Thoughts on Ahithophel the Gilonite of 2Sam 15:12 ??

I'm still undecided about the "rape issue" with David and Bathsheba but there is certainly more to the story than adultry and murder nor am I convinced "rape" can at all be ruled out.[Jimur

Its very fashionable these days to apply modern psychology and political perceptions to biblical men and women. Personally when I read this post about David raping Bathsheba I was grieved. Hence this response in defence of King David, who’s throne Christ will inherit.

Having read the account of David asking for and then “taking” Bathsheba very carefully I agree that David clearly did exercise an authoritative influence in enquiring after Uriah’s wife. He also send for her and “lay” with her.

“David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. 2 Samuel 11:4.

In this verse the “taking” is having authority to send for someone, as one in authority. In this instance it was with a mind to lay with another mans wife which is adultery. But the taking is not rape it is sending for “as a king”. It denotes authority and therefore influence, but this is not rape either. The intention is adultery and the actual description of the act is “he lay with her”. As the term took her" is clearly separated from "and lay with her" we would do well to leave their meaning separate as well.

All of this proceeded an encounter in which Bathsheba bathed in complete view of the Kings terrace, at night when the only possible visibility could be inward. Does any woman ordinarily bath in their chamber in the night in full view of someones terrace? To do it in eyeshot of the Kings terrace could hardly have escaped Bathsheba’ understanding. The account does not mention David raping Bathsheba, claiming otherwise amounts to saying that Bathsheba had no power to say no! Can that really be true? All “natural” men with authority comprehend that expressed desire of a woman physically, in the first instance is a provocation of flattery to a “natural” woman, unless she is restrained by decency and a fear of God. Yet there is nothing sinful in desire of itself. It is, as with all good things given by God, a matter of self restraint and lawfulness before God whether to deny such a desire or else to obey it. Authority to send for and the subsequent effect of seduction by reason of physical admiration does not amount to rape. It is either lawful union by reason of intentional marriage or it is fornication by reason of itself with no intention of permanency, or else it is adultery, being an intention as well as a taking of another mans wife. No doubt in feminist literature it does amount to rape, but in the real world of sexual desire and ambition it is not rape, it is straight forward lust and fleshy conquest.

It was said that, “A king gets what he wants when he wants and how he wants and woe on you if stand in his way - this is the way kings think and operate.” This is how men often think and operate let alone kings. The difference may be that when some men covet that which is openly presented to them in the visibility of an internally lit room at night,, they do in fact go after it with violence and therein do they rape. Some men comprehend easily that what is “seen” forms a basis for agreement if it amounts to a presentation, and in that, “actus reus” is proven out of “mens rea” as these things are defined in law. In short if rape is defined by action and as David having reasonable reason to believe that Bathsheba was either too young to understand her own actions of bathing in the visibility of the King, or was by reason of her state of mind incapable of saying “no” then David raped Bathsheba at the point at which he acted against her both in his intention of sending for her (mens rea) and in his laying with her (actus reus). There is no country in the world even today which would convict David of rape because Bathsheba is a capable and intelligent woman and does not herself claim it. Given that we have a great length of David’ life from this point on even up to his death to make a judgement as to their continued relationship its not unreasonable to believe that they he had a respectful and balanced relationship. As I said it is a feminist perspective which is formed with only one consideration in mind, “all men are rapists” if it is claimed or else shown that the women herself does not initiate, facilitate and determine her sexual conduct and the functions of her own body. In this extreme definition women have learned to rape men. What madness.

Read 2 Samuel chapter thirteen which gives some interesting light on both David’ attitude to rape and the real meaning of what rape is.

Although it would all seem based as you say on modern psychology and political perceptions as well as reading between the lines. Personally, I am no more grieved by the suggestion of rape than by an act of adultery and murder. Perhaps that stems from a male's obvious lack of feminine perspective. Jimur.

I agree that most of what could be said about this account of David and Bathsheba could be said to be speculative. When thoughts are “meditative” however, and thereby limited to what is known, either by form of words or else clear revelation and intra-biblical interpretation then it is possible to arrive at a fuller understanding without speculating at all. (Psalm 119:99). What is really dangerous however, is to have a teleological view of scriptures. There has been a great deal of effort over the course of the last two decades to uncover the cultural traditions of the ancient world, especially Israel in an attempt to contextualise events and happenings so that we can “learn”. Nothing has occupied the church more than the question of male and female relationships and roles in the church as well as society. And nothing more fully expresses the sentiments of this enquiry than the word “sexist”.

Well if we take the word sexist and analyse its meaning for example we will find that it equates in meaning to a fundamental conflict by the man against the woman, in which the woman has been the undoubted looser. Similar to Marx’ conflict theory of labour, the principle theory of sexism is a conflict theory of the male against the female. Both these theories have at their heart a reality which is evident in life, but there real power lies in the fall of mankind into sin. Eve was clearly emotionally changed by her experience of being deceived in the garden (Genesis 3:13-16), whereas Adam was not changed emotionally, but was thereafter in conflict with the earth itself (Genesis 3:17-19). History of the church has almost universally taught that the male and the female are themselves in conflict and so feminism has its power from this idea outworked in the reality of societies and the way women are treated by men, and informed by the direct words of God spoken in the garden itself. The one, that of God’ pronouncements, underlies the outworking, that of “how men treat women”, and the other, the injustice of labouring for another man, i.e. how men must work in order to eat in conflict with the man who wants to “profit from other men’ need to labour”. The two ways which the world has in finality answered this constraining reality of God, is feminism and socialism. To remedy this injustice naturally speaking is to simply claim that men and women are in fact the same creature, gender neutral. This is socialism as it is actually taught theoretically and historically, but it is also feminism. It is also fuelled by a view of the “protagonist male” and evidenced by the “caring female”.

The best thing men can do in this circumstance is to learn to love their wives soundly and reasonably and to provide for their families with gratitude.

If we take biblical men and women and explain them in this “modern” way we will end up with no true context for understanding God ways or how he deals with men. How for example, that David is not accused of rape by taking advantage of Bathsheba in the scripture. Or How Nathan’ picture of it involved a ewe lamb being loved like a daughter (2 Samuel 12:3). To the feminist this sounds like a description of a pervert, neglecting that the injured party in this account is not presented as Bathsheba at all, but Uriah (2 Samuel 12:4). To David it sounded like an injustice worthy of death. Which would be the more severe reaction. The one of the feminist would be not only misleading, but would end up accusing the wrong man. David on the other hand would have the right man make fourfold restitution. If we apply a teleological methodology to interpreting scripture we will never understand the justice of God.

In fact if the truth is told, by practising these ideas of feminism and socialism we are headed towards Satan’ real ambition which is homosexuality not as a coequal union, comparable with marriage, but a homosexual mind of governance throughout society. This full and most blasphemous presentation of homosexuality is not a male to male or female to female attraction, but a male to female to male, and a female to male to female to self attraction. It ought to be noted that the whole city came out to Lot’ house, both male and female to participate in what was intended (Genesis 19:4). In such a world of sexual degeneracy where the issue is not male or female but unrestrained lust, both men and women are equal parties yet as far as the women were concerned they are not openly identified nor do they have the lead.

Homosexuality is not a gender spirit it is a satanic spirit of lust.

Another instance of this issue of unrestrained homosexuality can be seen in the tribe of Benjamin where a Levite as a guest at another man’ house was himself the first object of this spirit of lust in two men, yet these two men are said, as in Lot’ day, to have “surrounded” the house. In the end the poor concubine of the Levite was thrust by her husband into their menace as a compulsion to preserve the priest and the sanctity of the sacrifice which he represented. The poor woman was raped to death, by men whose first intention was the flesh of other men. (Judges 19:22-27). In both instances virgin daughters were offered, a fact which ought to sober us indeed. If any of these men had been a homosexual after the manner of the lie which is presented today, then offering women rather than seeing priests or else angels raped, would not have been possible. We can live in the “mystery” of this age if we insist on it, and we can learn all the tricks of politics and equality. Or we can be separate in our thinking and learn the wisdom of God and how it was that He pressed humanity to the governance and gender distinct visibility every nation has comprehended until now. In the finality of this age it is being eroded and rejected. By that means is a more dreadful reality coming about.

Well Jimur that brings me to why I was grieved by the idea that David actually raped Bathsheba by simply demanding as a king and not asking as a man, having sent for her “as a king”.

From being a little child I was drawn into occult thinking. Most believers, indeed most people generally do not understand the difference between occult thinking and paganism, or new ageism, or witchcraft, or demonic activity or even what is generally called, direct Satanism. All of these things exists and they come in almost numberless varieties of expressions. All of them in some way or other reveal the mind of Satan in their outworking, yet occult thinking is in reality none of them. In fact of all of these things occult thinking is by far the most insidious and dangerous mind for a man or woman to have.

At its heart occult thinking is now finding its fullest outworking in an emergent theology amongst God’ very elect. At the heart of this emergent theology lies a rational and undeniable reality which is so seductive that it makes of its adherents a tangible realisation of god like understanding and ambitions which resists rebuke because at the heart of it lies the natural hearts and minds of men and women and has little if anything to do with demonic activity as was historically understood even thirty years ago. There are many ancient threads of understanding which inform this mind including philosophy, mathematics, astrology, immanent reason as well as transcendental reason. The most rational and ordered presentation of these things comes to us through the writings of ancient greek philosophers, but ironically have their most orderly roots in the oratory traditions of Pythagorus. Plato is often cited as a father of intellect and reason, through his writings, but Plato himself was grounded and rooted in the orations of Pythagorus. Yet long before the rational adept Pythagorus, we have Assyria and Babylon, Chaldea as well as other nations and political systems, and before these we have individual men and before men we have Satan and his ambitions.

The occult therefore whilst it takes on many outward and visible inclinations of men and demons, it is most “perfectly” expressed both at the dawn of time, when the promise of Satan came “ye shall be as God” and is once again being so expressed as to make of it in finality no mere promise, but a reality of behaviour and societal outworking. It ought to be remembered that the reason why God confused the languages of men in Genesis was because “there will be no limit to what man shall do”. Today in the bursting open of the hidden world of quantum knowledge and otherwise hidden material science, men are once again on the threshold of acknowledging the reality of God by reason, yet not according to God Himself, but despite Him. This was Nimrod, it was all of the ancient world, including the western philosophers, and it is today become an eclectic reality in an emergent apostate church which despite all of its seeming intelligence still craves that “mystical” union with God, despising the mystery of Christ Himself Who is already revealed in the hearts of those who truly love Him. In order to “prove” this occult mystery of Satan and men, increasing numbers of evangelical believers are being drawn into self and the dominion of the soul, whilst slowly yielding up the true knowledge of God which can only be comprehended by the new man in Christ, expressed in the renewing of the mind.

There are many more threads to this agreement made in Eden innocently by our forefather Adam, but the essentials are become so visible that it is now possible to put a name to the men and women who are the head of it and most reflect its outworking in the apostate church. As regards to how it is possible therefore to claim that David raped Bathsheba and why this is a grievous thing to claim we need look no further than the man Pythagorus and his contemplative religious thinking, mixed with a natural desire to comprehend the material world and to uncover the evidence of God’ hand in the Kosmos, both immanent and transcendental. Yet not with a view to knowing or indeed even believing in “one true God”, but in order to discover the god that is the man of the promise “ye shall be as God”.

Psychology more perfectly represents the ordinary man’ portion, along with socialism and feminism, being a more palatable and accessible reality, yet which of itself leads even many christians to believe they have acquired some deep knowledge. Psychology, socialism and feminism are just the poisonous sweets given to children by a cruel and wicked father of rebellion. In eating them they produce a mind which asserts that all the restraints which God saw fit in His mercy to put into place in order to keep men from their own evil, are removed slowly and insidiously until the man is suddenly left naked once again yet not ashamed. Moreover, because the cry has gone up “I am clothed in Christ”, by some who though they ought to be hated by the world, are rather loved by the world, even the world itself is learning from the church how to rebel with more reference to God Himself than one would have thought possible. In so desiring the affection of the world, we the saints have taught the world that there is no shame in nakedness, little realising that whilst we are clothed in Christ, they are not, and are learning to take pride in their condition once again as they did in the days of old when the whole earth was filled with blasphemy and perversity. When the most noble societies were held together not by reason alone, but by slavery and cruelty and contempt for True God. Where man himself is the object

As to how this answers why I was grieved I will leave that to your own understanding.

The periodic time line of Philosophy of the western world is very clear and fits perfectly with both the ancient apostate church as well as emergent church theology.

*Pre-Socratic Philosophy, including mythology, the Pythagoreans and Parmenides
*The Great Century of Athens, including the Sophists and Socrates
*Plato, including The Republic, The Symposium and The Timaeus
*Aristotle, including The Physics, The Metaphysics and The Poetics
*Hellenistic Philosophy, including the Sceptics, the Stoics, the Epicureans and Cicero
*Late Antiquity, including Neoplatonism, Origen and St Augustine.

Whilst I was in prison in the early 1980’s Satan put many of these philosophies directly into my hands along with Empedocles and works of the known occult, as well as tools of divination along the lines of the Urim and Thummim as well as other works all of which drew together in my understanding a belief that it is lawful and necessary for every man to completely reject the cross, as I understood it as an unbeliever, and find “self”. This became for a short time the only true religion which amounts to no more than self realisation and the dominion of others. Precisely at the point in time, God revealed Himself and I found Christ. The years before this wonderful deliverance were the most dangerous time of my life and had I gone on in those things I would have undoubtably become a monster. Today believers fiddle at the edges of these things and don’t even realise the reality of where the things they put so much confidence in come from. Or why it took from mid 7th century BC to the mid 19th century AD for the fundamental changes in the thinking of men which has since produced in just 150 years more change in societies than in all the previous centuries put together. The link between science and self realisation, is almost rejected out of hand because science as an empirical endeavour is claimed to be spiritually neutral. Even a brief look at Pythagoras will put that claim to bed. The same can be said of psychology as well. They all have there roots in this one man whose aesthetic experiential life of living science were all geared to self realisation.

Pythagoras was a unique man in history for many reasons. He wrote almost nothing down. He established a monastic style school of learning, which included not just three years of learning, by listening, but after having learned to listen and being allowed to ask childish questions, was followed by five years of silence where the student was not allowed to speak at all. It included almost every branch of foundational science which we know today as well as almost every fundamental perception and dichotomy of the psyche (soul) which still informs our understanding today as well as the most insidious ambition of pantheism, that of the self realisation of the individual. In this sense even the god’s give way to the man who may join them if he is able. Long before Pythagoras began his oratory discourse of learning, which he termed logos, and which literally meant the communication by speech of the state of godhood, he studied in Egypt under the priests of that place for twenty three years and travelled to other places learning the ancient ways of knowledge which were practised, as well, by the Chaldeans. All of this information can be found in The Biographies of Pythagoras which belong to a very early date not long after his death.

In contrast to this complex and somewhat unattainable quest for knowledge, God has given us the Law and the Prophets by Israel and in finality Christ Himself the true Logos of God, by which we are able to share in the divine nature of God by possessing His life through Christ Himself. In view of this profound reality the efforts of all men everywhere and at all times are but chaff. Yet today the church itself is once more presenting a view of understanding which makes reference to and upholds Platonic pythagorean philosophy, which includes in its parts, psychological enquiry and reason, as well science and mysticism; yes and all of its sons and daughters as well. If by asking a question concerning the grand father of Bathsheba we end up answering it by reason of a man’s offence, not only is this speculative but it is actually dangerous because his actions were essentially rebellious and drew aside even a son of the king in its effect. Rebellion cannot be understood through reason or else it will be sided with and excused. If we press that way of thinking too far we will end up reasoning with the most rebellious spirit to have ever lived, even Satan. Then we will find that we are also drawn aside and ought not to be surprised if we ourselves are found in rebellion also.

My apologies for the length of this post. I will line myself up against the wall to be shot immediately.