Has anyone tuned into the Prime TV Series, called the House of David?
I watched a few episodes. Not sure why it didnāt hold my attention.
Did you try sprinkling a little salt on top of the television?
It has to be taken with a grain of salt I think. I only got a couple of episodes into it, and I was having to scratch my headā¦ Whatās this about David being a bastard son? I donāt recall ever reading about his being born out of wedlock to a foreign second wife of his father Jesse, so whatās all this about David being an outcast in his own family. The series presents it as though David was tainted from birth by virtue of having a different, and non-Israelite mother.
Is that true? Interestingly, thereās a pretty good basis for thinking so.
Mr.E
I didnāt really try to follow the fictional lineage to closely. As far as I know there is no mention of Jesseās wive(s). They may be drawing from Davidās GGrandmother being Rahab, a harlot, but who knows.
Perhaps-- His great gma would have been the prostitute Rahab, his grandmother- the Moabite Ruth. But that lineage would have been common with all his brothers and it wouldnāt act as a difference among them, for him to be singled out. I always thought that he was sent out to watch the sheep, simply because he was the youngest of them, but the series presents it differently.
Soā¦ I did a little digging.
David was the youngest of eight brothers 1 Samuel 17:12ā14 David also had at least two sisters: āTheir sisters were Zeruiah and Abigailā 1 Chron 2:16 ā But we donāt have much information on Davidās mother other than she was a godly woman: in one of Davidās psalms, he prays*, āSave me, because I serve you just as my mother didā* Psalm 86:16
Some scholars believe Davidās sisters, Abigail and Zeruiah, may have been his half-sisters and that their father was not Jesse but Nahash. The book of 2 Samuel (17:25) refers to Abigail as the daughter of Nahashā¦
Absalom had appointed Amasa over the army in place of Joab. Amasa was the son of a man named Jether, an Israelite who had married Abigail, the daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah the mother of Joabā
Nahash, in turn-- was an Ammonite king 1 Samuel 11:1
Speculation suggests that Davidās mother had been married to Nahash when she bore the half-sisters and then later became the second wife of Jesse. Further speculation implies that Davidās mother was not yet married to Jesse when she became pregnantāthat perhaps she was still married to Nahash when she conceived David.
ORā¦ the Talmud has a different story.
Thatās just the half of itā¦
If you dig into the Jewish traditionsā and they are very big on their hero-King David-- Davidās mother was Nitzevet, the daughter of Adael and the wife of Jesse. The Talmud relates a rather complicated story concerning Nitzevet: her husband, Jesse, doubting the purity of his ancestry, since he was the grandson of Ruth the Moabitess (Ruth 4:17) decided to sleep with a Cannanite maidservant and intended to marry her.
The maidservant, however, had pity on Nitzevet and offered Nitzevet a plan: on the wedding night, Nitzevet and the maidservant could secretly switch places, and Nitzevet could sleep with Jesse one more time. The switch worked, much as Leah and Rachelās switch had worked on Jacob, and Nitzevet became pregnant with David, her eighth son.
Nitzevet never revealed to Jesse what she had done, even when her pregnancy was apparent; therefore, Nitzevet came to be despised and thought of as an immoral woman who had slept with someone else, and her son, David, grew up an outcast in his own family.
This is an extrabiblical legend, and there is no way to confirm the accuracy of the tale of Nitzevet.
Howeverā¦ it at least offers an attempt to explain why David was not accepted by his family: āI am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own motherās childrenā (Psalm 69:8).
David was left to tend the flocks when the prophet Samuel invited all of Jesseās sons to a sacrifice (1 Samuel 16:5).
God had told Samuel that He would choose one of the sons to be anointed king, but the family never even considered David as a possibility (1 Samuel 16:11).
The theories might also shed some light on Psalm 51:5
āBehold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive meā
1 Like
Mr.E
I appreciate your delving into these legends and traditions. I know it can be fascinating (look up the etymology of that word someday). I really donāt have much knowledge about all that stuff; I have not dedicated much effort to understanding it. I do understand the retelling of fiction and fantasy, and I appreciate reading it at times, when itās done well. I also understand legend, lore, tradition, and myth, and I take it as it is intended (usually, I think). But I consider myself primarily a newborn man of truth, so I am especially fond of, and attentive to, truth as God has carefully delivered (revealed) it to us. What I personally have difficulty discussing is the conflating of these different kinds of recitations in the same breath. I am no fun in klatches of confabulation. To me,it feels like juggling a bowling ball, a ping-pong ball, and a piano. I have a hard enough time receiving truth, and putting it into practice. I get flummoxed too easily trying to keep fantasy and fact in their proper places when they are mixed together in the same narrative or meta-historical accounting. As fun as it may seem to āfill in the blanksā of Godās revelation with imagination, I must beware lest the boundaries begin to blur on me, and I find I am in danger of actually putting weight on an unstable substrate.
4 U? Enjoy the ride!
KP
Iāve never replied to a post before so Iām a little hesitant. I think im replying MrE but Iām not sure. What I want to say is the last statement that begins with 'As fun as it isā¦ I feel the same way.
Then I want to ask, with a laugh added, where did all those ābigā words come from?
Looking back, I am replying to Kpuff
Hi rowdydaleā welcome. Hereās a quick tutorial on the odd nuances of this particular forumās systemic flawā¦ Highlight the portion of a post that you would like to respond to, and once you have highlighted it, a pop up will invite you to Quote that portion, or to Copy the Quote. If you click the Quote button it will automatically put it into a reply box where you will see it immediately and be able to add your comments after. If you select to Copy the Quote it doesnāt appear until you Paste it into your own self-generated reply box.
In this post above, I responded by Quoting a portion of your post, and now below I am Copy Quoting from that portion of Kevinās post, that you were referencing.
Hi RowdyDale, Welcome!
Re:
Hmmm, Iām not sure how to respond.
Uh, Leseeā¦, are you asking about the development of my own personal vocabulary, how the English language evolved in general, or maybe the etymology of certain words you read in my post? I guess it doesnāt matter, because I donāt know the answer to any of those questions anyway.
I have learned that I need to be careful in my posts; I need to make sure I keep them germane to the topic, while somehow surreptitiously trying to inculcate some reality into poor MrEās myth-muddled noggin, and to gently extricate him from the proverbial rabbit hole he has intentionally fallen into. (My apologies Mr. E for that cheap shot at your expense. Please forgive me). I think one of the methods I employ is to try (against my lack of skill) to keep the conversation both relevant and fun, i.e., to use some linguistic levity hoping to keep my responses enjoyable to read. I was responding specifically to Mr.E (in the post you read). Mr.E is intellectually strong, verbally nimble, and worthy of my best writing efforts. āBig wordsā do not faze him (I expect he owns a dictionary, you-know, just in case). So, with him specifically, I try to always offer something with substance and to give him my best efforts.
We have been discussing our reactions to the Prime video series, The House of David. Neither of us are really qualified to share an expert opinion, since we both only watched a few episodes. In my non-expert opinion, Jon and Andrew Erwin have taken liberal advantage of dramatic license to build a dramatic account of a Biblical story in a way that the viewer will enjoy, even if at the expense of verity. Like Mark Twain said āNever let the truth get in the way of a good story.ā
Nevertheless, a writer should know his audience well. That is why I am not a writer.
Blessings. Hope you stick around.
KP
I think that explains your position well. In the military under Clinton we had a āDonāt ask / Donāt tellā policy. It was about sexual orientation, but the analogy applies. Some things are just better left hidden and unexplored, right? Itās the orthodox Christian equivalent of hiding our heads in the sand and pretending bowling balls, pianos and ping pong balls either donāt exist, or that they can coexist and be juggled. Of the three, only the ping pong balls can be easily managed, but is it proper to simply ignore the piano in the room? I mean, even a newborn man of truth would have to at least notice that there is a piano in the room. You can of course, simply ignore it-- which is a sad tendency for many or even most Christians-- who would rather teach what theyāve been taught, instead of becoming Bereanās who investigated scriptures to see if the things Paul was saying were true. Thereās a sorry admission in āI have not dedicated much effort to understanding it.ā
Next thing you know, we are paying for transition surgeries for any warrior who decides he wants to be a princess.
Your concern should extend toward those things you believe, without question. Can those things not withstand scrutiny? Itās the logical error known as arguing from a feigned position of authority. To invoke a little Latin enlightenment from ancient teachers- itās argumentum ad populum. -Everyone says itās true, so then it must be.
I fear that it is fear that prevents you from ever wanting to āfill in the blanksā -but you think itās some kind of righteous holiness to acknowledge the blanks exist, the questions remain, and the piano forever sits unplayed.
Mr.E
I think you might want to read my post again more carefully. By what you just wrote I see I clearly did not communicate well to you. Your takeaway from what I said sounds almost polar opposite to what I was trying to say. I wonāt try to re-explain what I was saying here, but you can be asured, what I was trying to say is not anything similar to what you heard. I guess Iām just a poor communicator. Sorry.
KP