David

One must keep in mind that David was the second king, Hezekiah was an hereditary monarch in the line of David, and he reigned centuries later. This leaves us with the little problem of explaining how David could have invaded Jerusalem via a water gate that would not be constructed until several centuries later. (Perhaps he morphed through solid rock). This is also brings up interesting questions about the dating of some of these fabulous David stories. Some of these David fables appear to have been invented many, many centuries after the times they purport to describe. This is fine, if we understand that we are dealing with fables, and only becomes a problem when people start insisting that such fables are 'history,' and 'infallibly inerrant history' at that.

The stories about David are rife with these sorts of internal inconsistencies and conflicts, often within a single paragraph. Analyzing these stories reveals something of the editorial process involved in manufacturing the Bible. It was obviously spun together like a woven clothe from many different colors of thread.

To illustrate this point I will bring to your attention a couple of very interesting passages from the books of Samuel which tell of 'the history of King David,' of Samuel and King Saul.

"The Philistines were subdued and no longer invaded Israel as long as Samuel lived for the hand of YAHWEH was against them...peace was maintained." (1 Samuel 7:13) In chapter 13, "The Philistines gathered together to fight against Israel." (1 Samuel 13:5) "Samuel left Gilgal and went his way" (1 Samuel 13:15) . "The Philistines gathered for war at Micmash." (1 Samuel 13:11) "No blacksmith was to be found in all Israel, for the Philistines were determined to prevent the Hebrews from making spears and swords." (1 Sam. 13:19) "When war broke out the army had neither sword or spear." (1 Samuel 13:22) "There was bitter war with the Philistines throughout Saul's reign." (1 Samuel 14:52)

Samuel was criticizing the conduct of King Saul and thus still alive. Samuel anointed David as King, and David killed Goliath during the Philistine war. (1 Samuel Chapters 15 and 17) Furthermore, as you can tell by reading the complete account, their was bitter war with the Philistines right up until the day that Samuel died.

I find this particular collection of contradictory stories to be especially revealing, thus particularly useful as instructional material. The conflicts in the stories of the prophet Samuel involve ideological and theological differences, an important lesson to keep in mind, for it has broad applications in understanding and interpreting every other book in the Bible. In one version of events, Samuel is so powerful that he stops all wars and subdues the mighty Philistines simply because he was so godly. Samuel is also presented as a prophetic, religious character much to be preferred as ruling judge and superior to the rule of monarchy. Political and religious commentary is being made here.

The conflicts in the David stories concern factual historical detail and are also political in nature. Was David a harp player or a giant killer? How did David get his start in life? Who killed Goliath? Perhaps it was someone else. Remember that the Judean royal family was an hereditary monarchy descended from David, and you can easily understand how any attack on David was a political attack on the Judean political establishment.

Also interesting to note is the bizarre editorial process, which does not resemble anything that we would call 'editing' or 'error checking' or 'proof-texting' today. Once again, the reason for the unusual editing can be understood when we consider that the documents were edited and assembled by priests,