"I am Catholic, hear me roar" Part 2

So, I left off after talking about Leviticus yesterday. Today, we're still in the Old Testament but I'm sticking to one story...the story of King David. (And I'm sticking with the KJV, in case anyone was wondering.)

To start with though, I have a passage for you...Genesis 2:24-25:

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

To clarify what's going on here for anyone who might not understand, this is marriage. According to the Bible, the covenant of marriage is the union of two beings into one. The husband moves out of his family's house and moves in with the bride's family. And then there's nudity.

Keep all of that in mind as we move into 1 Samuel.
Now, I'm going to point out something most people don't notice. That description of marriage is described again elsewhere in the Bible (or it seems that way). 1 Samuel 18:1-4:

"And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle."

So, basically what happens here? David and Jonathon meet. Their souls are unified into one. David starts living at Saul's house -- Saul being Jonathon's father. And then Jonathon takes off all of his clothes. It's very much like Genesis 2:24-25. I highly doubt that's a coincidence.

Especially when you consider that Saul states later in the same chapter that David is his son-in-law twice. You see, Saul tries to get David to marry his eldest daughter and that whole thing falls apart. Then Saul's younger daughter wants to marry David and Saul says (1 Samuel 18:21):

"And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain."

Now you're all like "Where is Graham going with this?"
Well, that one gave me some problems too (although some other versions have Saul saying "you shall be my son in law a second time" which works better. :-P) But I happened to stumble upon this one time at Religious Tolerance and they have a pretty good explanation:

"Twain" means "two", so the verse seems to refer to one of Saul's two daughters. Unfortunately, this is a mistranslation. The underlined phrase "the one of" does not exist in the Hebrew original. The words are shown in italics in the King James Version; this is an admission by the translators that they made the words up. Thus, if the KJV translators had been truly honest, they would have written:

"Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law, in the twain."

In modern English, this might be written: "Today, you are son-in-law with two of my children" That would refer to both his son Jonathan and his daughter Michal. The Hebrew original would appear to recognize David and Jonathan's homosexual relationship as equivalent to David and Michal's heterosexual marriage. Saul may have approved or disapproved of the same-sex relationship; but at least he appears to have recognized it. The KJV highlight their re-writing of the Hebrew original by placing the three words in italics; the NIV translation is clearly deceptive.

So it appears that this is one of those places where the KJV translaters flubbed it up big time.

I'm not done with David yet though. In 1 Samuel 19:1-2 we discover that Jonathon loves David more than his own father -- pretty hefty stuff, especially in such a "respect your elders" culture.

"And Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan Saul's son delighted much in David: and Jonathan told David, saying, Saul my father seeketh to kill thee: now therefore, I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning, and abide in a secret place, and hide thyself:"

Now I'm just speculating here, but such a betrayal of one's father (especially when one's father is bloodthirsty) is pretty heavy. You'd have to be in love or be the absolute best of best friends with the person to warn them about their impending death. Just sayin'.

To support that whole "love" idea, enter 1 Samuel 20:41:

"And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of a place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times: and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded."

This is after a whole chapter's worth of them both trying to make sure the other one is safe. It's all very sweet. And now they're making out. No, they're not making a quick kiss goodbye. They kissed and wept until David exceeded -- that's more than one kiss.
Also, and I haven't found this confirmed anywhere so take it with about two pounds of salt, I've heard that the word used in the original Hebrew for "exceed" can also mean "swell". Now if that's true, there's really only one thing that could have "swelled" and there's really only one reason for it.

Now, we don't hear much else about this romance until 2 Samuel 1:26, where David is singing a lament after he hears of Saul and Jonathon's deaths. He says the following of Jonathon:

"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."

There's two things that could be going on here. Either David's comparing friendship love with romantic love, which is kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison because women couldn't be "just friends" with men in that culture. Either that or David is talking about a romantic or sexual love, and saying it was better than the same type of love with women. That makes a whole lot more sense to me.

So, King David...hero of the Bible, slayer of Goliath, ancestor of Jesus. He was homofabulous.

Part 3 is coming tomorrow!