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It's somewhat puzzling that supposed theologians and Bible teachers are arguing about what sin David committed with Bathsheba. Not only is it a waste of time, it divides Christians into camps about things that really don't matter.
The Evangelical Dark Web makes a big to-do about feminist infiltration of liberal doctrine, which apparently includes the idea that David raped Bathsheba. So David took another man's wife, impregnated her, and sent the man out to a dangerous place to be killed. But for some reason it's important for us to know that David did not rape her. Hmm.
Is it possible to consider that David may have raped her without it invoking feminism? Certainly. The problem is that we try to ascertain the dynamics of a foreign culture from thousands of years ago according to our contemporary understanding. This is a mistake.
Let's look at the narrative and make note of a few points:
2Sa. 11:1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
It's a detail many miss. David was supposed to be away with his army, but he stayed home. This really is his first sin. David set himself up to neglect his kingly duties and have his attention go elsewhere. And indeed, elsewhere it went:
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
Notice that the text does not describe Bathsheba as bathing on the roof. David was on the roof and saw her. David acted on his lust and sent messengers to get her. "Get" is the Hebrew word laqach, which means to take, acquire, or seize. Whether or not she went willingly is beside the point. David was king and whatever he wanted he got. That's the reality. So he sent men to take her.
Bathsheba is often presented as a willing participant at best, or a temptress at worst. We don't know either of these things from the Bible, it's simply speculation. In fact, it's difficult to know her motives. We do know that she did not revile her husband. In fact, she probably loved him:
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.
Next, in chapter 12 we read about the prophet Nathan confronting David about his sin. Nathan makes an analogy:
2Sa. 12:4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took (laqach) the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
So David took what was not his, and even made sure that he covered up his evil deed by committing another evil deed:
9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took (laqach) his wife to be your own.
David did a grievous thing, so much so that judgment came down upon him and his household. This was no small thing he did:
2Sa. 12:11 “This is what the LORD says: `Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’“
For all that David did here, it seems foolish to argue about if he raped Bathsheba.
Lastly, we do not intend to defend McDowell. We are here simply to analyze the author's completely scriptureless presentation.
Now, McDowell is continuing his promotion of liberalism by entering into the “David and Bathsheba” debate whereby David is accused of rape because the Scripture is being read through the hermeneutical lens of feminism. Joining him for a recent podcast was Carmen Imes, a PHD who is “an Old Testament professor, writer, and biblical scholar at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.”
Within the realm of feminist interpretation (or reinterpretation), they inherently see David as an abuser of Bathsheba due to notions of power dynamics, rather than view Bathsheba as a willing participant wherein the text gives no indication of resistance. In light of MeToo, this interpretation has gained traction in an effort to absolve various women of their sins in cases like Steve Lawson, David Sills, and Johnny Hunt.
Imes begins by addressing 1 Samuel 13:14, where David is called “a man after His own heart” an idiom that affects how readers interpret David favorably in light of his various sins. There are not really any commentaries that label this phrase as an idiom. Lacking archeological evidence of ancient Hebrew or consistent usage of this phrase in Scripture, this opinion is likely conjecture.
But things go south early when 6 minutes in, Imes asserts that it was unclear whether David wanted Uriah to return in order to conceal his affair or whether he sought to boast of conquering his wife. Clearly the reason he conspired to murder Uriah and then marry Bathsheba afterward was an effort to conceal his sin and give the child a pretense of legitimacy. For what other reason does David encourage Uriah to sleep with his wife if not to cover his own sin? Apparently, it is unclear to Imes, but not to most biblical scholars throughout history. She talked about how there are three pages of questions regarding this story, even though this is perhaps one of the most detailed accounts of personal sin in Scripture. She asserts that people perceive to “fill in the gaps” which ends up being what she does in promoting the rape narrative. Overall, she describes this passage as a Rorschach test, which really reveals both her ineptitude and immaturity when dealing with the text.
Twenty minutes in, Imes concedes that she knows of no commentaries that described the sin as rape and that the reason for this changed because more women entered biblical studies:
Thirty years ago, there were really not very many women in biblical studies and the more we have women in the room having the conversation, the more we have a kind of sensitivity, like wait did she have an option of saying no to the King when he summoned her? Is she literally gonna say “no” when she’s being summoned and so there’s a greater recognition of the power differential. Not that everything can be explained away by power, but I think as a woman reading the text there’s a maybe a greater sensitivity to this issue from the other side than what we had in previous centuries.
This is the error of Standpoint Epistemology whereby one cannot know the correct interpretation of a verse unless there are viewpoints representative of all classes of people whether by race or in this case, gender. She is arguing that the presence of women in the room allows for this (false) truth to be seen.
The problem is not whether Bathsheba could resist the king’s summons, but whether she resisted the king’s sexual advances. McDowell and Imes discuss the ancient perception of consent which is a liberal standard of morality whereas the biblical standard regarding rape is force. She proceeds to say that Absalom “raped” David’s concubines, which is a consistent misread of rape where there is no evidence of resistance.
This is where at twenty-nine minutes in, she compares Bathsheba to an American slaveowner raping a slave. The use of American slavery inaccurately suggests that a master cannot have consensual sex with their slave because of the power dynamic, again relying on consent as a moral standard. Plenty of faithful heroes rejected the commands of their masters, including Joseph and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. The jeopardy against one’s life does not absolve one of sin.
When confronted over the use of the Hebrew for rape regarding Amnon, the supposed Old Testament scholar said:
I would see it more as the narrator’s laconic style there’s they’re being very careful to sort of hold things open because they want to draw us in so that we make our own assessment.
She proceeds to describe Nathan’s rebuke of David being a “gotcha” which is an unacademic description but predictable given how they both nuance every finite detail in the text. Generally, 1 and 2 Samuel are believed to be written after the split kingdom period due to the various geographic or political distinctions. The text is very much a reflection of the events long afterward. It is not some movie or novel attempting to draw the reader inwards with suspense or ambiguity but is the inspired word of God. Even from a stylistic analysis, Bathsheba is only named twice in 2 Samuel, all other times being called “the wife of Uriah” to emphasize the sin against Uriah. Unlike Matthew Henry or John MacArthur, neither Biola professor appears to understand the unambiguous criticism of David remaining behind in Jerusalem during the war, so it is not just the “rape question” where they nuance the text.
Throughout the conversation, McDowell is asking questions based on the arguments of Clay Jones, who used to work at Biola, to allow her to offer a rebuttal to his criticisms. Whereas Imes calls Bathsheba pious for bathing on the roof following menstruation, Jones argues that bathing after menstruation does not make one pious. Jones’s simple argument is that menstruation is messy so it is logical that a woman would want to bathe afterwards. They do discuss the nature of Bathsheba bathing on the roof, whether that was immodest or not, which is a legitimate ambiguity in the text.
Towards the end, Imes claims there is “a strong impulse to lay blame at the feet of Bathsheba, that she had some part” in David’s dynastical problems. This is a strawman since the recent emphasis on Bathsheba is in reaction to those who wish to absolve her of moral culpability or ascribe the sin of David as rape. Sure, there are bad pastors who reduce their moral culpability because of the “Bathshebas” of the world, but the historical thought in this passage is fixated on David. This was the central story in 2 Samuel where the narrative shifts to the civil wars that David proceeds to fight because of this sin, with Absalom fulfilling the judgment against David on what was likely the very vantage point he observed in Bathsheba. Yet, because of modern circumstances, the renewed emphasis on Bathsheba is warranted to combat a rising hamartiological heresy.
Ultimately, while Imes contends that one should not read context into Scripture, the entire debate over David being a rapist is itself an anachronistic read of an ancient text while she attempts to nuance every detail in the narrative, even those that are logically unambiguous.
Women in Theology
It has been said that the Old Testament departments are the first to go liberal within the seminaries, and Biola seems no different in allowing women to teach Old Testament as so-called biblical scholars, whereby they would be influencing a class of pastors who then infect the Church. The ultimate reason there is even a debate over whether David raped Bathsheba is because of the rise in women’s theological circles, which is attested to by Carmen Imes herself. Just as there is no such thing as female pastors, there is no such thing as female theologians.
Just as with Women’s Ordination, when women infiltrate theological circles, it inevitably degrades the overall theology, whether for a Seminary or a denomination. This same principle applies even to online outlets, as The Gospel Coalition’s decline has long coincided with the elevation of women and it was Christianity Today who published Imes’s article on Bathsheba. On multiple occasions, women at Christian Post have defended No-Fault divorce. This is why the LCMS warns against making family an idol in an era when the institution of family is in critical decline. Earlier this year, Ligon Duncan promoted a video of Reformed Theological Seminary’s incoming class that was half female, which is a perfect depiction of why seminaries are in decline. In previous generations, the sight would have been unthinkable, and rightfully so.
The Southern Baptist Convention spent millions on an abuse investigation that yielded no proof of a widespread problem nor subsequent coverup of sexual abuse, yet the entire denomination was made to bend towards the whims of feminists. This only happened because women were allowed to have influence in a denominational proceeding. Similarly, the only reason “Karengate” was a scandal was because people bought into the feminist MeToo narratives in the first place.
Women’s theology will invariably lead to the justification of sin and the absolution of moral accountability, whether it be with women’s ordination, “mutual submission” in marriage, or removing culpability in sexual sins.
Conclusion
Sean McDowell compromises Scripture by allowing a woman to teach and nuance functionally 2 Samuel 11 to legitimize feminist standpoint epistemology regarding Bathsheba’s role in the story. It is not the first compromise he has made and will unlikely be the last. As for Biola University, it is a clear example of why the letters PHD do not indicate true knowledge and wisdom with regards to understanding Holy Scripture.
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