Much of scripture’s integrity lies, for me, in its honest portrayal of biblical characters. King David’s image gets cleaned up in Chronicles, but in 2 Samuel it’s hard to read about him, his vile actions, his immoral decisions, his rape of Bathsheba and not see him as simply despicable. I was assigned to write about 2 Samuel 1:1-15 for the “Living by the Word” column of The Christian Century. This is the passage where David rapes and impregnates Bathsheba then kills her husband to cover the whole thing up. After sitting with and struggling with this passage for many months, I wrote this post about honoring my relationship with scripture. Then, after living with David–the despicable king–for so long, I wrote this for The Christian Century.
[Feature Image: eleuki]
Teri McDowell Ott 