Would they be the director's cut?
Oh you're good Jethro! *chuckles*
WHy is King David Always held up as a great guy?
by zack 62 Replies latest jw friends
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Crumpet
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Mystla
You guys are SICK!! Just plain SICK!! I can't believe you would make a mockery of something so sacred!!
Ok, so I'm laughing my ass off.. but that's not the point!!!
Misty
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Jeffro
Yes, we're sick, unlike King David going around chasing after Philistines for their foreskins.
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nvrgnbk
If you'd like to read a more secular, irreverant, and "true story" account of David, read "God Knows" by Joseph Heller ( the same guy who wrote "Catch-22"). It's David's own telling of events of his life, from his death bed. Quite good, and Very Jewish!
Another good read on the topic is King David : a biography / by Steven L. McKenzie (2000) .
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wozadummy
Well David lost his son in death coz Jehovah wanted to punish David and he had too much blood on his hands to build the temple ......he's a hard god to understand is'nt he?
I could not understand how Jehovah thought he was good enough to rule his Kingdom and reject Saul who never came close to David's hateful selfish deciet!
And CRUMPET your looking ravishing in your new look!
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Threestars
Everyone knows Jehovah is a foreskin collector
What I want to know is--why did he make guys with them if he just wanted everyone to get theirs whacked off?
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found-my-way
Everyone knows Jehovah is a foreskin collector
What I want to know is--why did he make guys with them if he just wanted everyone to get theirs whacked off?That's what I want to know too! Aaannnd, if you take this line of thinking a bit further, (for argument's sake, let's assume that God does not exist) WHO was the first person to come up with the idea of cutting off a part of the most sensitive organ of his body? That's the sick part.
''I just got a revelation from god, he wants us to cut off that flap of skin that covers our.........''
''god wants us to do WHAT to our ......!??? You have got to be kidding me!''
''nope, he really wants us to. SOmething about us now being different than the surrounding nations. OK, here's a flint, sorry, nothing sharper dude, and here's a nice large boulder''....Whack!
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nvrgnbk
That's what I want to know too! Aaannnd, if you take this line of thinking a bit further, (for argument's sake, let's assume that God does not exist) WHO was the first person to come up with the idea of cutting off a part of the most sensitive organ of his body? That's the sick part.
Blood and/or flesh sacrifice is a common feature in the worship rituals of many ancient cultures. Perhaps circumcision could be considered a more "enlightened" approach to satisfying the bloodlust of the ancient tribal gods. Someone realized that the gods might be appeased even with a part of the body that one can reasonably function without. Better a little skin off the top than say a finger or a toe.
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Narkissos
Many David stories (and others, e.g. some of the Patriarch stories in Genesis) illustrate the very opposite of the Law -- as something paradoxically "beloved" (David's name) under the Law. A paradoxical rule of exception (Yhwh consistently choosing the younger, for instance), arbitrary, whimsical, tyrannical, but the very essence of "freedom" and "grace" too. The deity, or man, cannot be reduced to the Law. Christianity (especially Pauline) will draw a lot from this eulogy of "lawlessness" within the Law (in the broader sense).
As to the circumcision / foreskin issue, one principle which is useful to keep in mind when approaching the ancient mindset is pars pro toto -- a part representing or standing for the whole thing. As nvrgnbk points out, circumcision (which is widespread and does not originate in Israel) works just like that as a symbolical, cultural connection to the mysteries of sex, birth and death.
Otoh pars pro toto works the other way in the gruesome narrative about the Philistines: the ancient hearer of the story would not picture David carefully cutting out foreskins, but understand "foreskins" as a metonymy for genitals. Heaps of mutilated genitals is what the movie should picture...
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nvrgnbk
To add to Narkissos' thorough explanation of the origins and meanings of circumcision:
"Circumcision predates recorded human history, with depictions found in stone-agecave drawings and Ancient Egyptiantombs. [1] The origins of the practice are lost in antiquity. Theories include that circumcision is a form of ritual sacrifice or offering, a health precaution, a sign of submission to a deity, a rite of passage to adulthood, a mark of defeat or slavery, "
The above is from Wikipedia.