Ish-ra-el's Reply

[jimbo]

Adam i think I come from the same place as you...
you describe the simply perfect world.............that most people miss

jimbo

[jill]

Thanks Jimmy, mat.
"The Bible, the Biography", sounds like the sort of book I'm after. I'm looking forward to reading it . thanks for your recommendation.

Jill

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Let's know what you think of it... I'm reading it at the moment... v v v interesting

Jimmy

[jill]

I am currently reading National Geographic's
"Essential Visual History of the Bible".. which they describe as a who's who of the bible with vignettes.. It's a pocket sized book, approximately 510 pages, complete with beautiful illustrations.

Imagine listening to Halleujah and not getting right away that LC was singing about David and Bathsheba.

[Red Poppy]

[quote="jill"] I am currently reading National Geographic's
"Essential Visual History of the Bible".. which they describe as a who's who of the bible with vignettes.. It's a pocket sized book, approximately 510 pages, complete with beautiful illustrations.

Imagine listening to Halleujah and not getting right away that LC was singing about David and Bathsheba.[/quote]

Some pocket!

Surely the reference to Bathsheba and David are crystal clear. David is specifically mentioned in the song?!

[mat james]

Sometimes, some of us are a bit thick I suppose because I, for one, missed the Bathsheba connection until Doran (DB Cohen) pointed it out on the "Book of Mercy" thread.
It is a haunting image though and so sadly human (David's wily selfishness).
Ah!!! What women can do to a man
(Why was she bathing on the roof in the view of poor ol' King D. anyway? )
It was a "set up"

Matj

[blonde madonna]

Matj, let me state the obvious, they didn't have tiled bathrooms and indoor plumbing (I still remember when the dunny was out the back).

The ‘Hallelujah’ line can be misread - it was David who was on the roof of his palace, one evening when he could not sleep. That is how he first saw her and fell in love. But Uriah was the problem.

[Red Poppy]

Indeed Blonde Madonna, you're right. If you read the original text, Mat, you'll see that he was on the roof and spotted her bathing from there. She was bathing in a river - provocative in the extreme .
The next problem for David was to get rid of her husband, Uriah. The solution was to put him into the front line of battle, though God (according to the story)punished David for this.
Not quite sure why you think it was the wonan's fault? "What women can do to a man" - I think he took the decision himself. It doesn't say Bathsheba saw him on the roof from where she was bathing

[imaginary friend]

...or that she had any say in the matter. Nor did Uriah. After all this was the king.

[mat james]

I've got it!
Let's just blame poor ol' Satan.
After all, he is the one who metaphorically whispered to Eve that she was "naked", in the first place and I suppose David and Bathbaby picked up on the naughty idea.
Bloody Satan! He seems to start all that sort of fun.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathsheba) for a quick refresher.

Mind you, it was the girls (Eve) who started to play the game first.
They are so susceptible to picking up knew skills and, as mothers do, pass these on to their daughters. (I suppose if you trace Bath's lineage back far enough, you will find Eve somewhere in the plot???)
Poor men. They are so easily led.
I suppose that is why girls got the name "woman"...wo-man;
which psuedo/philologically suggests an origin: "woe to man"

So the culprits are Satan and big-bad-Bathshe..{a distant maternal relative of the banshee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee) that mystical Irish girl of the "fairy mounds"}
Satan and the fairy mounds..it's all there, clear as a starry night.

...But certainly not poor, innocent, beguiled King Dave.
(boys can't plan that well)

This is the word of lord Matj.

In rabbinical literature

Sheba was the granddaughter of Ahithophel, David's famous counselor.

The Midrash portrays the influence of Satan bringing about the sinful relation of David and Bathsheba as follows: Bathsheba was on the roof of her house, perhaps behind a screen of wickerwork. (yeh, sure, I bet! matj)

Satan is depicted as coming in the disguise of a bird. David, shoots at it, strikes the screen, splitting it; thus Bath-sheba is revealed in her beauty to David (Sanhedrin 107a).

Bathsheba may have been providentially destined from the Creation to become in due time the legitimate wife of David, but this relation was prematurely precipitated by David's impetuous act.

see wiki above

Hey, it looks like I'm not alone, not too far off the mark .

[Red Poppy]

Mat,
Thank you for the sermon .
You should have a pupit at the gigs and open for Leonard!
You'd pull the crowds in early!

[~greg]

2 Samuel Ch11
2
And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that
David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof
of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing
herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
- LC, Hallelujah

Bathsheba was definitely not bathing in a river.
That would indeed have been "provocative in the extreme".
And it would have adulterated the adultery, so to speak,
making her half at fault. Whereas the whole point
of the adultery was that it was all David's sin,
- in order to account for God's displeasure with him,
and a lot of later grief.

So Bathsheba was bathing at home.
And the home had to be near the palace, in order
to be seen from the palace roof. Which means that her husband,
Uriah "the Hittite", had to be well-to-do. His house was probably
large, -probably at least two stories tall, and with an open court-yard
in the middle completely surrounded by the building.

Reading the next two stanzas in 2 Samuel Ch11 --

2 Samuel Ch11
3
And David sent and enquired after the woman.
And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam,
the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

4
And David sent messengers, and took her;
and she came in unto him, and he lay with her;
for she was purified from her uncleanness:
and she returned unto her house.

"for she was purified from her uncleanness"

This means that her bathing had been for ritual purity after menstruation.

Which means that her bathing was in a mikvah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikvah

And a mikvah requires a "natural collection of water".
Rain water in this case. And it has to be close to its natural source.
Which means that there is to be no running of it through pipes.
Which means that Bathsheba may very well
have been bathing on the roof.

(There's a scene in The Kingdom of Heaven that shows
what it was likely like. Here' s the best capture I could find --- -
http://www.evagreenweb.com/gallery/disp ... 291&pos=37
- but it's not real clear about my point. Note that there is an enclosure here.
But the cistern itself, of course, was out in the open, to collect rain.
I hope somebody finds a capture of what I'm talking about,
because it looks modern-decadent, but it was actually quite common.)

In any case, whether Bathsheba was bathing high up on Uriah's
high roof, or else completely enclosed in his court yard,
her mikvah was almost certainly not visible from anywhere
other than the highest place of all - the roof of the king's palace!
(Not to be bettered until the invention of the hellicopeter.)

So Bathsheba was completely innocent. Nobody else could have
seen her. And who in their right mind could have anticipated
the king spying on them from his roof?

(That there is no indication she demurred at the rape,
is also no indication of her complicity. David was a real thug,
much like Saddam Hussein, and you just don't refuse such people.
(This would became a problem later, when it morphed into the
King Arthur saga. Uther Pendragon would need Merlin to disguise
him as Igerna's husband before he "took her".))

[mat james]

~greg postulates;

And who in their right mind could have anticipated
the king spying on them from his roof?

Bathsheeba, of course

(As I said, it was a set-up:No doubt she saw Davo pacing around up there on other moonlit and decadently wanton nights.)
Take those creatures off that pedastal, ~greg.
Your innocence will be a turkey shoot for some wily femme.

[jill]

Mat states that "poor innocent, beguiled King Dave" could not be the culprit. I believe that L.C. would agree with you.
In Chelsea Hotel he describes himself as "oppressed by the figures of beauty"
, In Aint no Cure for Love he sings:

I don't need to be forgiven
for loving you so much.
It's written in the scriptures,
it's written there in blood.....

I can't help but sympathize with Bathsheba, the murdered husband, her children, if she had any. .

Jill

[blonde madonna]

Jill
How far have you read through your 'History of the Bible'?
Bathsheba became a powerful woman and made sure her son Solomon suceeded David. According to the Bible she is even related to Jesus.
The Old Testament stories make for great reading and there are many strong and interesting women (although I don't want to get Mat started on Jezebel or Delilah ).

Apart from the obvious (reading the Bible itself), I recommend the novel 'The Red Tent' about Dinah, sister of Joseph (of technicolour dreamcoat fame).

BM