Saturday, April 13, 2013

The Bible Challenge: Day 103

The scriptures read are 1 Samuel 19-21, Psalm 86 and John 21.

1 Samuel 19-21. Daring Jonathan finds a kindred spirit in fearless David. This is one of the most beautiful pictures of friendship in the Bible. But Saul is rapidly learning to hate David because of his popularity with the people and his military successes. Part of this might be Saul's escalating mood disorder.

I notice Peterson cleans up the nature of the "evidence" that David brings back to prove he's killed 1000 Philistines. They were their foreskins, surely the weirdest and grossest bride price ever paid. Saul probably thought David would get killed before he got to that number. I imagine the Philistines fought harder when they knew what was at stake.

Saul seems to fluctuate wildly in his feelings about David. One moment he's trying to skewer him; the next he's marrying him to his daughter. After one spear chucking and ducking, David hotfoots it to Samuel while his wife Michal pulls the old "idol under a sheet with the goat's hair wig" switcheroo. (An idol in a royal household? And one the size of a man? Sounds like Saul isn't keeping his religion as kosher as he should.)

Then Saul sends men to get David at Ramah with Samuel. But they run into a bunch of prophets and end up speaking in ecstasy. Saul sends another squad and the same thing happens. Then another but they too end up  in a prophetic rapture as well. Then Saul goes himself and--you guessed it--he gets "prophetized." In fact, he ends up naked and prophesying. (I want this as a superpower!) Unfortunately, the whole "Saul among the prophets" saying takes on a mocking connotation at this point. This does not look good for the king.

David and Jonathan dream up a ruse to see if Saul is serious about killing David. David's sure about this but Jonathan is giving his dad the benefit of the doubt. Read the passage for the particulars but David and Jonathan's last farewell is very touching. Of course in those days (and it's still true in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures) guys were freer to express their affections to each other, much like women do with their friends in our culture. If they dramatized this today, they'd have 'em punch each other in the arm and say, "Love you, bro," while shuffling their feet awkwardly. Real men show their emotions. Read Homer.

Psalm 86. A person asks God for help, confident that God will do so. Verse 5 is used in the Jewish liturgy for the High Holy Days.

John 21. A night on the Sea of Galilee (Sea of Tiberias is an alternate name) yields no fish. Then Jesus, on shore, tells them to try the other side. Suddenly it's a fish bonanza! Same boat, same guys, same place but listen to what Jesus says and you get different results.

Jesus does a kind of reconciliation ritual with Peter, balancing out his 3 denials. And we get the origin of the rumor than John would live till Jesus returns. Given that John lived well into his 90s you can see how people began to believe this.

John wraps up his gospel with the fact that, while he's supplied a lot of the details the other gospels hadn't, there's stuff Jesus did that even he hasn't recorded. There aren't enough books to cover it all. Good way to look at the Bible: what it gives us about God is essential and true but not exhaustive. There's more to learn. And we learn it by following Jesus.

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