What I Learned From 1 Samuel

First of all, 1 Samuel is a book centered, almost solely, around the underdog. Almost every story and every character seems to exemplify this. Hannah, the underdog of Biblical women, is barren, yet God takes favor with her and she births the greatest priest of their time. I mentioned before that this is not the first time that God does this, this is like his hat trick, yet this sets the ball rolling for the remainder of the underdogs that show up. That would be Saul and David. Saul comes from the most tiny backwater tribe from the smallest clan of Israelites, yet he's chosen as the first king of Israel. Then there's David, who's just the ultimate underdog to beat all underdogs. Seriously, the story of David and Goliath is the result of some people sitting around and brainstorming about how they could write the underdog story to beat all underdog stories. "Ok so how about an Israelite soldier versus a really strong and burly philistine?"
"No fuck that, make the Philistine a nine foot tall giant."
"Oh word, I like that,"
"And the clincher, make the Israelite a six your old boy without a sword, bam."
"And done, fucking beat that shit Rocky."

I kinda feel like the underdog story begins and ends with David, and acts as a shining example of God's preference towards the little guy. God chooses barren women to produce his line, he chooses the youngest sons over the oldest sons to continue his line, ragtag groups of Israelite soldiers constantly defeated larger, more organized armies, a little kid defeated a fucking giant. The underdog wins, pure and simple, the underdog wins. This little idea is being placed subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) throughout the entire construct of the Bible, and there's no way this is an accident. Right from the gate Judaism was showing off just how different it was: their God favored the people that society at the time did not, their God was with the little guy. Does your god support the little guy? Then your god sucks, and this group of underdogs is going to fuck your shit up because of it. Seriously, it's like God was the Ralph Nader of his day (Wow, did I really just say that?). And therein lies the brilliance of this theology, we're all little guys, we're all underdogs, we all want to rail against the man, and luckily there's a God out there that wants to back us up. As mean as Old Testament God is, he has laws that protect the poor and the foreigners and the disabled (Re: underdogs), which may not sound like a big deal today, but at the time that was insanely progressive, especially considering that around 600 years later those douches in Sparta were throwing babies off cliffs if they even looked kinda puny. Like I said, the ancient Israelites were like Nader's Raiders.

"Let there be seat belts."

Ok I know what you're thinking: "Stop saying 'underdog' so much," well alright, I will for now, but this isn't over. Trust me, this wont be the last time it comes up. So in the meantime let's talk about Saul. I'm actually quite confused as to what we're supposed to take away from Saul. Is it that power corrupts? Hey here's that great king that we love on election day (wait ...) and in about a weeks time we already think he's a douche. Why does that sound so familiar? Are we supposed to dislike Saul? I ask because I don't, I really find Saul fascinating. He seems like a man that means well, but is caught up in a shit storm that's completely out of his control. I mean seriously, he might have made a couple of mistakes originally, I guess, but nothing that would warrant an attack by an evil spirit, at least not in my mind. I don't know about you, but I mostly feel sorry for Saul. The only truly evil things he does are after he's driven mad by God, and to me, you're pretty much fucked once you've got God plotting against you. Even if we discount the evil spirit thing, Saul has obviously gone off the deep end, and we can't exactly blame him for that, can we? It's not like insane people ask to be that way.

What actually bugs me though is that I get the sense that Saul was pretty much doomed from the beginning. God didn't like the idea of a mortal king, he predicted exactly how shitty he would be ... but then he goes and chooses one anyway. Seriously, did Saul actually do something to piss God off? Or was God just looking for something to be pissed off about? I have this sinking feeling that Saul was set up specifically to fail (which I've bitched about earlier), and if that's the case it makes Saul even more of an underdog than I originally realized. He was a mortal trying to stay afloat, trying to be the first ruler of Israel, all while God was orchestrating his failure. I love Saul because even though he's fighting against God himself, he still tries to thwart his inevitable failure. You may call this greed, that he should have passed the torch over to David when he lost God's favor, but by that time it was also a matter of getting God's favor back. He was convinced he could win back God's trust and Israel's love ... oh how wrong he was. Maybe if he hadn't been driven completely insane he could have managed it.

I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into this, giving him too much benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just a big dick from the start. I don't think so though, if he had actually done anything to deserve his fate I might be inclined to think so. It just seems like he gets the royal shaft for no reason, other than him not following God's rules exactly to every minuscule detail. Which okay, fine, smack on the wrists sure, probation, something to fit the crime. But being driven insane and written up like the villain of the story? Fuck man, that's kind of harsh. And I think that's one of my main problems with the Bible, that I can never really tell what the "bad" characters did wrong (Saul), and I have trouble telling exactly what it was that made the "good" heroic characters so damn special (I'm looking at you Samson). Oh sure I can read what these characters did wrong, I can point to the verse and say "Ah, yeah, Saul didn't burn everything up all at once like he was told," but that doesn't mean I understand why the fuck he's punished so brutally for it. But then Samson kills a group of dudes to steal their clothes to pay of a bet that he made in the first place, and I'm left scratching my head in complete confusion. No wait, I get it, it's subversive art: the villains are the heroes and the heroes are the villains, never mind it all makes sense now.

Ok so, quick question for you: Was David gay? Oh wow, that's not going to have a quick answer, let me tell you. Let me start this discussion with a general breakdown of the opposing sides of the argument. Let's call them Camp Gay and Camp Nay. Camp Gay believes that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers, which is mutually exclusive of the two ever actually having sex. This camp says, "We don't care if they had sex, they shared a passionate love, one much stronger than platonic friendship." Camp Nay believes that these two men were only platonic friends (they also believe the same thing about Sam and Frodo), which includes absolutely no hanky panky. Both sides have good evidence supporting their claims, and so lets go through some of these arguments, and I'll let you see what you make of it. Note that this wont be an exhaustive discussion, you could be a theologian that specializes in this very topic, people have written books on this shit, this is just to give you a nice little overview.

How did it take me this long to go there?

Even though I support gay rights and the like, it doesn't mean I automatically disagree with Camp Nay, in fact they make some good points, it's far more than "No fags in the Bible alright!" One thing they mention is that the Bible isn't explicit about their relationship. The Bible isn't scared about sex, trust me, when there's freaky-deaky sex the Bible will let you know all about it, and sometimes it will be fairly explicit. Examples of this include most of Genesis, Solomon's Song of Songs (Can't wait to get to that one), and hell even the story of David and Bathsheba from 2 Samuel (We'll get to this one soon enough). Camp Nay posits that if David and Jonathan slept together it would probably say so. To which Camp Gay counters by theorizing that since homosexual sex was punishable by death back then, that Jonathan and David would not have been public about it, they certainly wouldn't have written it explicitly in their diary. Also the authors of 1 Samuel wouldn't directly accuse David of this, even if they thought he was that into Jonathan, they'd probably use subtlety and innuendo to imply it. Just like they do today.

Ok so that's just about the sex itself, supposing they didn't actually sleep together what else do we have? Well there's also the fact that David was married to a number of women. That's right folks, did I forget to mention that? Whoops. In fact, David's first wife was one of Saul's daughters, actually making the king his father-in-law. Which is part of Camp Nay's argument, but seriously, it's not like marriage meant that much back then. And it's not like homosexuals have never had beards before. Marriage back then was really more of a status thing, a baby making politics thing, surely it would be easy to be super gay bones and still have a harem on standby for appearances. And this is basically what Camp Gay has to say about it as well. Also in 2 Samuel (Spoiler Alert), David sings, "I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me.Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women (2 Sam 1:26)." So there you go, he knew the love of women, so he wasn't so gay that he never saw a lady part, but he was apparently way more into Jonathan's love than anything boobs or vaginas did for him.

So what do I think, you may be wondering (Though you may not because it may be frighteningly easy to guess). I think David and Jonathan were indeed gay. I wont comment on whether or not I think they consummated their relationship because I think it's unnecessary, you can be in love without having sex so it's a moot point. And it's not just the evidence, the evidence on both sides is pretty good, but with something like this the only way one would be certain is if in verse 13 of chapter 22 it said "Btw, David was totally gay for Jonathan, the end." And since that doesn't happen, it's really anyone's guess. No, ultimately I think David and Jonathan are gay because it makes for a much better story, and I'm afraid that's where my loyalties lie. One of the greatest heroes of the Bible was homosexual, doesn't that just turn your world upside down? It also works on so many levels, on both sides of the argument. For instance, let's say you think homosexuality is wrong (You silly scamp), now David becomes a flawed hero. "Woah woah woah," you might be thinking, "That goes too far." To that I say, "Fuck you, it does not." Remember that Moses was a murderer. The first thing Moses ever does in the Bible, the first action he ever takes, is murder the shit out of someone. Moses is a flawed hero. Are you going to tell me that taking it up the butt from someone you love more than yourself is somehow worse than murdering someone? If that answer is "Yes," then you need to seriously reevaluate your life.

Now let's suppose you don't think homosexuality is wrong (Good on you), David is now an even greater hero. He now strikingly represents the gay community in our modern society, what better underdog is there these days (Okay I can think of a few more, still)? I feel that as gay members become more and more welcome in churches, and as they even become pastors (It's coming, you can't fight it), that this story will become even more prominent. That David's love for Jonathan will be used as a story to exemplify a healthy relationship, and that it's between two men will be no matter. Is David already the hero of the homosexual Christian? If not, it won't be long (And don't even pretend that there aren't gay Christians), it's a young handsome boy taking on a gigantic brutish asshole. How does that not exemplify the LGBT's struggle against the fundamentalist right?

Just the simple fact that I can ask "Was David gay?" as a serious question, and have an involved discussion about it, sets my mind at ease. That there are great points on both sides, that it can't be whisked away as easily as the fundamentalist assholes wish it could, that the Bible had such a possible game changer hidden in its pages, that is just the kind of thing that makes this Bible reading project rewarding. So what did I learn from 1 Samuel? David might have been gay, that's what, and what a wonderful thing to learn.