The Bible/Fridge: Difference between revisions
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** Speaking of The Bible, after reading first and second Samuel, I could never quite get over what David did to Bathsheba in Samuel 2. There were times I could succeed in not feeling anger whenever I thought of him, but, I always held a certain amount of venom towards him for a short time. I thought "well so what if they patched things up? Bathsheba still got downgraded from being that special woman in marriage to a loving, monogamous man, to simply being another one of David's wives". I thought "why didn't David dissolve the marriage so she could go out to be someone elses only wife, instead of living the rest of her days competing with his other wives for attention?" I knew that God said he'd give David's wives to Absalom, but it later describes Absalom as laying with his ''concubines'' instead, so I always thought David had circumvented that command somehow....And then it hit me. Those concubines must've been David's wives at one point, as they were described as widows after David puts them in a house and doesn't lie with them again, therefore, it seems Bathsheba was the only wife David had left, as she isn't forced to live in confinement like David's former wives. Upon this revelation, one wonders whether God taking away David's other wives was to serve the double purpose of punishing David AND compensating Bathsheba so that she'd once again have a husband all to herself, and not have to be reduced to competing with other wives. In any case, it was upon this revelation that I was finally able to get over it completely (instead of only partially), knowing that Bathsheba was able to get David's full UNDIVIDED attention. -- [[Fionordequester]]
*** Remember, Bathsheba wasn't innocent. While she didn't kill Uriah, she did cheat on him, so losing her firstborn and having to compete with rivals is quite fair.
** On another note, Abraham's apparent willingness to sacrifice Isaac, even though God said that he would provide a sacrifice, always bugged me. Abraham was about ready to kill his son when he heard the ram. But then again, this is the same guy who lied to both Pharaoh and Abimelech about his wife (saying she was his sister) and who lost faith that God would provide a son through Sarah and slept with her servant Hagar. By this point in the story Abraham has a well-established track record of jumping the gun and making baseless assumptions ''even when God has already demonstrated his will and his power in Abraham's life on numerous occasions''. The attempted sacrifice of Isaac is well within Abraham's character and experience ([https://web.archive.org/web/20150224111848/http://gallery.sjsu.edu/sacrifice/sumerians.html he did come from a society that practiced human sacrifice, after all]).
*** I once heard a different interpretation of that story where Abraham is secretly testing God to see if he is the kind of deity that would demand a man to kill his son. Not sure if the text supports this at all, but it's given the story a greater poignancy and depth for me.
* I was reading the Old Testament, and noticed the pattern of younger siblings being put over older siblings, especially with Abraham's descendents, but also with Rachel and Leah. Then an idea hit me - both the Jews and the Christians are called God's children, right? I'm not writing this to insult the Jews, because I think Judaism is awesome, but I think there's a parallel that has Jews as the firstborn like Ishmael, Esau, Leah and so one, while Christians are the second child, like Issac, Jacob and Rachel. -[[Dandelion Fire]]
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