An article of Faith

For one of my classes I am currently reading the Baruch Halpern Tome "David's Secret Demons" in which he alleges the books of I & II Samuel were secular books written to absolve David of the crimes of serial murder, among other things.

He goes into pretty in-depth detail to counteract sceptic's claims that the Biblical books were written hundreds of years after the event recorded, claiming (and making a potentially very convincing argument) that internal evidence, including spelling, word choice, and even descriptions of how houses were constructed authoritatively establish the date of writing as being in the 10th or the latest the 9th century B.C.

He clearly establishes one of his own biases in his dating method, using the recent innovation of "B.C.E." as opposed to BC. Anything after 0 A.D. is simply C.E. This is a dating method meant to disavow any claims of the specialness or divinity of jesus by denying his birth as important...the date of which is approximated by the traditional B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, Latin for in the year of our Lord) designations. This transparent manipulation becomes even more ironic when it is realized they did not change the zero year. If you fabricate a new dating system to avoid the trappings of the old, here is a clue; use a different date. Use the Chinese calendar, the Aztec calendar, or smurf...even flat out create one, such as the date the first Caesar was established, ushering in the dominance of the Roman Empire. Otherwise, you still hail the importance of an otherwise unimportant year, doing the very thing you seek to avoid.

Okay, the sidetrip is over, now back to Halpern.

He argues that the books were written to exculpate David from having murdered his rivals for the throne, from Saul and Jonathan through Saul's entire line of descendants to supporters of Saul (Abner comes in for particular coverage) to later rebels, including Absalom, David's own son. He outright claims David "ordered the hits" and then killed those who performed the murders to cover up his involvement. The mourning David is recorded as performing each time a rival is killed (particularly Saul, Jonathan, and Absalom, the three greatest threats to David's ascendancy) were part of a cover-up, notgenuine grief.

One line was particularly telling. This is a paraphrase, but pretty close; "It is because Samuel is full of lies that we know it is true". Huh? Well, actually, from his standpoint, it makes a certain amount of sense. Here we are going to get into some of the nonsense we historians partake of.

When looking at a text from antiquity, two things two consider are these; first, who is the INTENDED audience? Second, why is it being written? I will use a relatively modern example.

To interpret Dee Brown's excellent work Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee it is not enough to simply read the book. As much as I love that book, it has certain flaws. Those flaws are because of the purpose of the book. It was written for people sympathetic to the Red Power movement of the late 60s and early 70s. As such, the protaganists of his history could not help but find their audience sympathetic. Second, it was written specifically to counteract the perceived eurocentric histories that continually depicted the Native Americans as always the aggressors, always the murderers and bad guys in massacres.

As such, the book frequently AND DELIBERATELY overlooks or ignores wrongs committed by Native Americans. In fact, Brown explicitly admits this. He is writing from the "Indian point of view" in his own words. How does this apply? Well, knowing who he wrote it for and what his purpose was allows us to ask certain questions that then allow us to more accurately approach the history, factoring in his bias. So when he talks of Chivington riding unprovoked to attack Black Kettle's camp, we know to look elsewhere; was Black Kettle innocent? Were there extenuating circumstances? (note; in this case, I personally believe Chivington to be wholly in the wrong and would ascribe those actions as wholesale murder, attempted genocide or, in today's terminology, "ethnic cleansing" based on fear of "the Other", hatred, racism, and land greed). We may not always disagree with the author's perception, but we at least know what questions to ask.

In the case of Halpern, he is arguing that by trying to figure out why I & II Samuel were written, we can gain new historical insight. He ends up claiming they were written as a defense of the image of David, meant to exonerate him of charges of being a thuggish serial murder. He extrapolates that enemies were claiming David manipulated and murdered his way to the throne, ordering hit after hit on political rivals.

In other words, the killings of Saul, Jonathan, Abner, Absalom, Ishbael, and others are factual, although the presentation of them as having been performed by the Philistines, Joab, Gathites and others Halpern asserts were done to absolve David of blame in events that were beneficial for him.

It is an interesting study. From his point of view, it makes sense. Halpern takes it as an article of faith that God is an excuse, not a focal point for the story. He is either an agnostic or an atheist in action and as such the stated motives of the passages cannot be the actual motives. Saul and Absalom cannot die to fulfill God's plan but instead must be the victims of David's Machiavellian political manipulations. David cannot have committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered Uriah but instead this story is created to remove doubt that Solomon is the true son of David and not fathered by some unknown and so forth.

Naturally, I am finding it a fascinating and illuminating read...that I largely disagree with. A lot of this disagreement comes from our differing opinions of the author, intended audience, and purpose. Whereas Halpern claims the intended audience is the elite Israelites of the 10th Century B.C. I would say the intended readers are believers...Israelites/Jews in the Old Testament times and Christians in the current times. As a result, we differ on our readings of motives.

Whereas Halpern is claiming it was written as an apology and defense of David's dynasty, essentially a piece of propaganda (and he does use that word explicitly) I would claim it was written for the edification of believers, to give a true history of events surrounding the development of Israel. Since the participants of the stories themselves are long since dead, either his view or mine, at heart, depends on the same thing; faith.

He has faith in one viewpoint, I in another. Why did I type this long, rambling, probably boring piece?

Because that exactly describes almost everyone's viewpoint about everything. Many fans of Farenheit 911 take it as an article of faith that Bush is an evil, stupid genius mastermind who can't tie his shoes but manipulated numerous governments into supporting completely fabricated evidence so he could complete the job his father never accompished while many who hated that movie consider Bush to be closer to the man represented in the video "Man of Faith; An Answer to Farenheit 911".