Bathsheba's child

[Athetotheist]

In 2 Samuel 11, David gets Bathsheba pregnant and arranges her husband Uriah's death so he won't find out. In chapter 12 the prophet Nathan confronts David about what he has done and David repents. Nathan tells David that God has forgiven him, but then in verse 14 Nathan says this:

"However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also born to you shall surely die."

We are then told:

"And the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it became ill. David therefore pleaded with God for the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground......Then on the seventh day it came to pass that the child died" (vv. 15-16, 18).

Here is a story in which a king does something scandalous and the king's national deity can't come up with any better way to deal with it than to strike an innocent child with a slow, wasting death.

When Bible-based arguments fail, Bible apologists often fall back on asking, "If you don't believe the Bible, where do you get your morals?" How moral would they consider any religion in which any other god did the same thing, in the same way, for the same reason we read about here? In what non-biblical context would they find this story morally acceptable?

[SallyF]

When contemplating the rightness of one's religiosity or atheism, it's helpful to consider why the capital G "God" of the entire cosmos and beyond, would need a sordid little tale like this included in its "scriptures". Surely there are greater things to concern a creator of universes …?

Not a single soul EVER demonstrates that "God" had anything to do with these very local and very human dramas.

Given the complete absence of "God" in these tales, we are left with the juicy alternative of human politics.

We find that a number of these tales look (to certain of us) very much like ant-Davidian political slander.

The Davids somehow lost the throne.

We may reasonably suspect that the anti-Davidian slander was written by the folks who took over.

We may reasonably expect that faithful Davidians kept trying to reclaim the throne.

The Jesus character was from a pro-David faction …

And he was hailed by the angel Gabriel and the mob as "King of Israel".

Simple god-free human politics.

From which one is able to cherry-pick one's morality …

And believe/claim/pretend, in a VERY severe tone, one's cherry-picked morality is directly from "God".

Without a hint of evidence that "scripture" is anything more than human political propaganda.

[ttruscott]

Here is a story in which a king does something scandalous and the king's national deity can't come up with any better way to deal with it than to strike an innocent child with a slow, wasting death.

Your conclusion is wrongly decided because you take your own opinion of one verse while ignoring the theology of the Bible as a whole...if you even know it.

Since Ezekiel 18:20 The one who sins is the one who will die... with other verses like Jeremiah 31:30 Instead, each will die for his own iniquity. tells us that the child suffered and died for his own sins and NOT David's sin suggesting that GOD uses personal relationships between sinners to emphasize the painfulness of sin to open the heart of sinners to repentance.

HE did not manipulate the death of the unnamed son except to give David a son who was predestined to die shortly after birth for his own sin at a time when David could get the most out of the lesson.

[Athetotheist]

Here is a story in which a king does something scandalous and the king's national deity can't come up with any better way to deal with it than to strike an innocent child with a slow, wasting death.

Your conclusion is wrongly decided because you take your own opinion of one verse while ignoring the theology of the Bible as a whole...if you even know it.

Since Ezekiel 18:20 The one who sins is the one who will die... with other verses like Jeremiah 31:30 Instead, each will die for his own iniquity. tells us that the child suffered and died for his own sins and NOT David's sin suggesting that GOD uses personal relationships between sinners to emphasize the painfulness of sin to open the heart of sinners to repentance.

HE did not manipulate the death of the unnamed son except to give David a son who was predestined to die shortly after birth for his own sin at a time when David could get the most out of the lesson.

"However, because by this deed YOU have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme...."

This tells us that the child suffered and died for David's sin, not for his own.

I don't ignore the theology of the Bible as a whole; I see that this story *conflicts* with the theology of the Bible as a whole.

[Peds nurse]

[Replying to post 1 by Athetotheist]

Hello Athetotheist! Hope you are just wonderful!

Children are near and dear to my heart, so when reading this in the Bible, I had a hard time, and I am a Christian. I cannot imagine the difficulty in which those who don't believe have with this passage.

All I can say, is that I have no answers, only faith that God has reasons beyond my ability to understand. Nothing good comes from sin, only death. I have many questions for God when I see Him.

best wishes for a good evening or whatever time of the day it is for you!

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Peds nurse]Having faith in God is one thing; having faith in a story like this is another.

Accepting a story like this as a description of the "one true God" hardly leaves one room to condemn anyone else's concepts of deity. If a god like this is true, what kind of god can you call false, and on what basis? Doesn't it make more sense to assume that God, for lack of a better word, is so far beyond human capacity to describe that no story like this could possibly do God justice?

Many gods in many myths are depicted as displaying this very human-like behavior. If you question all of those gods in this life, why would you wait until you pass beyond this life to question the one in this story for behaving in the same way? Isn't it better to seek the "God beyond God", which is to say the God beyond all human concepts of God, than to assume that any such depiction of God as this could be accurate?

[Athetotheist]

Without a hint of evidence that "scripture" is anything more than human political propaganda.

My hypothesis is that if David's tryst with Bathsheba actually took place and resulted in a pregnancy, it's more likely that someone in the royal household knew of the child's illegitimate birth and, not wanting such a child in the line of succession, poisoned him.

[SallyF]

Without a hint of evidence that "scripture" is anything more than human political propaganda.

My hypothesis is that if David's tryst with Bathsheba actually took place and resulted in a pregnancy, it's more likely that someone in the royal household knew of the child's illegitimate birth and, not wanting such a child in the line of succession, poisoned him.

Reasonable hypothesis …!

When one is not hobbled by belief, one can often discern very human politics between the lines

And very, very human "morality"

And the human capacity for imaginatively fabricating tales about gods

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 3 by ttruscott]

..... tells us that the child suffered and died for his own sins and NOT David's sin suggesting that GOD uses personal relationships between sinners to emphasize the painfulness of sin to open the heart of sinners to repentance.

Would you please enlighten us on the sins an infant is likely to have committed. As for killing babies to open hearts, I think you would find that the outcome is quite the opposite. It always amazes me how God's brutality can be so easily swept under the rug.

[amortalman]

[Replying to post 1 by Athetotheist]

Hello Athetotheist! Hope you are just wonderful!

Children are near and dear to my heart, so when reading this in the Bible, I had a hard time, and I am a Christian. I cannot imagine the difficulty in which those who don't believe have with this passage.

All I can say, is that I have no answers, only faith that God has reasons beyond my ability to understand. Nothing good comes from sin, only death. I have many questions for God when I see Him.

best wishes for a good evening or whatever time of the day it is for you!

Greetings! This story touches only a small portion of a much larger, and frightening, reality (for those who believe in God).

First of all, "those who don't believe," have no problem with this story, recognizing it as fiction.

I think your own difficulty with this story comes from your true love and concern for innocent children and your sense of morality and justice. Furthermore, this story doesn't square with other teachings from "God's word" that each person will pay for his or her own sins, not someone else's sin. Yet, little David Jr. suffers and dies for the sins of his daddy.

It seems that no matter what pain, hardships, and brutality God inflicts on those he supposedly created in his own image, believers will accept it under the banner of "He has his reasons that we cannot understand." I think there is a basic danger to that kind of metality. It imprisons the mind.

Your comment that 'nothing good comes from sin, only death" suggests that there is nothing good about illigetimate children. I don't believe for a minute that you believe that, but well-meaning Christians when trying to defend the actions of a tyrannical god often say puzzleing things.

The large, frightening, reality for Christians is this: This story is by no means an isolated incident whereby God did what appears to be a horrible thing to a child for some extrodinary reason. No, it goes much deeper than that. Throughout history babies and children have been the victims of horrific acts at the hands of cruel and sick people and by acts of nature and accidental injury and death. The point I'm getting at is that the Bible clearly teaches that God is in control of everything and that includes the good and the bad. He stands by and permits the suffering of children who are tormented by disease, sexual and emotional abuse, et al. Why is that? It seems preposterous to dismiss it as "God has his reasons that I cannot understand." When I was a Christian and thought on these things I bit my tongue to keep from showing my anger at god for allowing such things. I dared not show my anger or question God because, after all, he is God, right? He can do all manner of things that offend our sense of morality and we are obliged to take it. Nonsense.

The only way one can make sense to all the pain in the world is to accept the reality that the God of the Bible does not exist. It's a very liberating idea.

Have a nice day.