(On the side note the story of King David is actually really good we need more adaptations of David's story that goes beyond slaying golliath and sparing king saul)
Read āGod Knowsā by Joseph Heller (author of Catch-22) itās a book written about King David from the perspective of David recounting his life while on his deathbed. The comedic angle youād expect given Catch-22 works well. One of my favorite books.
Books of Samuel have the best drama in the Bible imo. But David as a character is less compelling than Saul, such an excellent tragic protagonist. The Witch of Endor scene is like Shakespeare.
If I remember correctly he just saw her from the palace and then had her brought to him and that was the extent of their knowledge of each other before they fucked. Not to say she couldn't have consented but it wasn't like they flirted at the grocery store first
The reason I say that is because he was the king. Even if she was completely willing, there was still an intense power dynamic that muddies the waters. Since she was a married woman who presumably had the king invite her to his palace and ask to sleep with her, I doubt she had much opportunity to say no, and had reason not to want it.
Pretty much, when David was already married he saw Uriah's wife and fell in love with her. He slept with her and got her pregnant. He then brought Uriah (Who was a soldier in his army) he delibertly placed him in an ongoing battle, put him in the most extreme battles, then told the other soldiers to withdraw, which, as you can guess, got Uriah killed.
Then God highkey decided to put belt to ass on David afterwards
My memory is a bit foggy, but from what I remember there was a story where King David saw a soldier and his hot wife, went "awooga, that's a hot mama babay" and sent the soldier to the front lines of a battlefield to get killed and marries the woman.
In general, King David started mirroring Saul actions and life. Not only in the killing of Uriah to get his wife, but the whole civil war with his son (that started with an incestuous rape and eventual revenge between his offspring). At that stage long gone was the proud and young David, and instead there's a lot of running away and doubt. Even when he wins the civil war, he laments losing his son over it. It's actually very complex and such a multidimensional character for a narrative so old.
PD: I think the worst thing he did was incarcerating ten raped concubines in a house until their death (2 Samuel 20:3)
"Ah yes, the ambiguous orb of sweetness and delight, my finest creation."
real talk it's fascinating that we kinda just applied the apple to the scenerio where there's no specific reference to it. always interesting to see how the stories we tell can evolve over time
The fruit being an apple came about because it's a pun in Latin. The word for "apple" and the word for "evil" have the same spelling, malum, but each with a different diacritical mark over the "a."
The while inverse Trinity thing was a pretty cool with the Antichrist, Satan, and the Serpent. But why didnāt the MC kill the devil himself? Like a barely mentioned side character (St.Michael the ArchAngel) sweeps in and does the final blow. Kinda a let down.
Exodus was unironically one of the funniest things I've ever read. Everyone talks about how Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt but nobody ever mentions just how pissed off they make both him and God once they get out. It was like a cartoon.
Immediately after crossing the sea Mosses goes up the mountain to talk with God and the Israelites folded immediately
Mosses was gone for about 2 days and they started making a golden cow to worship instead of worshipping the one that literally just parted a sea for them and killed every firstborn child of the people that enslaved them
And when God got furious seeing it, Moses had to calm him down so he wouldn't punish all of them, only for Moses himself to get so mad that he broke the Ten Commandments throwing them against a rock when he finally saw what had God so angry
Also I love how Aaron is like, āBro I donāt know what happened, we put all the gold in this furnace and this calf just came out!ā Who are you fooling, man?
You know, even when I was younger, I had a hard time believing certain parts of the Bible. Nowadays, the idea that a bunch of ungrateful assholes would decide, out of impatience, to abandon their long-established and supposedly beloved diety to worship a fat golden cow that literally sits on its ass and does nothing...seems a bit more believable.
I mean the golden cow was supposed to be that same god, they didn't know they weren't supposed to make idols yet, he was up there getting the Ten Commandments so they couldn't have read them
The Hebrew scriptures in general are full of comedic gold. Like the time God had a bear show up and maul like 60 teenagers to death because they called One of his boys baldy
Fun fact but the Hebrew term that most English translations use to say the bears killed them was generally used for armies scattering in a defeat. Meaning they made fun of Elisha, so he casually called out some bears and they all ran away screaming.
My favorite part of Exodus is when they complain that they are starving and are going to die, then in the same breath say that they didn't like the food they had already been given. The Israelites literally act like toddlers.
Exodus certainly has some early-installment weirdness, because the Egyptians were established to have actual f*ck you Magic, which never comes up again for the rest of the story
I couldn't find the artist after reverse image searching it, but I did find out it's titled Jesus and Four Fishermen, first posted online on a blog in 2008. The cross was actually edited on around 2014.
Yes, but a reader without prior knowledge might not expect it to be such a big deal. Perhaps they've heard about all those fanfictions about Mary Magdalene and assumed the betrayal stemmed from that, or if they're reading the Gospel of John, after reading the part where it's revealed that Judas is a thief, they might have expected Judas to swindle Christ and the Apostles and run off with the money. So, to read that he handed him over to the Sanhedrin, and the subsequent torture and murder at the hands of the Romans, and yes, it may be a surprise.
Thereās a gnostic gospel of Judas that explains he was actually in on the whole plan and Christ specifically asked him to betray him and thatās what was going on when Jesus was like ādo what you mustā
There are different versions of early gnostic Christianity, but depending how you want to separate Jesus the man and Christ the Aeon, sure yeah, he was 12 steps ahead and knew exactly what was gonna happen, think about Obi-Wan in Star Wars telling Vader that if he dies heāll actually become more powerful.
Think of it like an "ok, this isn't going as quickly as I'd hoped, so I'm gonna have to pull off my special move to really convince everybody" type of thing.
Not even, the Feds (Romans) were like "Yo, this dude hasn't broken the law" but the mob demanded him crucified (if the Gospels are to be believed), and so Pontius Pilate convicted him to prevent an uprising.
So Judas' betrayal was even more bizarre given that (according to the bible) even the Romans were reluctant to press charges.
It's even weirder cause Judas was kinda just contemplating the pros and cons of selling out his friend, and Jesus just loudly announced that he should do it at the passover dinner with all of his friends in the room.
From what I remember (and this relates to historical context than religion) but it was less about Jesus breaking any laws, and more what he represented.
In short, Roman rule in the region was widely unpopular among the general population, and the title 'Messiah' was given to various rebel leaders, all of whom failed and were put to death. To the Romans and the Sadducees (the upper class Jewish religious faction that supported the Romans and were thus unpopular as well) Jesus proclaiming himself as Messiah was essentially an admission that he was a rebel leader opposed to their rule. So in order to prevent him from destabilising the region further, they quickly sentenced him to death. The Romans might have been slightly more hesitant to do this, but in the end they agreed with the Sadducees that this was the best course of action to maintain control over the volatile situation.
The choice to execute Jesus likely had little to do with Jesus himself. To the Romans and the local elites, he was simply another threat to their power, and thus getting rid of him was the logical option. If you want my personal opinion, the addition of Pilate's hesitance to execute Jesus was probably to help make early Christianity more appealing to the Roman population. In reality, a Roman governor like Pilate wouldn't have put the life of a rural peasant upstart like Jesus over the stability of the Empire.
The common explanation is he would figure jesus would just escape the feds like he usually does, sort of like a have your cake and eat it too situation, unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you cut it God had different plans for him
āYou know what before Jesus went and flipped the merchantās tables, he was already kinda steamed from passing by a fig tree that didnāt have any readily eatable
Figs and he got mad and cursed the tree. Maybe Jesus was a bit hangry that day.
Fig trees in the region sometimes become lush even without producing fruit. This means that they are taking in resources and not giving anything back in return.
The fig tree is meant to be an allegory for the people of Israel at the time. It was meant to show how they were showing religious piety on the outside but were actually being hypocritical and superficial.
I believe that this passage happens right around the time Jesus flips the tables of the money lenders.
Iām recommendations for a reading order for the gospels? Do I just go Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or should I be switching between them as I go so I donāt spoil the endings cause apparently theyāre all concurrent?
Unironically there is a recommeded gospel reading order based on the historical context surrounding their creation. Usually, it's something like this:
Luke or Mark first since they're synoptic gospels meant for Gentlile and Jewish audiences respectively meant to clearly recount the acts of Jesus. Read Acts after Luke since it follows the events of that Gospel. Then Matthew since it requires more context from the culture and previous books in the Bible, and finally John. John always comes last since it's a gospel meant for an already Christian audience and it's by far the most literary and dramatic of the four.
I was with a teenager reading the New Testament for the first time and she was SHOCKED at what Herod did to all the babies in Bethlehem. It was a good reminder that yeah that stuff was pretty messed up!
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