Civilization #21: The Apology of King David of Israel

The Bible is the most important book ever. It has driven a lot of history. It's driving a lot of history today. If you want to fully understand the conflict in the Middle East, what's happening between Israel and Iran, what's happening in Palestine, you cannot do so without a full understanding of the Bible.

At the same time, because it's so important, the ideas around it are very controversial. There are billions of people around the world who believe the Bible is the word of God. It's holy scripture. Every word in the Bible comes to us from the divinity himself. Obviously, that's not what I believe.

More so, I'm going to make arguments that go against not only the traditional understanding of the Bible, but also the mainstream academic understanding of the Bible. To be fair to you, I want you to be very skeptical of what I say. Come doubting my authority, doubting my understanding of the Bible. Feel free to challenge me, and I want you to challenge me because what I will say will be extremely controversial.

Let me give you a brief introduction to the Bible, and then I'll explain some of the history behind the Bible. This overview is going to be very broad, very general, but it'll help structure our understanding of the Bible.

The Bible as a Library

The Bible is Greek for books, and it really means library. The first thing you need to understand is the Bible is a collection of different works by many different authors. There's no worldview or consistency or continuity in the Bible. You can find whatever you want in the Bible because it's a library. It's a huge collection of ideas. There are about 2,000 pages.

There are very few people who actually read the Bible in its entirety. There are people who might read certain sections of the Bible. But most people will receive their understanding of the Bible from authorities like priests or rabbis.

The Hebrew Bible

The Bible itself is divided into two major sections. The first section is what we call the Hebrew Bible. This was originally written in Hebrew. This is the book of the Jews. What do the Jews believe? They believe in the Hebrew Bible.

The Hebrew Bible itself is divided into three major sections. The Hebrew term for the Bible is the Tanakh. You may hear some people say the Tanakh. It just means the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is T, N, K. These are the Hebrew terms for certain ideas.

• The T stands for Torah, or teachings. This is the laws of the Jewish tradition. For example, the Ten Commandments.
• Second is N, which means prophets. The prophets themselves are divided into minor and major. In Rome, the people who are most admired are the generals, Julius Caesar, Pompey. In Greece, the people who are most admired are the poets, Homer and the playwrights. In the Jewish tradition, the people who are most admired are the prophets, these individuals who speak the truth of God. They're social critics, and they're people who challenge the authority of the kings in order to promote the laws and teachings of God. The prophets are the people who are most admired in the Jewish tradition.
• The third is K, writings. Basically, things that don't really belong in teachings and prophets, but which have some cultural or religious significance to the Jewish people. This is the Hebrew Bible.

The New Testament

Then we get to the New Testament, which is something that only Christians believe. Jewish people do not accept anything in the New Testament. The New Testament calls the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament. Why? Because the Old Testament is the promise of salvation, the promise of Jesus Christ. The New Testament is the deliverance or fulfillment of this promise in Jesus Christ. It's the coming and the work of Jesus Christ.

• The New Testament itself is divided into many different works. It's a lot smaller than the Old Testament. There are the Gospels. Gospel is Greek for the good word. The good news is that Jesus is on Earth, and he's here to deliver us from our sins and our suffering.
• There are letters, mainly by someone named Paul. These are the work of Jesus' apostles after the death of Jesus. They go around the world, and they promote the Gospel of Jesus, the good news. This is about what they do.
• There are some other books as well, but the major one is called Revelation, which is about the end of the world and this idea of the Second Coming, how even though Jesus is dead, he will return, and he will bring peace, eternal peace, to the world.

From the Bible, interpretation of the Bible, comes the Quran. This is the basis for Islam. The Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. We'll start with the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.

Three Ideas About the Hebrew Bible

To do so, I will have to teach you a lot of history. This history will be extremely broad, but over time I will be more precise. I will go into specific details about this history in order for you to better understand the Bible.

1. There are three ideas about the Hebrew Bible that Jews today believe which are not true. The first idea is the Jewish religion has always been monotheistic, meaning the Jews have always believed in one God. His name is Yahweh, and he is the God of the Jews since Abraham, who is the patriarch of all Jewish people.
2. That's what Jews believe. I will show you this is not true. In the beginning, Jewish people, like everyone else, were polytheistic. Monotheism is a modern idea that has been retroactively put back into Jewish history. That's the first myth that I will correct.
3. The second myth that I correct is that Jewish history or the Jewish religion has been continuous for at least 3,000 years, possibly 4,000 years. What I will show you is that's not true. There have been many major changes to the religion. These changes are so drastic that you can argue these are very different people. The Israelites, the people who founded the religion, are very different from the people we call Jews today. That's one really important idea you need to understand. The history of the Israelites and the Jewish people is not continuous.
4. The last idea is the Bible, or the Hebrew Bible, is a historical record. What I will show you is we've been trying for at least 200 years to prove that the Bible is a historical record. There are archaeologists who've spent fortunes, entire lifetimes, looking for things like Noah's Ark, looking for people like Moses. Can't find them.
5. This tells us pretty conclusively that the Bible is not a historical record. It is a work of our imagination. It is a literary work. It's a very powerful literary work, and that's what explains its relevance and its power today. I'll explain why it's powerful, but I want you to remember it's not a historical work. It is a literary work. It's a work of our collective imagination.

A Broad History of the Israelites

I'm going to talk a little about the broad history of the Israelite people. In the Bible, what it tells you is maybe about 2000 BCE there's a man named Abraham, and he's from the city of Uruk in Mesopotamia. Or is it Ur? It's one of the two, sorry.

Then God, Yahweh, thought Abraham was the best man in the world. God, Yahweh, made a covenant with Abraham and said:

You are the most righteous and dignified man I've ever seen in the world, and I will make you a father of a new nation called Israel.

These people will become eventually the Israelites. The greatest king of the Israelites is named David. Then God says to David:

David, you are the greatest man I've ever seen. I love you as you love me. Therefore, I will make your house, the House of David, eternal. You, the House of David, will reign over Israel for all of eternity. I will make Israel into the mightiest of nations.

That is what it says in the Bible. The historical record is a lot more complicated.

The Levant

Let's start in the year 1200 BCE. This is towards the end of the Bronze Age. We're about to enter the Bronze Age Collapse, which lasts about 400 years. At this time, let's look at the world. Israel is in a place called the Levant.

The Levant has always been important because, as we discussed, the Levant was one of the first centers of agriculture. Jericho is in the Levant. But it's also important because the Levant is where three major civilizations and empires meet. They are the crossroads or the nexus of empire.

• These three empires are Egypt, which again for most of its human history has been the wealthiest and the most powerful nation.
• Mesopotamia, which is the cradle of civilization. This is where human civilization first developed mathematics, writing, astronomy, architecture.
• The Hittites, or Anatolia. Anatolia again is extremely wealthy.

The Levant is sort of sandwiched between three extremely aggressive, wealthy and powerful nations that are extremely advanced and sophisticated. The Levant has always been a colony of either Egypt or Anatolia. It's not been very independent for very long, and it can't be because it's at the edge of empire.

But because of its position, the Levant is what we call a melting pot or a meeting place. Every culture, every language, every religion that was imaginable at this time met in the Levant, mainly for trade purposes. Again, Egypt and Mesopotamia are extremely wealthy. From the Levant, you can go across the Mediterranean into all of Europe and into Northern Africa. The Levant was really the center of the world for most of its history. It was a meeting place mainly for traders.

At this time, the Levant was divided into different sections. A province called Canaan was a province of Egypt. Canaan was special to Egypt because the Egyptians loved two things. They loved wine, and they loved olive oil. The Levant was very good at harvesting both good wine and olive oil.

But the Egyptians didn't really like to go outside Egypt. The people administrating the Levant were local elites tied to Egypt, but also foreign mercenaries. These foreign mercenaries were from as far as Greece. We know this because we've discovered Greek pottery that dates back to this period. These foreign mercenaries would then intermarry with the local women because, as you can imagine, these are young males.

You also had lots of nomads living in the Levant because of Arabia, lots of nomad people we call the Bedouins. You also had people living in the hills of the Levant, the hill people. Then you have these cities, the Canaanites.

You also had, believe it or not, Egyptian priests living in this area. Why would they live in this area? Because they had a certain religion that was considered heretical or controversial in Egypt, so they'd have to leave to practice their religion. Or maybe they were priests who got into a political struggle, and as such they were exiled to the Levant.

The Levant is not at this point a nation. At this point, it's really a meeting place, a melting pot of cultures, languages and religions. It's as diverse as can be, and historically this has always been the case.

The Sea Peoples and King Saul

Then what happened, of course, is the Bronze Age Collapse. The thing with the Bronze Age Collapse is you have this massive migration of people looking for food. These are called the Sea Peoples. They're basically pirates. There are these massive waves of Sea Peoples attacking the Hittites, attacking the Levant and attacking Egypt. Again, these are refugees. This is a forced migration, and they're trying to feed their families.

They basically overrun the Hittites. They destroy the cities of the Levant, and they almost destroy Egypt. But Egypt, because it's so wealthy, is able to hold off the Sea Peoples. Eventually what happens is the Sea Peoples and Egypt come to an agreement and say:

Listen, stop attacking us, and we'll give you land in the Levant. You can settle down there. You can grow your own food. You can feed your families.

This place is what we call Philistia, and these particular people are the Philistines. These are basically the Sea Peoples, mainly Greek, actually. There are a lot of Greeks among the Philistines.

But this creates a problem for everyone in the Levant because now you have a foreign presence that is very aggressive and expansionist. Now the people in the Levant need to come together and fend off this threat from the Philistines. They also have these neighbors as well, these other cultures that keep on attacking them.

These are extremely diverse people, and so what they agree to do is elect a king to lead them in war against the Philistines. This person is named Saul, King Saul. King Saul is a very good king. He's a very good military leader. He's helping the people in the Levant fend off the Philistines and aggressive neighbors. This is a military alliance.

King Saul employs a lot of mercenaries, and one of these mercenaries is named David. David is an extremely capable, charismatic soldier who develops a following. David, as you can imagine, because he's very charismatic, is also very ambitious. Eventually he has a falling out with Saul. David is Saul's best general, best soldier, but David is too ambitious, and Saul sort of suspects David.

What David does is he runs off and joins the Philistines. He's not fighting for the Philistines. What's really important for us to understand, and I know it's a hard concept, but borders and alliances and allegiances are extremely fluid at this time. If it benefits me, I'll fight for you. But if it doesn't benefit me, then I'll betray you.

There are different factions within all alliances. The Philistines are divided among different ethnic groups. The people in the Levant are divided into different political factions. You have these hill people. You have these nomads. You have these foreign mercenaries, and they're fighting for different reasons. These alliances are always shifting.

David goes off and fights for the Philistines. King Saul and his sons are eventually killed in battle, and David sees a political opening. He turns back into the Levant, and he starts to politically maneuver to be the new king. His power base is in the place called Hebron in the south of the Levant.

But the House of Saul is still around, and so there's a civil war now going on. Eventually David triumphs. Then David's able to unite these people, and he creates a new nation called Israel. Israel under David's leadership is able to basically put down any aggressions from its neighbors. They're able to build an empire, a small empire. Nowhere near Egypt, but it's an empire. This is what we know from the archaeological record.

From Israelites to Jews

But David is so charismatic that when he dies, his son Solomon is not able to hold the empire together. What happens is Israel divides into the northern kingdom and Judah, which is where the House of David is.

Again, the Levant is a very important strategic location. As these major empires start to consolidate their power, they want to take over the Levant. The Assyrian Empire comes in and destroys the northern kingdom. Then eventually the Babylonian Empire will come in and destroy Judah. But the Babylonians will take the Israelite elite, basically the royalty, and force them to go to Babylon, where they will be held as hostages or captives.

Eventually what will happen next is the Persian Empire will come and defeat Babylon. What they do next is very interesting. They decide they will release these Israelite elites, have them return to Jerusalem and Israel, and have them govern the Levant.

It is only at this point that we get the term Jews. This is a Persian idea, the Jews. Before, they were called the Israelites. This is about 500 BC. Now we have a radical departure from the tradition. I'll explain three major differences.

1. The first major difference is under the Israelites it's a polytheistic religion. They have one god, Yahweh, but they also have a pantheon of gods, which is true for every other religion. There's a pantheon of gods. Yahweh's at the top, but they also celebrate other gods like Baal and Asherah. We know because they're written down in the Bible. We know at this point Israel is still a polytheistic religion.
2. But after the Persian Empire returns them to Jerusalem, they became a monotheistic religion, or the beginnings of a monotheistic religion. Why? Because when the Jews are released from captivity by the Persians, their religion merges with that of the Persian religion called Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism is a dualistic religion, meaning there's good and evil. That's the first major difference. At the beginning, the Bible was very much a polytheistic religion, and then after the Israelites became the Jews, it became monotheistic.
   
   The second big difference is during this time the people with the power in Israel were the kings, the monarchy. But after 500 BCE, the Jews decided they don't want any kings, and they couldn't have kings because their overlords were the Persians. The center of power became the priesthood. The people with the absolute authority are the priests, not the kings. There are kings, but the kings are now subservient to the priests, who speak on behalf of Yahweh because now it's a monotheistic religion.
3. Then there's one other difference. Remember, at this point they're polytheistic, and they're kings, which means they are tolerant. They're welcoming of other religions because you're polytheistic. But also, as kings, you need to establish diplomatic alliances with other countries who have different religions. When you marry someone from another political dynasty, you also are marrying into that religion. Israel under the kings is a very tolerant religion.
   
   But if you're run by priests, you become intolerant because you insist that your religion is the best. That's why after the Persians lost control and the Greeks came into the Levant, this is the Seleucid Empire, the Jews rebelled against the Greeks because the Greeks were polytheistic and the Jews considered themselves monotheistic. They refused to acknowledge the culture and the religion of the Greeks. Then things got really bad when the Romans came in.

This is the history of the Jewish people up until the birth of Jesus.

How Did the Bronze Age Collapse?

How did the Bronze Age Collapse? We don't know why it collapsed. The mainstream academic understanding is it was a perfect storm of several factors, including climate change, including civil unrest, including natural disasters like earthquakes, including competition among empires.

What's important to understand is when you talk about the Bronze Age Collapse, we're really talking about basically this area. If you go east to Mesopotamia where the Assyrians and the Babylonians are, they're fine. It's the Bronze Age Collapse that allowed the Assyrians and the Babylonians to eventually become world powers. The Bronze Age Collapse was not a global phenomenon. It was a localized phenomenon to the Mediterranean.

But why the Bronze Age Collapse is important is because the Bronze Age Collapse will give us Greek civilization, Homer and Plato. It will also give us the Bible. If you look at this history, Israel would not have come into being without the Bronze Age Collapse. Egypt or the Hittites would continue to control the Levant.

It's important to understand the Greeks and the Bible are the basis, the two fundamental pillars of Western civilization. That's why Westerners are so fascinated by the Bronze Age Collapse because in their minds the Bronze Age Collapse is part of God's divine plan or desire to create Classical Greece and the nation of Israel so that his vision for the world can be achieved through Jesus.

The argument I'm trying to make to you is the Bible says Abraham is a patriarch of the Israelites. But the historical record is we purely have evidence of David. We have absolutely no evidence of anything before David. I think David is a founder of the nation of Israel, not Abraham. First I want to give you a broad overview.

Exile, Identity and Religion

What happened during the Persian period? At this point, the religion of Israel is no different from the local areas. It's a polytheistic religion with a pantheon of gods. Maybe Yahweh's at the top, or maybe Yahweh's coequal. We don't know. At this point there are many divergent religions.

But what happens is Babylon conquers Jerusalem, and then the Jews are sent in exile. Now the religion is sent overseas, and the religion is detached from the culture and the people. What we know is when you do that, when you detach the religion and you put it into a place that has no interactions with the local people and the culture, it becomes much more fanatical. It becomes much more focused and fanatical.

Because if it's in Israel and the different cultures, the religion has to be tolerant and please different factions among the people. But once this religion goes off to Babylon, it's now divorced from the people, from the local reality. The elite can design it the way that they think is most appropriate. We call that fanatical.

An example of this: it's a bad analogy, but maybe this will help you. Right now you're not sure what it means to be Chinese. You're Chinese, but Chinese in China is a very fluid, very diverse identity. When you go off to America, then you have a much more concrete, much more clear understanding of what it means to be Chinese. Your Chinese identity becomes much more formed.

The same thing with religion. Within Israel itself, the religion is constantly changing. It's very fluid. But when they're off to Babylon, they have to use religion to survive as a people, as an identity, and so it becomes much more formed, much more concrete. Then what happens is now that it's much more concrete, it now interacts with Zoroastrianism, which is the religion of the Persians. At this point the religion becomes basically what it is today.

I don't think I've explained this clearly to you, but I want to wait until we get to this period. Right now I'm just giving you a broad overview.

The Bible and Political Legitimacy

Now I want to talk about the Bible because the Bible is the mythology. It's a collective memory of the Israelites. I'm going to discuss why the Bible was first created. What I'll explain to you is the Bible was first created in order to explain and justify and create legitimacy for David. This is what we call an apology, and this is a very common practice.

The idea is this. Every king obtains power through really nefarious means. They either kill a lot of people to obtain power, or maybe the younger brother kills the older brother to usurp the throne. Usually kingship requires ruthlessness. But the problem is when you're ruthless, you have a legitimacy problem.

The way that most kings resolve the issue is by sponsoring writings or an apology to explain why he or she is king. The answer usually is:

Because God willed it so. Because I had no choice in the matter. I'm not ambitious. I was not at all ambitious. But the circumstances forced my hand. To save my people, to do God's work, I had to kill my brother. I had to kill my enemies, even though I myself am not a violent person.

That's usually how the apology goes. Remember, back at this point the very idea of writing is a new technology, but it's also a very expensive technology, meaning you need to buy the materials, which are rare. But you also need the people to be able to write, and they're also very expensive. You basically needed to be able to support a team of scribes to create any work of fiction.

Writing back then is like moviemaking today. It's a very expensive endeavor that was usually sponsored by the king in order to justify or explain why he is king, in order to create legitimacy.

The Bible was created first as an apology for David and explains why the House of David is now in charge of Israel. But as we discussed, eventually Israel divides into two nations. The Bible goes with the House of Judah, to Judah. But the northern kingdom now needs its own mythology, its own Bible. A second Bible was created.

The people who are in charge of the Bible, the priest class, are interested in promoting their own interests, mainly in the points of ritual. It doesn't make sense. What are rituals? Why do we need them? Why are priests important?

Then you have people at this point in the Babylonian captivity looking back at the history of Israel and trying to figure out why the House of David collapsed. Their answer is because the Israelites refused to follow the will of God, because the Israelites became polytheistic or they became immoral.

Four Major Schools

• In other words, the Bible at this point is divided into four major factions or schools. The school that supports the House of David, the legitimacy of the House of David, is called the J school.
• The people who support the northern kingdom as a legitimate House of Israel are called the E school.
• The school that supports the power of the priests is called the P school, for priests.
• Then the school that tries to go back in history and examine why Israel failed, and which believes it's because the Israelites betrayed God, these people are what we call the D school.
  
  E, J, P and D. These are just four of the major schools. There are other schools as well. At this point, the Bible is divided into four major schools or documents controlled by different factions.

When the Persians take over, they insisted, “You need one religion, guys. You need one document.” All four were put together to create the Bible. The way they did it was very interesting. All they did was just put them together. If you read the Bible, it's like A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D. One line is from the E school. The next line is from the J school. The other line is from the P school. It's very confusing to read. If you don't understand this history, it is impossible for you to read the Bible. I'm not sure if you've tried to read the Bible. It's not readable.

Why would they do this? Why would they just put all four texts together without major editing or revisions? Why? Do you guys know? Why would they do that? They just made a complete mess of the Bible. But why would they do that?

Let me explain. The first major reason is most people didn't read or write back then. The Bible itself didn't really matter. What mattered was the oral explanation of the Bible controlled by the priest class. The people didn't read the Bible, so how the Bible was actually written was not that important. It was important for the priest to have access to the Bible, but the people didn't actually read the Bible. That's the first reason.

Political Real Estate

The second, more important reason is because the Bible is political real estate. I want you to remember this idea. It is the most valuable political real estate in the world. Everyone wants to be in the Bible because to be in the Bible gives you legitimacy, gives you power.

If you're a king and you have four sons who all want to be king, your best solution is divide the kingdom among the four sons. Same with the Bible. You have four extremely powerful schools and political factions. The best way to resolve the issue is just to say, “Listen, we'll put you all in the Bible together.”

When you merge them, it's a lot easier than if you just try to do it by order: E school goes first, and then J school, then P school, then D school. They just put them all together.

This is a very important idea. The Bible is the most valuable political real estate in the world. Everyone wants to be in there, and what ideas you can find in there will ultimately shape human history.

The Apology of David

1. The last thing I want to talk about is the apology of David, which is the beginning of the Bible. When kings come to power, they have three major problems. The first major problem is legitimacy. What gives you the right to be king?
2. The second problem is the idea of identity. This is huge for the Israelites because the Israelites are a multicultural entity. You have people speaking different languages. They practice different cultures. They practice different religions. Now you need to create an identity that everyone accepts.
3. The third thing is differentiation. You need not only for these people to get along, but you need to get them to divorce their former culture. Because you have Egyptian priests in there, you have to tell these Egyptian priests, “You're now Israelites, and you're not Egyptian anymore.”

The example that we use for this is Augustus Caesar and the writing of the Aeneid. Remember, the Aeneid is a book about a character named Aeneas. It provides political legitimacy to Augustus Caesar because Augustus Caesar is a direct descendant of Aeneas, who is the founder of Rome.

Also, what the Aeneid said is Augustus Caesar is the endpoint of Roman history. Everything before Augustus Caesar led to him. Augustus Caesar is like the Jesus of Rome. He's the salvation, and he's the redemption of Rome. That's what the Aeneid does.

The second thing about the Aeneid is it creates a new Roman identity that focuses on piety, loyalty over liberty. Remember, the problem for Augustus Caesar was Romans didn't like kings. Now he's a king. How do you get people to obey? You tell them piety is more important than liberty.

The third idea is the Aeneid, remember, is anti-Greek. The problem for Rome at the time was Greek culture was vastly superior to Roman culture, and so a lot of Romans were adopting Greek cultural practices like Mark Antony. The Aeneid said Greek culture is like the Trojan horse. If you let it into your city, Greek culture will corrupt you and destroy you.

Guess what, guys? Every king has to resolve all three issues: legitimacy, identity and differentiation. That's what David is trying to do with the Bible. I'll give you three examples, three stories from the Bible that illustrate David's quest for legitimacy. I want to focus on legitimacy.

Now that David is king, a lot of people don't think he's legitimate. Why? Because he ruthlessly tried to usurp the throne from Saul. Saul is the king that everyone picked or elected. He was a good king. He was good at war. He was someone that most people liked. David stole the throne from him.

What is David's problem now that he has the throne? Others will try to steal it from him. Because if you, David, set the precedent, if you steal the throne, then others are now empowered to steal the throne from you as well. The first thing the apology for David does is show us David loved Saul. He was not at all ambitious. He cared only for the well-being of his king.

David and Saul in the Cave

There are actually many, many stories in the Bible that do this. But one story that illustrates this is this. Saul thinks David's trying to kill him, so he's chasing after David with his army, trying to kill David and his followers.

One day Saul is alone in a cave praying to God for deliverance. David sees Saul alone, and he sneaks up behind Saul. Then he takes his sword and cuts a piece of Saul's clothing. Then David disappears. Saul leaves the cave, and then David rushes to him and says:

Saul, my king, I beg of you. Give me a second. Let me explain to you. Back then in the cave, I could have killed you. This is a piece of clothing to prove I could have killed you, but I didn't because I love you. Because I'm loyal to you. I would never kill you.

Then Saul says, “Oh, this is proof that you never meant to kill me.” This is a story in the Bible. Obviously, this story cannot be true, but this is what the Bible's trying to do. It's trying to first show us that David is not at all ambitious. In fact, the entire apology of David is focused on the lack of ambition of David.

Abner and Joab

That's the first story. Let's look at the second story. Saul is dead, and his son, who's a young man, comes onto the throne. There's a general named Abner, who was loyal to Saul, but now that Saul is dead and David is very popular among the people, Abner sees the political winds changing, and Abner tries to align himself with David.

Abner writes a long letter to David saying, “Listen, I will swear loyalty to you, and we'll end the civil war between the House of Saul and the House of David. You will unite Israel.” Then David writes back and says, “Yeah, come to me. I'll give you a feast, and then we'll be friends.”

Abner comes. David gives him a feast, and then as Abner leaves, he runs into David's general named Joab. Joab and Abner go a long way back. They were friends. They were enemies. Abner killed Joab's brother. In an act of anger, Joab stabs Abner to death, and Abner is dead. Once Abner is dead, the House of Saul basically gives up, and David is able to unite Israel.

That's the story in the Bible. David is so angry about this that he curses Joab, and he gives Abner a great funeral because David does not want to betray his friends.

Why is this story wrong or completely made up? It's not made up, but it's what we call spin. Clearly Abner and David had a feast together, and clearly Joab killed Abner. But why is the Bible version of this event wrong or incorrect? It can't be true. You guys know? This is hard.

The reason is this. If you're David and you're king, which person in the world are you most afraid of? If you're the king, there's a person in this world you're most afraid of or you're most suspicious of. Who is that person? Abner. He is suspicious of Abner, but in general you should be suspicious of Joab because Joab has access to your army. Abner's your enemy, but Joab has access to your army. If Joab wants to betray you, he could.

In other words, because David is most suspicious of Joab, if Joab were ever to act independently, then David would need to kill him. In this circumstance, Joab acted independently. David told Joab Abner was an honored guest, and Joab didn't care. He was angry about the death of his brother, and he kills Abner. This cannot possibly be true. Joab had to kill Abner because he was ordered to by David.

Now why would David want Abner to be killed? Because in his mind he thinks, “If Abner can betray the House of Saul, he can also betray the House of David. He is an ambitious man.” Why would he think like that? Why would David come to this conclusion? Because he himself is like that. He himself betrayed Saul, so he's very, very careful or cautious about people who betray their leaders.

Abner betrayed the House of Saul, and it was very likely that he would betray David at some point as well. David had to have him killed. But he could not say this publicly, because if he were to say this publicly, it would show he in fact knew this because he betrayed Saul.

But you can see how wonderful the spin is. It's almost impossible to see the truth from this. If you're a person, and you know that Joab killed Abner, and you were told the story, you would believe the story. It was just because Joab was angry he killed Abner. You believe that. But you think about it, it can't be true.

David, Bathsheba and Uriah

Now I'm going to give you one more story. This story is actually even harder to figure out because of the spin. Now that David is king of Israel, Israel has many enemies, so his armies are always at war.

One day David is on the rooftop of his house. Israel is not a very rich place. These are not palaces. They're just houses. David is strolling on his rooftop, and across from him is a woman named Bathsheba. She's bathing naked, and David is overcome with lust. He's like, “I must have this woman.” He's king. He orders his servant to go get her. She comes. They have sex.

The problem is when they have sex, Bathsheba gets pregnant. The problem now is Bathsheba is married to a man named Uriah the Hittite. Uriah the Hittite is one of David's best soldiers, and he's fighting for David and Israel somewhere else.

David's like, “This is a problem because once Uriah comes home and he finds Bathsheba has a new child, he's going to know it's not his. Either he's going to kill her, or he's going to figure out it's David and come kill him.” David, being very clever, has a solution to this. He invites Uriah back home.

Uriah comes home from the war, and Uriah thinks, “The king has called for me. Therefore it's an emergency.” He rushes back, and David meets Uriah at his house. David says:

Listen, Uriah, you've been doing such a great job. You're such a great soldier. You're so loyal. I want to give you a vacation. Go home and be with your wife.

Uriah is like:

My king, my comrades are dying. They're starving out in the battlefield. I cannot abandon them. How can I find pleasure in my wife when my friends are suffering? I refuse to go home. I will not go home until the battle is won.

David tries his best, but he can't convince Uriah to go home. Then David tells Uriah, “You're such a great soldier. You're so loyal. I'm so happy and proud that you fight for me.” He gives Uriah a letter to his general, Joab, and the letter instructs Joab to kill Uriah.

Joab will send Uriah with his soldiers out in the battlefield, and then at the last minute Joab will recall his soldiers, leaving Uriah by himself. At this point the enemies will swarm Uriah and kill Uriah. That's what happens.

Once Uriah is dead, David marries Bathsheba, and they're about to have a child together. At this point David is visited by a prophet named Nathan. Nathan says to David, “I want to ask you a question.” David says, “Sure, go ahead.”

Nathan says:

Let's imagine there are two shepherds. There's a rich shepherd with 100 sheep, and there's a poor shepherd with two sheep. There's a traveler, a foreign guest, who comes into town, and the rich shepherd wants to honor him with a feast. The rich shepherd steals the poor man's sheep to feed the traveler. Who's in the wrong?

David says, “Of course the rich shepherd is in the wrong.” He's indignant. He's angry. How could a man be so unrighteous as to steal another man's sheep? Then Nathan says:

You, David, are the rich shepherd. You have violated God's law. You are in the wrong. As punishment, God will take away your son or your child with Bathsheba.

That's what happens. David goes into mourning. He is distraught. He's depressed, and he writes a lot of poetry.

This is a very awful story. This is a story that has captured the imagination of everyone for 1,000 years. But it's complete spin. This is not what happened. How do we know?

First thing is this. Nathan says to David, “You have stolen a man's wife. Therefore you're in the wrong.” What's the problem with this logic? What is David's crime, real crime? Guys, he killed Uriah. You've forgotten this fact. He had Uriah killed. That's the real crime. He killed Uriah. He slept with Bathsheba. That's bad, but it's much worse if you murder someone.

Another question then is why would he murder Uriah? Why not just talk to him honestly and say, “Uriah, I'm sorry. I love your wife. I had sex with her. I'm sorry.” Why did David have to get Uriah killed? Why was Uriah killed?

Because the army is loyal to Uriah. Why would David fear Uriah? Because Uriah is a popular, brave soldier, just like David. David used his popularity in order to usurp the throne from Saul. Therefore David thinks, “Uriah could do the same thing to me. Therefore I have to get him killed.”

In other words, this Bathsheba thing must have come later to disguise the fact that David killed Uriah because he feared Uriah's popularity. Do you see how clever this story is? The historical truth must have been David feared Uriah's popularity, and he needed to get rid of Uriah.

Then after he killed Uriah, he needed to explain to his army, who loved Uriah, why this happened. Then they were just like, “Because I fell in love with his wife. I couldn't control myself. I'm just a man. God is God. I'm a man. I'm a king. I can't be God. I can't control my emotions.”

Literature and the Imagination

But the irony of this is because David is working so hard to disguise his ruthlessness, he's creating very powerful literature. He created a very powerful story that has captured the imagination of readers for a long time. If you think a lot about the story, it unleashes a lot of ideas in you. You have to ask yourself, what is man? What is God? Are we capable of controlling our emotions?

In other words, this story is so extremely well-constructed that it inspires you to imagine your own personal and emotional and moral life. We call this literature.

Guys, it's no coincidence that the Jewish people are the most creative people in the world. When you go to America for university, most of your professors are Jewish. Most of the best things in the world are Jewish. These past 200 years, there have been three revolutionary thinkers: Karl Marx, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. They're all Jewish. They have been raised in the Jewish tradition of asking deep questions about what it means to be human.

Questions About the Apology

Why Would People Believe It?

The question is why would people believe this apology of David? The answer is most didn't believe the apology of David. Most were very clear about David's ambitions. But when you're king, you need to impose your reality on others. This is why this was written.

It was written for people who were part of David's political coalition. His enemies wouldn't believe this. It was basically meant to appease or convince those who want to believe David.

Spin. It happens today, guys. When you watch the news, it's spin. It's a story in reality. Most people will believe the media. There are some people who will never believe the media. I don't believe anything the media tells me, whether it's Chinese media or American media. I know a lot of history to understand the media is distorting reality.

But most people will believe this because they have absolutely no interest in not believing it. David's king. If you don't believe it, then you have to believe your king is a murderer.

What's the Mainstream Understanding?

What's the mainstream understanding of this story? This is really important. The mainstream understanding of the story is it has to be true. Why? Because it puts David in a bad light, and it shows the genius of David because David is wrestling with his own morality. David is being honest.

The mainstream understanding is David is a poet king. He's a man who prays constantly and engages in a process of self-reflection, and that's what makes David great. He's constantly praying to God. In fact, the Bible just goes on endlessly about this, how David is constantly in communication with God. In this communication he's praying and asking for light, for truth in his own weaknesses, to be delivered from his failings as a man.

The Bathsheba story is emblematic about this because why would a man make this up? I've told you why, but most scholars don't see that. Most scholars think, “This Bathsheba story puts David in the worst possible light. Therefore it must be true, and therefore it shows us David is a poet king who is constantly thinking about his own moral failings. He's been an inspiration to his people.” That's the mainstream understanding.

Why Was It Written If Most People Were Illiterate?

The question is if people at that time were mainly illiterate, why was this written down, or how would they know the story? The idea is this. First of all, this was written for the elite, for the people around David to know what story to tell people.

This was for internal consumption, and this was to basically preserve David's historical legacy. Maybe 20 years from now, when everyone's dead, when people who knew Uriah and Bathsheba were dead, what is truth now? The truth is what's been written down. That's what they're saying: “History is written by the writers.” History is not written by the winners. History is written by the writers.

It starts off as an apology for David, but it evolves into a much larger mythology.