Did David rape Bathsheba?

Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar molested Rachael Denhollander when she was a young gymnast.  According to her bio on her website, Rachael was “the first woman to file a police report and speak publicly against USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, one of the most prolific sexual abusers in recorded history. As a result of her activism, over 250 women came forward as survivors of Nassar’s abuse, leading to his life imprisonment.” She also used her victim impact testimony at Nassar’s trial to present the gospel. That background gave her the platform as an author and speaker. Denhollander recently spoke at “Caring Well” Conference by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. During that time, Denhollander sent out a “tweet” that has set the SBC astir. She tweeted, “David raped. It’s important we get that right.” It is important that we get that right, but she got it wrong. Rachael Denhollander should get all the credit she deserves for all the good she has done. That credit does not make a theologian whose word must be accepted just because she says so.

This idea that David raped Bathsheba is not new, but has gathered steam in the current climate of sexual ethics in our country. Paul Carter answered the question in the affirmative Did King David Rape Bathsheba?, on a Gospel Coalition posting in April 2018. Two years earlier, this position was posited by Hilary Lipka, an instructor in the Religious Studies Department at the University of New Mexico, in David and Bathsheba: Affair or Rape? In 2006 Adventist theologian Richard M. Davidson, in Did King David Rape Bathsheba? A Case Study in Narrative Theology, declared “that Bathsheba was a victim of ‘power rape’ on the part of David.”[i]  I am not sure how much earlier this idea was in vogue.

The event in brief is that the king stayed in the capital city while sending his soldiers to war. One evening David was walking upon his rooftop. From his vantage point, he saw a woman washing herself. David noted how beautiful she was and inquired concerning her. The woman was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Uriah was one of David’s mighty soldiers (2 Samuel 11:3).[ii] That should have ended the matter. However, even knowing the woman in question was married, David summoned her to the palace. They had sexual relations. The account can be read in 2 Samuel 11:1-5.

Did David rape Bathsheba? I suppose if we define rape in modern terms (as Davidson did with “power rape”) and apply that to the situation, we could answer in the affirmative. However, is that a biblical approach? Is it the right historical approach? Is it even an honest approach?

Just last week Denny Burk called attention to a theological article written by Alexander Abasili, titled Was it Rape? The David and Bathsheba Pericope Re-examined.[iii] Rather than apply our modern standards to the situation, Abasili interprets the text in light of the Mosaic biblical definition of rape – an approach that is not unknown to other Bible students and certainly proper one – but often overlooked in the desire to defend a modern conclusion. The passage that expounds the Old Testament legal definition of rape is Deuteronomy 22:23-27. Abasili explains it this way:

In the Hebrew bible, however, the concept of rape, without excluding psychological or social or political or emotional domination, of necessity includes the use of physical force/violence in compelling a woman to nonconsensual sexual intercourse.

For the interpretation of the text, it does not matter what are the 21st century standards of rape. By God’s standards under the law, which law David was under, the act was not rape. His sin was heinous, and resulted in sure, swift, and ongoing punishment. Nevertheless, when speaking of biblical events we should speak in biblical terms and not invoke presentism as the deciding factor.

In addition to the law of Deuteronomy 22:23-27, the Old Testament contains a number of places where rape is described or implied.[iv] The writers were not afraid to tell us in those cases, but did not tell us such in David’s case. There is no physical act of force described in the text. The language used does not express or imply it. To interpret the act as rape, in light of the story given by Nathan the prophet, in the end actually minimizes rape (Cf. 2 Samuel 12:1-10).[v] Further, while the bulk of the sin, responsibility, and even punishment fell on David, the death of their child punishes Bathsheba as well (2 Samuel 12:15-22).[vi]

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[i] Davidson defines “power rape” as an event “in which a person in a position of authority abuses that ‘power’ to victimize a subservient and vulnerable person sexually, whether or not the victim appears to give ‘consent’.”

[ii] She was also the daughter of another soldier, and granddaughter of David’s counselor, Ahithophel; cf. 2 Samuel 11:3 and 2 Samuel 23:34.

[iii] Vetus Testamentum 61, no. 1 (2011): 1–15.

[iv] For examples, Genesis 34:2, Judges 20:5, 2 Samuel 13:14, Isaiah 13:16.

[v] For example, “thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife” rather than “thou hast killed Uriah and raped his wife.”

[vi] While Bathsheba was wrong in not rejecting the David’s suit, David was the initiator and bears the greater responsibility. Bathsheba the seductress who set out to snare David must be imported into the reading. The text does not even say Bathsheba was naked. The word used – “wash” (Heb. rachats, v. 2) – is the same word used of Uriah washing his feet (11:8). A man certainly does not have to see a woman’s naked body to think she is beautiful (v. 2). In context, Bathsheba washed according to the law for purification (11:4), which was done in the evening.

And Art Briles

Intriguing read:
Feel free to hate Briles and Baylor, but make sure to do your homework on the subject

As critical as we [media] are to your community and a democracy, we can be a lazy judgmental pack of self-important blowhards...Crushing Briles and the school that recently hired him, Mount Vernon ISD, is an easy populist choice; it requires minimal effort, and it will generate rave reviews and big ratings.

I say this only because, with the exception of maybe two other people, no one has taken the time to know this sad tale more than I have.I have read all of it. I have talked to coaches. I have spoken to victims. I have talked to Baylor administrators. I have spoken at length to high-ranking members of the Baylor Board of Regents who backed Briles, fought for him to stay, but supported the decision to fire him. I spoke to Baylor student-athletes who were there when this all happened. I spoke to coaches in the athletic department who were there.

This is an indictment on a narrative that refuses to acknowledge but one reliable trope. The narrative is out of control because we are just too lazy to accept additional details or to do any original reporting.

In consuming the outrage at Mount Vernon’s decision, I see a consistent theme: There are no datelines on any of these reports from Waco. There have not been for years. Few people have bothered to interview anyone, or taken the time to read beyond a few paragraphs, or explore some of the allegations.

Baylor’s general counsel, Christopher Holmes, wrote... “We are unaware of any situation where you [Briles] personally had contact with anyone who directly reported to you being the victim of sexual assault or that you directly discouraged the victim of an alleged sexual assault from reporting to law enforcement or University officials. Nor are we aware of any situation where you played a student-athlete who had been found responsible for sexual assault.”

That essentially contradicts what Baylor officials deliberately leaked to The Wall Street Journal the previous year that selectively painted the football program under Briles as the problem while ignoring the larger issue, which was the university’s practices as they related to sexual assault claims.

Your job is serious business

On Tuesday, June 11th, I sent the following letter to Travis Clardy, Representative for District 11 (Cherokee, Nacogdoches, & Rusk Counties) in the Texas State House of Representatives.

Dear Representative Clardy,

This is a response to your reported comments in the Tuesday, June 11, 2019, Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel newspaper (“Clardy: 86th Legislature a success”). Within the overall upbeat report, you made this derogatory remark about the bathroom bill from the 2017 Legislative session: “We didn’t get sidetracked this time talking about a lot of stuff that nobody cared about.” You clearly had the bathroom bill in mind, since, according to the Sentinel, you followed that flippantly with “We didn’t spend time talking about bathrooms unless there was somebody visiting the capitol who said, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’”

As someone who has consistently supported you in the past, I take umbrage at your assessment that “nobody cared about” the bathroom bill. Perhaps you and your colleagues did not care. Perhaps many of your constituents do not care. Apparently, the Senate cared. Seemingly, the governor did as well. Other of your constituents care.

The bathroom bill is not one of my highest priorities. It can probably best be resolved, when practical, by those responsible providing public facilities for individual/single use so that gender will not matter. Yet it is not practical that this will be done anytime soon because for many it will be cost prohibitive. People who are truly confused about their gender likely present little threat in public restrooms. Nevertheless, accommodation for the so-called “transgender” provides cover for those who wish to enter deceptively into restrooms and dressing facilities of the opposite sex. Who can be sure in every case whether the bathroom visitor is transgender or simply up to no good? Someone should care! You should care.

I can easily live without your voting for a bathroom bill. (I suspect, though, that Speaker Straus did not allow a vote on the issue so none of you would be on record.) I cannot quite as easily live with your ambivalence toward the issue, which creates in me an ambivalence toward casting future votes for Travis Clardy for House of Representatives District 11.

Thanks for listening. Have a good day.

Shades of Gray

Alana Horowitz Stalin, Senior Editor of “Breaking News” at HuffPost, tell us Ted Cruz Defends Nominee Who Blamed Women For Sexual Assault. Quite the norm of typical partisan political journalism. No, Cruz did not promote blaming women for sexual assault.[i] The nominee[ii] did not blame women for sexual assault. Someone dug up an op-ed piece that Neomi Rao wrote about parties, drunkenness, and rape while a student at Yale. Rao did not retract or contradict what she wrote, though she said she regretted “any implication of blaming the victim” – because she was not “blaming the victim.” The nominee told a Senate Judiciary Committee that she was trying to make a common sense observation – “perhaps not in the most elegant way” – that excessive drinking can lead to risky and dangerous behaviour.[iii] That is a truism. Regardless of however “inelegantly” one might make that point, it should not be denied. “Any student that drinks to the point of getting drunk and losing control risks being a victim.” Advising the avoidance of risky behaviour that could help avoid problems is not “blaming the victim.” It is good advice that can be applied in any number of circumstances that have nothing to do with sexual assault. The perpetrator of any crime is always the one who is to blame for the crime. Rao clearly stated, “A man who rapes a drunk girl should be prosecuted.”

“Shades of Gray” is the piece Neomi Rao wrote for The Yale Herald, October 14, 1994. Click on the link; read and judge it for yourself rather than depending on select quotes by folks with an agenda unrelated to what Neomi Rao meant.

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[i] Cruz said, “I have two daughters. I certainly intend to give them the advice not to drink to excess. And it is unquestionably true that any student that drinks to the points of getting drunk and losing control risks being a victim, risks being vulnerable.”

[ii] Neomi Jehangir Rao, whom President Trump has nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

[iii] Unfortunately, common sense isn’t all that common. Mix that with partisan politics trying to get one over on the other side, and none are able to mean what they meant.