Did she seduce the king, or was she taken against her will?
… And what did God have to say about it all?
This series of Bible studies seeks to retell the stories of women who were divinely called and empowered to do great things. Many of them rose to the occasion, and a few very famously did not. Often, the tragedies and triumphs in their lives are missed, and their stories are told from perspectives other than with the honor and dignity they deserve.
After excavating their narratives from millennia of obfuscation, now meet the freshly restored, valiant, vivid (and sometimes villainous) women of the Bible.
Bathsheba, A Lamb in the Lineage
Old movie posters depict Bathsheba as luscious and young, a temptress, and the source of downfall for God’s anointed King David. So often, that is the way the story is told—David was taking a walk on the roof of his palace when he accidentally espies the lithe and deliciously nude Bathsheba bathing herself in full view, on the roof of her own home. We are given the impression that she knowingly entices the king with her glistening body and stands ready at the door for his servants to beckon her to the palace.
But is that how the Bible relates Bathsheba’s account? Is that what God’s word chronicles concerning David’s adultery in the taking of his good friend and loyal warrior’s wife? And even more so, is this a story also about Bathsheba, or is she merely a plot device in a story about David?
This thirty-page book includes the retelling of Bathsheba’s story, a fifteen-question Bible study, and link to a twenty-minute multi-media presentation of about the tragic story of a woman caught in the crosshairs of a king’s lust and sense of entitlement.
Lolita or Lamb?
Somewhere along the way, both women and men accepted the narrative that women are responsible for men’s sexual urgings. It is laid upon the woman to somehow shroud her womanhood while still appearing female so that men will not be aroused but also that men will still find women appealing. For once aroused, this myth maintains, men are helpless and what happens next is not their offense. They fell victim to the woman’s enticing appearance, or voice, or movement, or way. It is a small step further to assume that men’s sexual sins stem from women’s allurement. It is her fault.
Once we dispense with that false paradigm and reexamine Bathsheba’s story from God’s perspective (rather than man’s) as written in the scriptures, a very different story emerges.
Bathsheba is introduced as a righteous woman who carefully observed the Law of God. She was engaged in a required purity ritual of cleansing when her ablutions were interrupted by the knock of David’s messengers on her door. God’s assessment of Bathsheba is the most important information about her. According to God, she was young, innocent, and beloved. The relationship God described, through Nathan, of Uriah’s and Bathsheba’s marriage was one of mutual affection and care. Theirs was a love match, and they were intimately bonded to each other.
God’s anger was intensely focused on David alone. In all ways, Bathsheba was above reproach. David had forcibly ruptured Bathsheba’s marriage and violated her body. He had, through what we would call today sexual assault, impregnated her, a privilege that should have been hers and Uriah’s together. Her marriage to David came only after she was widowed and her only child had died, which had placed her in that terrifying liminal space of childless widow, with no claim to the land, a name, or a home.
Later in life, Bathsheba’s righteous character and godly wisdom were paired with the strength of her spirit and her political acumen. She became the most influential of all the women in David’s court, and came to reign over Israel beside her son Solomon.
Nearly forty free Bible studies on a woman in the scriptures are available through signing up to the newsletter below. What’s included:
- Access to all the Bible studies that have been made available so far.
- One new study each month.
- Early announcement of new books, published by the author.
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