “on the roof”
Unfortunately, for at least a century and a half or so now, laypeople have been misreading the text and incorrectly assuming that, because David is described as watching from atop the roof of the palace, Bathsheba must therefore be on the roof of a building also. In some cases, they have even totally swapped the two characters’ positions, making Bathsheba the only one who is standing on a roof, even though she is never described as such.
This misreading has become absolutely pervasive throughout modern culture. For instance, the French Academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (lived 1824 – 1904) made a beautiful, yet nauseatingly voyeuristic, oil painting in 1889 that depicts a remarkably pale-skinned, red-haired Bathsheba bathing completely nude out in the open on her rooftop while David visibly watches from a palace balcony. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has her head tilted just slightly away from him as though she really knows he is watching, but she’s pretending that she doesn’t. Because this painting is now in the public domain, it has been widely reproduced in books and online.
The Canadian singer Leonard Cohen’s 1984 single “Hallelujah” also references the idea of Bathsheba supposedly bathing on her rooftop with the lyrics:
“Your faith was strong, but you needed proof;
you saw her bathing on the roof.
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her.”
As a result of cultural references like these, most people are more familiar with the popular misreading than with what the text of 2 Samuel 11:2 actually says.
ABOVE: Bathsheba, painted by the French Academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1889, showing Bathsheba bathing on her rooftop as David watches
Scholarly arguments that Bathsheba was intentionally bathing to seduce David
Unfortunately, multiple male Biblical scholars, who at least know the text well enough to recognize that Bathsheba is never described as bathing on any rooftop, have tried to make their own versions of the argument that she was intentionally bathing in order to seduce David.
The scholar George G. Nicol argues in his paper “The Alleged Rape of Bathsheba: Some Observations on Ambiguity in Biblical Narrative,” published in 1997 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 22(73):43-54, that, because the text describes David as being able to clearly see that Bathsheba is beautiful, she must therefore be bathing in extremely close proximity to the royal palace. He contends that the best explanation for why she is bathing so close to the royal palace is that she is intentionally trying to seduce David.
This interpretation, however, falls flat for several reasons. Firstly, the text does not say or imply at any point in any way that Bathsheba is intentionally bathing in a certain location to try to seduce David and inventing such an elaborate motive for her actions when there are many much simpler explanations for why she might be bathing within view of the palace roof flagrantly violates the law of parsimony.
As I have already mentioned, the most plausible interpretation of 2 Samuel 11:2 is that Bathsheba is bathing in the enclosed courtyard of her own home, since this is where all the evidence indicates that people in ancient Israel normally bathed. Like most ancient cities, the city of Jerusalem in the monarchic period was most likely very compact, occupying a much smaller area of land than most cities today. It would therefore not be surprising at all for Bathsheba and Uriah’s house to be located close enough to David’s palace that he could easily look down from the palace roof and see directly into their courtyard.
For this reason, Bathsheba’s apparent proximity to David’s palace does not indicate in any way that she is intentionally trying to seduce him.
ABOVE: Bathsheba at Her Bath, painted c. 1635 by the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens
On top of this, there are other indications in the text that Bathsheba has no reason to suspect that David is spying on her.
The text seems to imply that David is only able to see Bathsheba bathing while he is standing on the roof of his own palace. If we assume that the palace is the highest building in the area of Bathsheba and Uriah’s home, this may be the only vantage point in the whole city from which a person can see into her courtyard. She would most likely have no reason to think that anyone would be standing up there, since the roof of the palace is presumably not a place where a person could normally be expected to stand. She may not even realize that her courtyard is visible from the roof of the palace in the first place.
The specific timing of this whole incident also gives further indication that Bathsheba has no reason to suspect that David is spying on her. 2 Samuel 11:1 specifies that this whole incident is taking place at a time of year when the king normally wouldn’t even be in the city, because he would be out with his troops on military campaign. For some reason, though, David has decided to stay home this year.
Bathsheba’s own husband Uriah is explicitly stated to be out of the city on military campaign. Because of this, Bathsheba may not even know at this point that David is in the city, since she may very well be under the impression that he is out on campaign with her husband and his fellow soldiers.
2 Samuel 11:2 also specifies that these events are taking place “lěʿēt hāʿereb,” which Davidson translates literally as “to the time of the evening” (i.e., in the late evening, just after sunset). This is the time of day when it was normal for people in ancient Israel to bathe. Davidson argues on page 85:
“It is not unreasonable to assume that the generally-accepted code of decency in David’s day included the understanding that it was inappropriate to look out from one’s rooftop or upper-story down into the courtyard of a neighbor’s property at this time of day, out of respect for privacy, since this was the normal time for baths to be taken. Still today this is part of an unwritten but strictly-enforced code of ethics prevalent in Middle Eastern culture (that I experienced personally while living in Jerusalem).”
In other words, in the story, David is watching Bathsheba from a vantage point she could not have expected someone to be watching her from, which is, in all likelihood, the only vantage point in the whole city from which it would be possible for someone to see her, at a time of year when it would be reasonable for her to assume that the king is not even in the city, and at the specific time of day when it was normal for people to take baths and when it may have been accepted etiquette that people were not supposed to look down from high rooftops, precisely because they might see people bathing in private courtyards below.
ABOVE: Bathsheba at Her Bath, painted in 1654 by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
I think that, in this first part of the story, it is pretty irrefutably clear-cut that David is spying on Bathsheba without her knowledge or consent. There is absolutely no evidence in the text to indicate that she is intentionally bathing in a place where she knows David will see her in order to seduce him and, in fact, I have not been able to find a single scholarly paper written within the past twenty years that supports such an interpretation.
Even the most recent scholarly paper I have been able to find that tries to contest the view that David raped Bathsheba—Alexander Izuchukwu Abasili’s paper “Was It Rape?: The David and Bathsheba Pericope Re-examined,” published in 2011 in the journal Vetus Testamentum 61, pages 1–15—readily accepts that there is no evidence to support the view that she is intentionally bathing in order to seduce him.
No, there is no textual evidence that Bathsheba went to the palace willingly knowing what David wanted
With that part out of the way, let’s move on the next part of the story, in which David’s messengers tell Bathsheba to come to the palace. Many conservative Christians have tried to argue that David did not rape Bathsheba because she came to him willingly without resisting and therefore consented to have sex with him. Here is one example of a tweet that makes this argument:
People who deny that David raped Bathsheba have seized upon the Hebrew phrase וַתָּב֤וֹא אֵלָיו֙ (watāḇōʾ ʾêlāw), which means “she came to him” in the consecutive imperfect, with a third-person feminine singular subject, and the fact that 2 Samuel 11:4 does not expressly describe Bathsheba as resisting as supposed evidence that she consented.
There are two enormous problems with this argument. The first problem is that, while it is true that the text of 2 Samuel 11:4 does not say that Bathsheba tried to resist David, it does not say that she came “without hesitation and offered no resistance for his desires” either. All the passage says is this: “So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him.” That’s it.
The passage does not give any details at all about how she “came to him” and there is absolutely nothing in the text to indicate that she came willingly, rather than under duress. For all we know, the messengers in the story are armed, they threaten to kill her if she does not comply, and they directly escort her to the palace under armed guard.
The second problem with this argument is that, even if we assume that Bathsheba goes to the palace without resisting and without the messengers or anyone else having to expressly threaten or coerce her, this still does not in any way indicate that she consented.
David is the king of Israel. He controls the city, he has armed guards and vast armies of armed soldiers at his command, and he can order his guards or his soldiers to bring anyone he wants to the palace at any time on a whim. Bathsheba, by contrast, is just one lone, unarmed woman. When the king sends his messengers to give her a direct summons out of the blue ordering that she come to the palace, even if no one is expressly threatening or coercing her into obedience, she still really has no choice but to obey.
Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing in the text to indicate that Bathsheba is even aware at this point that David has been spying on her or that she has any idea whatsoever why he is summoning her. If she does not know at this point why David is summoning her, then she does not even have a compelling reason at this point why she should want to resist.
In fact, the one thing we do know that Bathsheba does know at this point is that her husband Uriah is serving in David’s army. When David’s messengers come to her house and tell her to come to the palace, it would be perfectly logical for her to believe that he is summoning her in order to give her news about her husband. She may be worried that her husband has been injured or killed in battle. Far from going to the palace giddily eager to betray her husband, she may very well be going to the palace with concern for her husband as the very first thought on her mind.
ABOVE: Painting made in 1562 by the Flemish Renaissance painter Jan Matsys, which rather bizarrely depicts Bathsheba conversing with David’s messenger half-naked with a beaming smile on her face
What happens in the palace
This bring us to the actual rape itself. The Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 11:4 describes everything that happens once Bethsheba arrives at the palace in just two words: וַיִּשְׁכַּ֣ב עִמָּ֔הּ (wayyiškaḇ ʿimmāh), which means “and he lay with her.”
A Reformed Baptist pastor named Charles Johnson insists in a tweet that this cannot possibly be rape because the text does not use a specific Hebrew word that means “rape” or a specific word that means “manipulated”:
This, however, is blatantly a ridiculous argument. The Bible does not have to expressly and specifically call something “rape” in order for it to be rape. Moreover, Davidson points out in his paper (on pages 88–89) that forms of the phrase שָׁכַב (šākab), meaning to “lie with,” are routinely used in the Hebrew Bible to describe incontrovertible instances of rape. Notably, the exact same phrase occurs in the Book of Deuteronomy 22:25–27, which reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:
“But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country and the man seizes her and lies with her [וְשָׁכַ֣ב עִמָּ֑הּ, wəšāḵaḇ ʿimmāh], then only the man who lay with her shall die. You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor. Since he found her in the open country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was no one to rescue her.”
Clearly, the use of the phrase wayyiškaḇ ʿimmāh in 2 Samuel 11:4 cannot be interpreted as evidence of Bathsheba’s willingness or consent. Moreover, the text gives every indication that David forces Bathsheba to have sex with him.
By this point in the story, David has total power over Bathsheba. She is already in his palace, which is presumably protected by armed guards who are personally loyal to him. She cannot leave unless David allows her to do so and she has absolutely no power to effectively resist his advances. Even if she tries to scream, no one will come to rescue her, because everyone in the palace who might hear her screaming is loyal to David and the people within the closest immediate earshot are probably assisting him to carry out the rape in the first place.
There is nothing in the Biblical account to suggest that David gives Bathsheba any opportunity to leave once he has gotten her inside his palace or that he says anything at all to her to indicate that she is not required to have sex with him. Indeed, it seems very unlikely given his character that he would give her any such opportunity or indication, especially when we consider the fact that, earlier in the story, he was incontrovertibly spying on her naked without her consent and the fact that, later in the story, he has her husband Uriah effectively murdered to prevent him from finding out what he has done to his wife. This is not a man who we can easily imagine would ever take “no” for an answer.
Even if we assume that David does tell Bathsheba explicitly that she can leave anytime she wants and that she does not have to do anything she does not want to do (which is, again, not something that the Biblical text itself ever describes him as doing, nor something that seems at all consistent with his character throughout the story), even then, him having sex with Bathsheba would still be rape because of the coercive power dynamics involved in the situation.
Quite simply, even if David tells Bathsheba that she can leave without having sex with him, she may still justifiably fear that, if she leaves without doing everything David asks of her, he may enact vengeance against her, her husband, and/or other people she cares about later.
Thus, even if he tells her she can leave and she wants to leave, she may still be too afraid of possible future retribution to do so. He occupies a position of such immense power and authority over her that it would be impossible for them to have sex without her submitting at least partly out of fear. This is what we mean when we talk about “power rape.”
ABOVE: Anonymous seventeenth-century painting depicting how the artist imagined David “seducing” Bathsheba
What happens afterward
The events that take place after David’s rape of Bathsheba further indicate that it is indeed a rape. 2 Samuel 11:4 describes her as going back to her and Uriah’s home after she has sex with David, rather than staying with David in the palace, even though her husband is away at war and would therefore certainly not grow suspicious if she were to stay with David at the palace. Davidson argues that Bathsheba’s decision to return to Uriah’s house, rather than staying with David, indicates her desire to remain as his wife.
Later, 2 Samuel 11:26 calls her the “wife of Uriah” and describes her as wailing in lamentation for her husband upon learning of his death. Davidson notes that the Hebrew text of this verse uses the verb sāpad, which specifically denotes lamenting with loud cries and connotes a genuine, intense emotional outpouring, again emphasizing her enduring love for her husband, even after David has had him murdered.
It is only after David sends for her in 2 Samuel 11:27 that Bathsheba finally goes to live with him in the palace. Here again, though, she seems to have no choice in the matter. David is the king and, if he orders her to marry him, she must either obey him or try to escape, in which case he may catch her and punish her or, even if she herself manages to get away, he may punish her remaining family and loved ones for her disobedience.
Finally, both the narrator (in 2 Samuel 11:27) and the prophet Nathan in (2 Samuel 12:1–15) expressly lay all the blame for the affair solely on David and none of it on Bathsheba. In fact, Nathan in his parable describes Bathsheba as an innocent lamb that the rich man (i.e., David) has unjustly stolen, slaughtered, cooked, and served up to his guest for dinner.
This parable is obviously extremely dehumanizing toward Bathsheba, since it portrays her as literally a mere piece of livestock for her husband to own, rather than a human being with thoughts and feelings of her own. Nonetheless, even so, it still leaves no ambiguity about the fact that she is a victim with no part in David’s guilt.
When modern conservative Christians blame Bathsheba for David raping her, they are not just blaming a victim; they are blaming a victim against whom the Bible itself never casts any blame.
ABOVE: The Prophet Nathan Rebukes David, painted at some point between 1866 and 1931 by the Belgian Academic painter Eugène Siberdt
Abasili’s attempt to distinguish between the “Biblical” and “modern” definitions of rape
The scholar Alexander Izuchukwu Abasili in his paper “Was It Rape?: The David and Bathsheba Pericope Re-examined,” which I have already referenced, argues that the Hebrew Bible exclusively defines rape as occurring when a man uses physical violence to forcibly penetrate a woman with his penis and the woman screams for help.
He holds that, under the Biblical definition, rape occurs exclusively through penile penetration. Thus, according to Abasili’s interpretation of the Bible, a woman cannot rape anyone under any circumstances and, if a man forces sexual contact on someone, it can only qualify as rape if he penetrates the person using his penis.
Furthermore, he holds that, under the Biblical definition, if a man forcibly penetrates a woman with his penis by employing any kind of non-physical intimidation or coercion without using physical force, then it is not rape, because the Bible only recognizes rape as occurring exclusively through use of physical force.
Finally, he holds that, under the Biblical definition, the woman must also scream out loud for help in order for it to qualify as rape. If a man uses physical force to penetrate a woman with his penis without her consent, but the woman does not scream, then, according Abasili, the Bible still does not recognize it as rape because, according to the Bible, the woman’s failure to scream at the top of her lungs for help implies her consent.
Abasili therefore argues that, while David’s actions toward Bathsheba may constitute rape under a modern definition, they do not constitute rape under a Biblical definition. He holds that the author of 2 Samuel 11–12 did not regard David’s actions toward Bathsheba as rape and that modern readers should not impose anachronistic modern definitions onto the text.
I do not find Abasili’s arguments even remotely convincing. First of all, I think that his argument that there is a single “Biblical” definition of rape is wrong. He makes the unwarranted assumption that the specific scenarios described in passages like Deuteronomy 22:25–27 are the only scenarios that ancient Hebrew authors could possibly comprehend as rape.
He also makes the incorrect assumption that Biblical authors speak with univocality and that a law about rape in Deuteronomy should govern how we interpret a story in 2 Samuel, even though these texts were most likely written by different authors at different times with wildly different agendas.
I am not convinced by his argument that the author of 2 Samuel 11–12 did not regard David’s actions as rape, mainly because of the fact that, as I have already noted, within the text itself, both the narrator and Nathan seem to place all the blame on David rather than Bathsheba, which hardly makes sense if we assume that the author believes that she is equally as guilty as he.
Even if we accept Abasili’s argument that, throughout the Bible, only the very narrow definition that he describes is considered to constitute rape and that the author of 2 Samuel 11–12 did not view David’s actions as rape, I still don’t think this affects the question of whether those actions actually qualify as rape. The simple fact of the matter is that what Abasili calls the “Biblical” definition of rape is an absolutely, objectively wrong definition and it is so viciously, malevolently restrictive that it excludes virtually every act that a modern reader would regard as rape.
Abasili’s “Biblical” definition is so restrictive that, according to it, even Sextus Tarquinius’s infamous rape of Lucretia in the Roman historian Titus Livius’s Ab Urbe Condita 1.58 would not qualify as rape, since Lucretia does not scream out loud for help (because Tarquinius is holding a knife and he threatens to kill her if she screams). Additionally, Tarquinius forces her to give in primarily by verbally threatening her that, if she does not give in, he will kill her, kill his slave, and arrange their bodies together to frame her as having committed adultery with the slave, rather than by solely physically overpowering her.
ABOVE: Tarquin and Lucretia, painted in 1571 by the Italian Renaissance painter Titian, depicting Sextus Tarquinius’s notorious rape of the married noblewoman Lucretia
Even if Abasili were right about there being a single, consistent definition of rape throughout the Bible, there is no good reason why modern readers should be bound by such a ridiculous and restrictive definition. It is not anachronistically forcing an ancient text to conform to modern values for us to use a term with a modern definition to describe what we perceive in the text.
If we are not allowed to use modern terms and definitions to describe the Hebrew Bible, then we cannot discuss it at all in any language other than Biblical Hebrew, because few, if any, modern English terms will ever have the exact same meanings as analogous terms in Hebrew. I am certain that Abasili has no problem with applying modern words with modern definitions to ancient texts in other contexts; the only reason why he objects to it in this particular instance is because it makes him uncomfortable.
A reasonable modern definition of rape is that it is the act of forcing any form of sexual activity or contact onto another person without their consent by any means, which may include violence, intimidation, coercion, and/or taking advantage of a situation in which the person is vulnerable and unable to give consent.
Under this definition, David’s actions toward Bathsheba clearly constitute rape. It may not be as flagrantly violent as, say, Shechem’s rape of Dinah in Genesis 34, the Benjaminites’ brutal gang-rape of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19, or Amnon’s rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13, but it is still very much rape.
What is the source of your statement that “most Christian readers have interpreted Bathsheba as a depraved and nefarious seductress who deliberately bathed in a location where she knew David would be watching in order to seduce him,” etc.? I’ve been discussing this Biblical passage with Christians for forty years, and I’ve never heard that interpretation. On the contrary, everyone I’ve talked to or read agrees that Bathsheba had no choice, and by modern standards that does constitute rape. The Biblical text is clear that David bore the blame for the entire incident – and the Bible is where Christians get their information.
Who are the Christians you’ve heard or read that blame Bathsheba, and why do you think they are a majority?
My use of the phrase “most Christians” was perhaps a bit of a cynical assumption; I have not surveyed the evidence for the prevalence of the interpretation of Bathsheba as a malevolent seductress across Christian denominations over the course of past centuries, so I cannot demonstrate that the majority of Christians have held this interpretation. I have now therefore changed the beginning of this article to say “many Christians” instead, which is more supported by objective evidence.
That being said, the interpretation of Bathsheba as a seductress has certainly been common at least among Protestants in the English-speaking world for at least several centuries. I don’t have time at the moment to list examples, since I am currently at a family reunion, but someone else has listed a few examples of the interpretation here.
Not related to this post, but I was browsing through your posts from last year and I noticed that this one (https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/05/28/why-laws-banning-transgender-athletes-are-bad/) seems to be missing. That was the one you originally deleted after publishing it, but then brought back (https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/05/28/article-deleted-and-restored-28-may-2021/).
Yes, I re-deleted that post for a few reasons. The first is because there are multiple parts of the article that I felt weren’t very well argued. The second reason is because I know almost nothing about sports and I started second-guessing myself and worrying that I don’t know enough about sports to write about sports policies.
The third reason is because I looked at several different polls and saw that the overwhelming majority of all people across nearly all demographics oppose allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports, while the public is more evenly divided over other issues like whether trans people should be allowed to use public restrooms, access gender-affirming medical treatments, legally change our genders, etc. I started thinking that advocating for trans people being allowed to compete in sports in accordance with their gender identity may be a lost cause. I’m honestly much more worried about the other issues, both because they directly impact me and because they directly impact far more trans people overall than the sports debate.
I thought from the Bible story that, though it is rape by the modern definition, it was not viewed as rape by the author. The Prophet’s criticism to me read like it was seen as a slight against Uriah rather than an assault on Bathsheba’s person, but you are right that the allegory does portray her as a victim rather than participant. Since you discussed how bathing worked in Ancient Judaea, I became curious if people would have a courtyard pool like Roman villas or if they would place a tub there
I don’t know enough about the archaeology off the top of my head to say for certain, but my guess is that they would probably use a tub of some kind. I do know that Jewish mikveot pools for ritual purification are not attested until the first century BCE, which is many centuries after the time in which the David and Bathsheba story is set.
Thank you!
Gerôme really could paint, couldn’t he? There is something epic to the perspective/point of view in not only this painting, which I had not seen before, but also in for instance Ave Caesar!, The Tulip Folly, The Carpet Merchant, and The Two Majesties
Indeed, Gérôme was an immensely talented painter. It’s unfortunate that so many of his paintings so overtly reflect the prejudices and misogynistic and Orientalist stereotypes that he shared with so many white European men of his time.
One of those areas we’ll disagree on: the term “orientalist” has been used for decades as an ad hominem ever since Said’s book and honestly I think much of what is pejoratively labeled “orientalist” reflects, in many but perhaps not all cases, both the historical reality of the personages portrayed as well as an admirable portrait of many of the characters in question.
I have to admit, I love the late 1800s Orientalist style, and Jean-Léon Gérôme is one of my favorite painters.
Very true
As a Christian who is studying for an ancient history archaeology major, I extremely enjoy your articles Spencer and I personally appreciate objective studies of the Scripture. I’ve never heard this interpretation before that suggests Bathsheba was guilty, but any such conservative views are extremely cringeworthy intuitively to me anyway. The Hebrew Bible is such an interesting ancient Near Eastern Text – its narrative absolutely subverts the power of sinful kings as unworthy to be representatives of God on earth, in contrast to the propaganda of Egypt and Mesopotamia. So yes, it is completely biblical to say David was a rapist and a murderer and Bathsheba was a victim of rape. It certainly goes along with that Biblical narrative trope .
I also like to elaborate on why using is wrong to use Duet 22:25–27 as a narrow definition for rape in the Bible. It comes from the belief that many fundamental Christian – especially Hebrew Root reformists – hold that the Torah is a judicial law code in the Statutory sense. I’m not sure what your view is on this Spencer, but many scholars such as Joshua A. Berman have supposed that the Torah is more like common cultural law, meaning, it illustrates ethical virtues and principles with specific examples on how a certain principle could be implemented. Of course, these principles and their examples are large generalities, they never accurately apply to every context, to every Scripture and to every individual such as Bathsheba. In this way, it’s wrong to have a strict literate following of Duet 22:25–27 as interpretation of rape – its more nuanced than this. I think you are right there, because the author in his ancient Near Eastern context, the law codes draw on an extensive reservoir of accepted norms, and principles.
I am so glad to hear that you enjoy reading my articles!
I absolutely agree with you that the laws in the Hebrew Bible fall into the ancient Near Eastern tradition of rhetorical/propagandistic “law codes” (like the Code of Hammurabi or Code of the Assyrians, for instance) that were meant primarily to convey what their authors considered important social values, rather than serve as actual statutory laws to be literally enforced. I believe that I’ve actually mentioned this in previous articles here on my blog.
I didn’t know anybody disputed this, but I’m not really surprised. The story was told to me such that it’s clear Bathsheba couldn’t refuse, which the text bears out. Isn’t that the whole point? Why quibble about, especially as it’s clear David had gotten Uriah killed later? They think he wouldn’t stoop to rape, only murder? It’s messed up the “defenses” they use, but only too familiar.
Unfortunately, this one falls into a long history of wildly misogynistic Bible interpretations, many of which are still repeated and believed even today.
Yes, so I see.
We might not agree on everything, but I’m glad we can agree that this is the correct interpretation. Honestly, this is a perfect case of cognitive dissonance by liberal Christians. I remember telling my intro to theology class that David would be a metoo hashtag guy if he were alive today and the whole place went dead silent. These were the same people who were comparing Trump to the Anti-Christ because of his sexual assault record. I was essentially pulling a St.Paul and calling them out on their hypocrisy. It also doesn’t help that he put Michal in the “friend zone” and “shut up” several women so they couldn’t have sex with him or any other man.
Generally, from what I’ve seen, insisting that David didn’t rape Bathsheba tends to be more of a conservative Christian thing than a liberal Christian thing. It’s possible that part of the reason your theology class went silent is because (whether you were meaning to or not) it may have seemed to them that you were trying to excuse Donald Trump’s sexual assault record by comparing him to King David.
I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but, if that’s the argument you were trying to make, that clearly doesn’t hold up, since kind of the whole point of the Bathsheba story is that David committed an absolutely heinous abuse of power. The episode with Bathsheba and Uriah also marks a turning point for the worse in David’s reign, with the calamities of his later reign, such as Amnon’s rape of Tamar, Absalom’s rebellion, the census debacle, et cetera, ensuing directly afterward in the narrative.
Yeah, wasn’t turning a Nelson’s Eye to President Trump, was trying to get people to think critically. Similar to how Islamophobes (a term I hate to use but it is sometimes appropriate) ignore the stuff in the Conquest narrative (though as WLC noted, they weren’t trying to get those people to convert to Judaism). In another class I argued that David personally went out and killed Saul rather than how the Bible portrays his death. This is assuming of course that the Biblical record is at root historically reliable in this instance. I actually had a friend named Uriah in high school, a very unusual name even for the religious given what happened to him….
Here are a few more academic citations on the rape of Bathsheba:
“…Absalom is the instrument to fulfill YHWH’s punishment of David for the death of Uriah, which had been arranged to cover up Bathsheba’s pregnancy resulting from David’s seduction (rape) and adultery (2 Sam I 1). In response to that crime, YHWH had assured David that there would be severe internal strife in his household (12:11). Absalom is the instrument for the accomplishment of that curse and is to that extent actually chosen by YHWH.” —Theodore W. Jennings Jr., Jacob’s Wound, p. 9
“Some contrast Bathsheba’s silence with Susanna’s determined resistance of the advances of the two wicked elders (Dan 13:22-24a) and Tamar’s equally determined but vain resistance of the rape by her half-brother Amnon (2 Sam 13:12-13). It is true that there is no resistance on the part of Bathsheba. Yet we cannot take this to mean that it is her will to have intercourse. We should instead pose the question, who has actually silenced Bathsheba? In the case of the concubines’ resisting Absalom’s sexual assault (2 Sam 16:22), we never hear that they resisted; yet it would be nonsense to assume that they are willing partners in the rape which unfolds in public. Following the same argument, why should Bathsheba be considered a willing partner when it is actually the narrator who does not voice her resistance?” Lisa Hui, “Bathsheba: A Seductress? A Faithful Reading of 2 Sam 11–12”, Theology Annual 32, 2011, p. 29
“David’s intercourse with Bathsheba must be regarded an adulterous rape if it was not her will to have sexual relations with him. ‘Sexual extortion can take many forms, and coercion can be exerted subtly, making women feel they must agree to sex,’ says Exum. [See below.] This was very likely to be the case, given David’s status as the king. ” Ibid. p. 31
“Thus, when the events of 2 Samuel 11 finally unfold, the reader is disgusted with David, but not entirely surprised. David’s rape of Bathsheba (and certainly it must be labeled for what it is) might have been foreseen, given that David has been presented as an ambitious, woman-taking opportunist, who is not shy about manipulating those around him, including the deity.” K.L. Noll, The Faces of David, 1997, p. 59
“The terse wording of 2 Sam. 11.4 is designed to express a superior’s forced imposition upon an inferior, which in modern parlance is rape. The action is unambiguous, the implied author’s judgment readily apparent to the reader, so the modern term need not be considered anachronistic.” Ibid. p. 59 n. 81
And for a slightly different approach:
“The rape of Bathsheba is something that takes place not so much in the story as by means of the story. When I refer to the ‘rape of Bathsheba’ in what follows, I use it as a metaphor to describe Bathsheba’s treatment at the hands of the androcentric biblical narrator, whose violation of her character consists both in depriving her of voice and in portraying her in an ambiguous light that leaves her vulnerable, not simply to assault by characters in the story but also by later commentators on the story.” —J. Cheryl Exum, ‘Raped by the Pen‘, in Fragmented Women, p. 171
“In what sense is Bathsheba raped? The question is not whether or not she could have resisted. We cannot subject a literary creation to cross-examination. The point is not what Bathsheba might have done or felt; the point is we are not allowed access to her point of view. There is no attempted seduction recounted, which would give the woman a role, even if one in which she is manipulated.6 The denial of sub- jectivity is an important factor in rape, where the victim is objectified and, indeed, the aim is to destroy her subjectivity.” Ibid. p. 173
Although the story seen from Bathsheba’s point of view would certainly imply rape, the author himself is focused on creating an adultery-type scene that is mainly sympathetic to the husband:
“The omission of the wife’s speech in the adultery type-scene not only avoids an opportunity to characterize her but also reflects her relative powerlessness in this context. The wife’s silence indicates that she has neither power nor authority vis-a-vis the men who contend for her ownership. Her point of view is irrelevant in the context of marital relations. By eliminating her words, the type- scene indicates that the wife herself is of marginal significance in the framework of a story about proper and improper conjugal relations. The orchestration of dialogue in the adultery type-scene reflects not only a male perceptual and psychological point of view, but also a patriarchal ideology.” Esther Fuchs, Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative, p. 133
Thank you so much for sharing this! This is immensely helpful.
When I heard people discussing it, I didn’t really agree with people saying that David raped Bathsheba because the text doesn’t explicably say so. However, later on I considered the fact that these texts were written by men who lived in a different time period and held different ideas of what counts as rape or not. Another example of rape happening in the Bible but not stated as so is Genesis 19:30-38 where Lot’s daughters got their father inebriated from wine so they could get impregnated by him. Though to be fair, earlier in verse 8 Lot offered the people of Sodom his daughters to gang rape instead of the angels he invited into his house, so he was by no means a saint.
2 Samuel 11 definitely describes David’s rape of Bathsheba in a way that silences Bathsheba’s perspective and obfuscates what David is actually doing to her. The text is much more concerned with how David raping her is a crime against her husband Uriah than with how it is a crime against Bathsheba herself. Nonetheless, even the way the story is told, it’s hard to deny that David commits horrible crimes against both of them.
Regarding Lot’s daughters, there is a certain narrative symmetry in the fact that, in Genesis 19:8, Lot offers up his two virgin daughters to the mob of Sodomites be brutally gang-raped in the place of his male guests, then, in Genesis 19:30–38, those exact same daughters that he offered to the mob collaborate to rape him.
I know, I just said Lot offered his daughters to the Sodomites instead of the angels.
I know you know the story. I was just pointing out the narrative symmetry. I apologize for overexplaining. I have a tendency to do that. It’s a bad habit.
No worries, I get pedantic sometimes myself.
I always love your articles, and this one was no exception!
I especially liked it because anything about Biblical academia is extremely niche and uncommon. I tend to be interested in stuff that not many people take interest in (in a kinda childish anticonformist way), and I love Biblical academical studies because… well, they kinda are misunderstood by everyone, and anger everyone: many Christians find the idea of analyzing ‘the Bible’ as any other collection of texts blasphemous, and many atheists cannot fathom spending time over ‘texts written by illiterate Stone Age goathearders’, which is not even true.
I did enjoy this article a lot because I really didn’t know about this story being misread. I mean, I didn’t realize that it was a misreading of the original text. In general, it amuses me how often people say that ‘the Bible’ is misogynist; while, of course, many of the writings of the canon contain sexist elements, actual example of virulent, active misogyny (as in, ‘women are the scourge of humanity’) are fairly rare, and much more common in, say, Greek literature.
Some random comments:
> First of all, I think that his argument that there is a single “Biblical” definition of rape is wrong.
THIS. This grinds my gears so much, thank you for having pointed that out. Honestly, one of the few things to put away when exploring the world of Biblical academia, are the notions that 1) The Bible is one book (it’s a canon of texts written by people who didn’t even know each other and didn’t know they were writing for ‘the Bible’), 2) The Bible is moral guide in every passage (letting go of this makes the historical parts of the Bible much more interesting, while I hated them when I was a Christian), 3) The Bible is comprehensive on every aspect of faith (this is not a work like Augustine of Thomas Aquinas’ massive works, which were intended to be comprehensive works of theology). In the light of this, I always get annoyed when someone claims that something is ‘biblical’, or talks about ‘biblical values’, or asks ‘What does the Bible say about [???]’. The only thing I could say that ALL Biblical authors agree on is that… well, at least a god exists (and that’s pretty much true for most people of the ancient world, and still arguable for the contrary for some passages such as Qoelet).
About the guy arguing that שָׁכַב doesn’t mean ‘have sex’:
I feel like you will never be able to argue with Christians who hold a literal view of the Bible, because they can claim that every word in Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek actually means something different than what it actually means. So, if you don’t believe in seven literal days of the creation, but are still a creationist, you can claim that יוֺם actually means ‘span of time’, and not ‘day’ (false, and certainly so in this context); if you can’t bring yourself to believe that the author of the gospel of Mark was wrong when predicting that Jesus would come within the apostles’ lifespans, you can claim that γενεά actually means ‘bloodline’, or ‘humanity’, or whatever else.
The same goes, alas, for those liberal Christians who still cannot accept anything immoral within the Bible (as opposed to the many Christians who don’t have a problem with the objectionable things in the Bible, just taking them as things of the past), and, for instance, claim that זָכָר in Leviticus 18:22 is actually about ‘young boys’, not ‘males’ in general. Same goes with the infamous ἀρσενοκοίτης used by Paul, which is pretty clearly a reference to males having sex with males – as well as a paraphrasis of the very Leviticus 18:22 from the Greek LXX translation. Yes, you can be a Christian and support LGBT+ people, but you cannot deny the many ‘homophobic’ (in modern terms) passages within the texts of the Christian canon. And this makes me wonder if liberal Christians believing lies about the original texts is a positive thing or not… On one hand, it justifies their not being homophobic, on the other, it kinda legitimizes conservative Christians, since their liberal defences of the Bible are actually wrong.
Also, a rather interesting point: I asked my mom (a devout Catholic) about this story, and apparently she never even heard the version of Bathsheba being a seductress! Not only that, but even the detail of her being on the roof was totally unknown to her. She rightfully recognized that Bathsheba was a victim of rape, and pointed out that the text itself doesn’t condemn her (without me even pointing that out).
Since we are Italian, I suppose that this is more of an American Protestant thing, or maybe an American thing in general
Yes, someone shared this post to the subreddit r/AcademicBiblical and I was pleasantly astonished to find that everyone commenting on the thread except for I think maybe one person agrees that this is a clear instance of rape. The majority of the people in the thread say that they had no idea that anyone at all had ever interpreted Bathsheba as bearing any guilt.
There are dozens of people in the thread who are criticizing me and this post, but, incredibly, none of the people criticizing me are doing it for my actual argument, but rather for the fact that this article originally said in the second paragraph that “most Christians” in the past few centuries have held the interpretation of Bathsheba as an intentional seductress. (This, it seems, was a carelessly overly cynical assumption on my part; I have since revised the second paragraph of this post to say “many Christians,” rather than “most.”)
I’m really astounded to find numerous people in the thread accusing of having completely made up the interpretation that I argue against in this post, insisting that no one actually believes such a thing (even though I cite and link multiple examples of people arguing for versions of it).
Keep in mind the traditional Christian belief that women are evil seductresses and men are just innocent victims, its the women who are the rapists. Just like 10 year old girls who are raped & get pregnant either don’t exist or are the criminal rather than the man who knocked them up. Oh & priest/ministers/preachers who molest children are only doing so because the kiddies seduced them. Religion poisons everything.
I’m not sure what you mean by traditional Christian belief. Do you mean the modern conservative views or the mainstream, grossly generalised version of it?
As a Christian myself, it’s orthodox for us to believe that all human beings are innately evil and bad things never happen to good people. I’ve not heard that women are evil – I’ve heard that its demons and Satan who make us do evil – and even that view is unsupported. The Bible shows human evil to explain a theological philosophy. And because of that, religion is twisted by evil people and abused (I am not denying that priests have committed heinous crimes against children – but it simply proves my point). It’s very unwise to blame religion for all evil – it’s always mixed in with other factors like politics, emotions like passion, greed or anger ect – and rarely with an objective mind.
One more poor , unrealistic/invented story in this shameful book.
Why?
The palace was on a slope.
The palace of David was surrounded by a high wall, 4-5 m. The houses outside the wall were some meters away.
The roof must have been some meters away from the wall.
Alltogether the roof was at least 25 m away from the atrium.
The atrium was surrounded by at least 3 m high walls.
The angle of view from David’s roof to the house was so flat that he could not see the bottom of the atrium.
Most of the stories in the bible you can debunk if you scrutinise them logically.
Already Children can do it but not believers.
Where beliefe starts logic stops.
Not only do I find this post really interesting, I found the one on the existence of a historical David that you linked to really fascinating as well. I know you focus more on the Mediterranean world, but I’d be interested in seeing your analysis on the historical Buddha and Mohammed. I know the latter can be a touchy subject in addition to maybe being outside of your wheelhouse.
Ancient South Asia and the rise of Islam are definitely both well outside my area of specialty. Nonetheless, my understanding is that the evidence for the historicity of both figures is compelling and that the overwhelming scholarly consensus is that both figures existed, at least in some form or another. In both cases, however, there is immense scholarly dispute when it comes to the historical details of their lives. My understanding is that this is even more the case with Siddhārtha Gautama than it is with Muḥammad.
Thank you for replying and giving more info while outlining your limits 🙂
Is Gilgamesh more in your wheelhouse? I’m guessing Moses and the whole of Exodus very much is. I should probably search through your archive because I’m guessing you may have covered those subjects previously
A YouTuber named Al-Muqadimah has covered the historicity of Muhammad. I’d look the video up if you haven’t watched his video already.
As it turns out, Muhammad is pretty well documented.
Thank you! I figured he was well documented – the religion he founded spread rapidly in his life and in the generation afterwards. My curiosity stems from the historicity of Jesus being more accessible than on other major religious figures, and the analysis of the biblical narrative being somewhat easy to find on the internet. Thanks again for the recommendation, I look forward to watching the videos.
Also because it cannot be said enough, i very much enjoy reading your blog
Thank you so much!
This has nothing to do with the article, but comments were closed on the article in question and I didn’t see any way for direct contact otherwise (the frequently asked questions offers no contact information), so I’ll ask here. (there is a more recent article at the time of this writing but this one felt at least marginally more related to my question so I’m doing it here)
Concerning this article:
https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/05/25/debunking-the-so-called-dark-ages/
“In 1988, a scholar named John Edwards published an analysis of a “book of declarations” made by the Spanish Inquisition documenting 444 statements made in Spain by people of varying statuses between the year 1486 and the year 1500 that were deemed heretical or blasphemous.”
I was really interested in looking at this. Unfortunately, you don’t give the name of the book this is in, just the author, and John Edwards is a rather common name. A search for John Edwards and Spanish Inquisition turns up a book called “Spanish Inquisition” by a John Edwards… but this was published in 1999, so that’s clearly not it.
So what’s the name of the book you refer to? (it would be great if the article itself were edited to include that as well!)
It’s not a book, but rather an academic paper. The specific paper I was referencing in that article is “Religious Faith and Doubt in Late Medieval Spain: Soria circa 1450–1500,” published in the journal Past and Present, No. 120. (Aug., 1988), pp. 3–25. You can access the complete paper for free through this link.
I apologize for not including the full citation to the paper in my post. I originally wrote that post three years ago and revised it around two and a half years ago at a time when I was not nearly as meticulous as I generally am now about making sure I cite papers in a way that makes them possible for readers to find.
Thanks for the link Spencer, it looks very interesting
Thanks for that.
Can you edit that post?
Yes, I can go back and edit it.
“This parable is obviously extremely dehumanizing toward Bathsheba, since it portrays her as literally a mere piece of livestock for her husband to own, rather than a human being with thoughts and feelings of her own.”
Wait a minute…
“In fact, Nathan in his parable describes Bathsheba as an innocent lamb that the rich man (i.e., David) has unjustly stolen, slaughtered, cooked, and served up to his guest for dinner.”
I think you may have misread the parable Nathan provided. The choice of animal used to represent Bathsheba is extremely telling here. She’s compared to an innocent lamb, cared for tenderly by a poor man. A. Innocent. Lamb.
You know who else gets referred to as a lamb in the Bible? The… Lamb of God?
Jesus. Nathan compares Bathsheba to an animal that is associated strongly with Christ the Lord. From a Christian perspective like myself, that’s extremely telling how Bathsheba is portrayed in the story. Now, I will acknowledge that since you’re an atheist that might not convince you, but God is often described as a shepherd in even the Old Testament, and the Israelites were a pastoral community. David was a shepherd who defended his flock from predators before he was a king, so Nathan’s use of a lamb to represent Bathsheba obviously hits close for him. It was a big part of his life. So now, I don’t believe using a lamb as a metaphor for Bathsheba is dehumanizing, if anything, it paints her as even more of a victim given what became of that lamb. Another point is that David also defiled the covenant of marriage with his actions, which is… extremely egregious, as God created marriage to forge a union between man and woman.
I was taught about this in Bible study, and the teacher pointed out that Uriah’s behavior could be indicative of a man who strongly suspects something has happened. And while you do make a good argument, something bothers me; why doesn’t the Bible mention Bathsheba telling Uriah what happened? I do wonder if perhaps David seduced Bathsheba into a one-time fling, though the power dynamic is still very, very skeevy on his part. My reason for this is that later, one of David’s sons raped his half-sister Tamar. And we are given a good description of the grief this caused her, and how she told her brother what happened. We didn’t get this with Bathsheba. Maybe she didn’t regard it as rape and thought she had a choice? Manipulation like that is still rape, and it would explain why the Bible doesn’t mention her reaction.