I guess they missed this one in seminary:

[_Imwashingmypirate]

What about the twelve tribes being seperated. The woman being them all as one. And after being corrupt she is split into 12 pieces. She being the tribes as a whole, but then one ought to ask what were the tribes?

[_huckelberry]

I suppose there is some habits of trying to find exemplary role models and nice moral lessons in the material in the Bible. My memory of Mormon interpretation is that it has no sense of the tragic and insteads seeks uplifting messages. Mormons are not all alone in this sort of interpretation. However it was rather clearly not shared by the people who wrote the Bible. Insead there is an interest in the tragic dimension of life cause by human propensity to bad action.

Judges must be one of the least prettied up collection of this is what happened stories in the Bible. To look for role models is to miss the point entirely. But that is a more understandable to my mind than trying to allogorize some pretty message out of a nasty human event.

It was a nasty event

It was a nasty event

It was a nasty event. That is its hidden meaning.

[_Imwashingmypirate]

What version of the Bible are you reading Styleguy?

[_Roger Morrison]

We could use this, and other like stories, to illustrate the advance humanity has made over the centuries. These dastardly deeds are all too true of our ancestors. We also mustn't lose sight, and memory of WWII, Rwanda and the Tribalism/Nationalism that spawns such inhumanity, in whatever scale it is seen, and by whom and what perpretates the suffering for THEIR reason and purpose...

The recent 'Topic' quoting Spong is quite relevant. Check it out... Warm regards to all, Roger

[_karl61]

What version of the Bible are you reading Styleguy?

It's the NAB: New American Bible - it's a Catholic Bible with apocrypha - it's real cool as you just go through the pages like a novel. I have my suspicions about why the LDS church keeps the King James version: it has to do with keeping people ignorant.

[_John Larsen]

What version of the Bible are you reading Styleguy?

It's the NAB: New American Bible - it's a Catholic Bible with apocrypha - it's real cool as you just go through the pages like a novel. I have my suspicions about why the LDS church keeps the King James version: it has to do with keeping people ignorant.

I agree. Things don't seem so raunchy when they are written in euphemistic high middle English.

[_karl61]

Now I'm past the part where Saul dies - two different stories on how he died I see. Now David captures the ark, God doesn't like one of the ones carrying the ark and strikes him down - no reason given - david says take the ark some place beside my home - the ark goes to another place and the people get blessed. David hears about it and goes and gets the ark and comes into the city dancing. Sauls daughter (david's wife) makes fun of him and his made barren until death.

Now David is basically wiping out all his neighbors - north, south, east and west and God is on his side - This is less believable than the Book of Mormon stories. There are stores in second samuel that are just like the Book of Mormon with capturing forty thousand enemy soliders and one thousand chariots - It funny as I don't see people digging up all those chariots - Has anyone checked the Red Sea for chariots.

[_Moniker]

Oh my goodness. I don't even know what to say -- yet, I'm replying.

That's so barbaric. They didn't share this story when I was zoning out at the Methodist Church. Or if they did I was so zoned out in lala land I didn't catch it.

[_Jersey Girl]

Now I'm past the part where Saul dies - two different stories on how he died I see. Now David captures the ark, God doesn't like one of the ones carrying the ark and strikes him down - no reason given - david says take the ark some place beside my home - the ark goes to another place and the people get blessed. David hears about it and goes and gets the ark and comes into the city dancing. Sauls daughter (david's wife) makes fun of him and his made barren until death.

Now David is basically wiping out all his neighbors - north, south, east and west and God is on his side - This is less believable than the Book of Mormon stories. There are stores in second samuel that are just like the Book of Mormon with capturing forty thousand enemy soliders and one thousand chariots - It funny as I don't see people digging up all those chariots - Has anyone checked the Red Sea for chariots.

Yes, Gaz posted about this in the Celestial Forum.

[_huckelberry]

Thousands? chariots?

Who can believe it?

I suspect the numbers may not be entirely reliable. But these peoples certianly existed. Chariots existed in that time and area. That these people existed and fought seriously for control of that area is quite historical. The Philitines were real invaders that came in boats, tried to invade Egypt but were repulsed. They had much more success in Isreal. People fought for their lives. It is a cold hart which can come up with no sympathy for Isreals struggle to survive.

Perhaps later story telling inflated Davids military success but the political entity that he established is historical. It is true that direcet evidence of David himself is pretty much limited to the Bible. The kingdom though divided figures in the historical comments of outsiders. It is real history as real as the day as long. Clearly significant unifying military success happened at the time of David. That is no fictiion.

The idea that polical unities capable of living under a rule of law were formed at the price of brutal fighting is not just some fiction of the Bible. It is the pattern found all over the world. It is our history, our reality, whether we are too squeemish to look at it or not.