This post is not so
much about Jesus, but about a controversial claim made by the
Talmudic Rabbis.
I am also unaware of
what Karaites have said about this matter in the past, but there is
great disparity between the text and the rabbinic re-write of the
story of King David and Bathsheba.
In the book of 2 Samuel
11, a crucial point in Israel's history occurs when David takes the
wife of Uriah, gets her pregnant, and then sends Uriah to a high risk
warfront, where he is likely to be killed.
In response to this,
Nathan the Seer or prophet, gives David a most unpleasant message.
Because of this evil
that he has done:
2
Sam 12: 10 Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from
thy house; because thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of
Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
If that wasn't enough,
the love=child born to David and Bathsheba , will die as a result of
the sin.
Several other terrible
punishments are numerated in these chapters.
In the world of the
Talmudic rabbis, such ideas are dangerous. Partly because accepting
what is written in the Bible is a threat to their ideology, and hence
they have to rewrite it, and partly because as King David is the
prototype “Tzaddik” or perfect one, it is in the self-interest of
the rabbis to manipulate this concept, and then crown themselves as
the new Tzaddikim or perfect inerrant ones.
So what do they say
exactly about David ?
IN Shabbat 56a
(Babylonian Talmud) they write:
Whoever
says that David sinned is merely erring, for it is said, And
David behaved himself wisely in all his ways: and the Lord was with
him. Is it possible that sin came to his hand, yet the
Divine Presence was with him? Then how do I interpret, Wherefore
hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do that which is evil in
his sight? He wished to do [evil], but did
not.
It is also claimed
elsewhere that Uriah had given his wife a divorce before going to
war, and hence at this point, she was unmarried. Does the text support
these claims?
The Scripture refers to
her as the wife of Uriah, not his ex wife.
2 Sam 11: 3 And
David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said: 'Is not this
Bath-sheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?'
even after he has
impregnated Bathsheba, David tells her husband to go back home (and
sleep with his wife)
8 And David said
to Uriah: 'Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet.' And Uriah
departed out of the king's house, and there followed him a mess of
food from the king.
11 And Uriah
said unto David: 'The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in booths;
and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the
open field; shall I then go into my house, to eat and to drink, and
to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will
not do this thing.'
Finally we see that she
was still married to him until he was killed:
26 And when the
wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she made
lamentation for her husband.
27 And when the
mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she
became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had
done displeased the LORD.
So the idea that she
was somehow free and single is disproven by the explicit statements
of the text.
But what then, was
David's sin? Well, according to the rabbis above, “Whoever
says that David sinned is merely erring,”
This would, according
to the learned rabbis, include Nathan and God himself:
2 Sam 12:
9
Wherefore hast thou despised the word of the LORD, to do that which
is evil in My sight? Uriah the Hittite thou hast smitten with the
sword, and his wife thou hast taken to be thy wife, and him thou hast
slain with the sword of the children of Ammon.
10
Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from thy house; because
thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite
to be thy wife.
11
Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of
thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and
give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the
sight of this sun.
However, David himself
must have erred, according to the rabbis, since he said:
13
And David said unto Nathan: 'I have sinned against the LORD.' {S}
And Nathan said unto David: 'The LORD also hath put away thy sin;
thou shalt not die.
14
Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast greatly blasphemed the
enemies of the LORD, the child also that is born unto thee shall
surely die.'
The sin was partly
forgiven, in that David did not die (adultery + murder), but the
child does die. So he did sin, the question is only what was his
punishment. The punishment is the eventual destruction of his
Kingdom, and loss of his firstborn. These are not lightweight
punishments for a no-sin.
And this brings us back
to the title of this post. If, as the rabbis would have you believe,
he wanted to sin, but didn't, then the child that was conceived on
that night, could only have been conceived by immaculate conception.
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