discussing the Bible in my Art History class

[NoodleBoy]

just thought I'd share this with you all. my Art History class deals with alot of religious art, and somehow the other day we got onto the topic of David, which then lead to me saying that there were two or three accounts of the killing of Goliath in the Bible. Long story short, I told the teacher to email her about it, and this is what I sent her:

"Earlier in class today I mentioned that there could be as many as three accounts of the combat between David and Goliath. The first account in the Bible which deals with the combat is 1 Samuel 17, which is devoted completely to describing that event. The second account, which I mentioned in class in which someone other then David kills Goliath, is briefly mentioned later on. I'll explain first how 1 Samuel 17 seems to be actually two separate accounts of the combat which have been blended together, then on to the second brief mention.

In the book of Samuel, the beginning of Chapter 16, God sends Samuel to Jesse of Bethlehem, saying that the king of Israel has been chosen from among his sons. When Samuel gets there, Jesse presents his three oldest sons to Samuel, but one by one god tells Samuel to reject them. Samuel then asks Jesse if he has any more sons, and he brings David, who he says is his youngest and has been tending sheep. That's a little odd, because in other parts the bible says Jesse has eight sons, when he plainly says at 1 Samuel 16:11 that those are all the sons he has. Anyway, back on track. God tells Saul that David will be the next king of Israel, and Samuel leaves. The narrative then goes to Saul.

Saul, at verse 14, has gone mad. His servants ask him to let them find a harpist; he lets them, and one of them says, in verse 18, that he knows David, a son of Jesse of Bethlehem, who is a skilled harpist, a stalwart soldier, and an able speaker. Saul sends for David, and when he arrives at court Saul thinks so greatly of him that he makes David his armor-bearer.

Chapter 17 starts with Goliath challenging the Israelites. Here, at verse 12, the reintroduction of David to the narrative, it appears that another tradition of the combat of David and Goliath begins. "David was the son of an Ephramite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah." We already know this-- as should anyone at the court of Saul, where David is harpist and armor-bearer. However, instead of playing his harp and tending Saul's armor, David is relegated to tending his father's sheep and bringing food to the army. David hears Goliath's challenges, and also hears the soldiers talking about the reward offered by the king to the man who killed Goliath-- this, again, shows how this is from a different narrative, because someone at the king's court-- most especially the king's armor bearer-- would probably already know this.

When David says he'll fight Goliath, Saul sends for him. Saul tells him he can't possibly win against Goliath, because Goliath has been a warrior from his youth, and David is just a youth-- again, something which is at odds with the verse earlier in which David is described as a stalwart soldier.

Anyway, Saul sends David to kill Goliath, he does, and there was much rejoicing. However, before the chapter ends, one more oddity appears, in that Saul doesn't recognize David as he returns to the court, as does no one else at the court. An odd situation to be in, being the king's armor bearer and harpist.

To me, the inconsistencies in that narrative seems to point out that at one time there were two rival narratives about the combat of David and Goliath.

The last mention of combat with Goliath comes from 2 Samuel 21:19: "There was another battle at Gob, in which Elhanan, son of Jair from Bethlehem, killed Goliath of Gath, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver's heddle-bar." It's probably meant to be the same Goliath, because in the earlier accounts he's described as from Gath (or as a Gittite, same thing) and having a spear with a shaft like a weaver's heddle-bar, or beam.

Anyway, I could have been more accurate when I said in class that there were 3 accounts of the combat with Goliath-- what it turns out to be, instead, is two narratives brought together with different opinions as to David's origins and one brief mention later on of Goliath being killed by one of David's servants."

Funny thing is, I'm secularist (or what have you), and it seemed like I had a better knowledge of the story then the "Bible expert" in class, who didn't say anything when the teacher asked her for her thoughts.

And today, I found out the teacher hadn't read the email yet, so she asked me to explain in class what I'd wrote. Kind of put me on the spot, but I explained as best as I could. I really look forward to her written response, because she didn't really give me one in the class.

[progressoid]

1. Doncha just love "biblical experts"?

If you are in a public university, you'll probably find a lot of them that seem to be on a mission to re-educate the collegiate masses. It's a funny, sad, ironic situation. They see themselves as the enlightened ones. They'll completely miss thousands of opportunities to actually gain knowledge. Their blinders prevent them from even entertaining any notion that would chip away at their primitive myths.

[puddycat]

2. you can be a Bible expert without being religious at all, natch

Your art class sounds interesting. I love to look at the artistic interpretations of mythology. The Bible is such a fascinating combination of mythology, pragmatic philosophy, morality plays, and history...and more.
Unfortunately the Bible is dangerous when held up as the inerrant word of God.

[NoodleBoy]

3. eh... there hasn't been much discussion of biblical inerrancy... yet

the most was defending the ridiculously long lives of some biblical figures. one other guy and I were the only ones who said we didn't believe they actually lived to be that old when the teacher asked if anyone doubted it.

kind of funny. of course, they made the whole "you had less to concentrate on" argument, which is pretty funny-- as though people back then only had farming, eating and making more people to occupy their time, and that actually has an effect on peoples' lifespans.

another girl said there were less diseases back then-- I pointed out that the supposed time of writing was just about when most livestock were being domesticated, meaning that the first livestock diseases to mutate into human diseases (and subsequently killing off shitloads of unresistant people) were making the transition.

[Az]

4. Your gonna find it is a minority

That hold to bible inerrancy. And they typically come packing a couple of uhauls loaded with rationalizations for each and every case you will throw at them.

[NoodleBoy]

5. and they typically don't go to "secular, liberal, satanic college"

you know, for fear that their narrow worldview would get ripped apart.

it's actually pretty funny hearing those rationalizations-- because if something actually is literally true, no one should need to rationalize it.