Was bathing on the rooftop under the King's window commonplace in King David's time?

I gave you the applicable links. Read them at your convenience.

 

It was not Bathsheba who was on the roof. It was David.

2 Samuel 11
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.

She must've been within the confines of her courtyard, or in her house and seen through the window.


The Bible doesn't give all the details to her seduction, but realistically who will want to defy a king? We do not know what David had said to make her willing. Bathsheba's grandfather was Ahithophel who was David's counselor (1 Chr 27:34).


Were women of the time aware of their menstrual cycle? Yes.

Leviticus 15
19 “ ‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.


She had just finished her menstrual period (and was doing the ritual of purifying herself from menstrual pollution).
The timing too suggests that she was more apt for conception.


2 Samuel 11
4 Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.
5 And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”

The Bible makes issues clear, and does not leave anything to doubt. As examples: Potiphar's wife's attempt to seduce Joseph
(Genesis 39: 6-7), or Lot's daughters (Gen 20: 30-3, or Tamar and her father in-law (Gen 38: 13-19). If Bathsheba had set to lure David, the bible would've said so.

Furthermore, God had put the blame squarely on David alone. (2 Samuel 12: 1-14)

 

And you should verify what you read - especially about such an eye-brow raising statement!
Don't readily believe what your source tells you - do your own fact-checking!
Obviously your source give opinion based from ignorance.
In other words, you're just regurgitating their ignorance!


The Talmud Does Not Permit Sex With A Three Year Old

While those unused to these Talmudic discussions might be taken aback by the use of euphemisms, the discussion here relates to the dowry for virgins and non-virgins. It has nothing to do with what acts are allowed, encouraged, forbidden, or discouraged.
It is, indeed, ironic that this passage has been manipulated from its original context of a financial discussion into one of a religious discussion. While there are numerous talmudic passages of a religious nature, this one discusses dowries and not forbidden and permitted relations!

The Talmud is only discussing ex post facto what would happen if such a case arose.

The claim that the Talmud, or normative Judaism, permits sexual relations with a minor is almost entirely incorrect. The slight truth in it is that, in certain societies in history, people were sometimes married as young as ten.

http://talmud.faithweb.com/articles/three.html

 

Thanks! Earlier in this thread my misunderstanding about who was on the roof or not was pointed out. Comes from in part, the song "Hallelujah" but I'm pretty sure Bathsheba is out in the open (the roof?) in the Richard Gere film version of this movie.

I understand the Bible is silent regarding as to whether or not Bathsheba was resistant or enthusiastic. You have done a better job of identifying whether or not she would have known if she could "catch" at that time. In the non-theological interpretation but an MRA's view, I have to think had she said, "My King, if we canoodle, I will get pregnant" he would have treated her like plutonium. Getting her pregnant could mean civil war (and in a way, I think it did). Maybe she is left faultless as she was following her nature? What she thought was her duty. Does she too feel punished that the pregnancy fails? I'd think she would have felt that way. That is also something the Bible is silent upon. In terms of the point the Bible is making, her moral failings are not the relevant part.

In the Richard Gere movie, Bathsheba bitches out David for his sins and what he did to her husband. I think it goes too far, making something of a Feminist of her.

From what you write, I don't think her blameless. Her share of the blame just isn't part of the point the Book is trying to make. Break with G-d at your peril. I do wonder, from other posts, how much of this is historically accurate. While it makes its point and could have been framed to have done so, I don't think the overall story sounds particularly unlikely.

 

The focal subject is David.

Why do we need to know how old she was at the time?

Suffice it to know that she was already having menstrual cycles at the time of her seduction!

 

You have to remember that these things were written, by our standards, savage people from stories in theory dating back 6,000 years. My understanding is that Judaism is not static but has a hierarchy that determines how these teachings, which are often contradictory (as noted in a link that agrees with you about the 3 and a day thing) are right or wrong. This results, I think, in stories like I've heard of Mohamed. He sees Jews as disciples of the book so they get some level of pass. But he is pissed at them because he wants to stone women to death under certain circumstances and the Jews do not want to do so. But there is support for doing so in Jewish teachings and supposedly the Jews were like, "yeah, we don't do that anymore."

 

The link ain't that good except to say the essay exists.


Try read the essay by Carl Jung
"Answer to Job".
I do not read well, never have.
Jung mostly bogs me down but, I digested this essay well and didn't abandon it.


That goes for all Boardies who would like to focus on Job a while.
It is Jung, so be prepared for deep, deep thoughts.


Moi

​

 

The David and Bathsheba story has elements of the Susanna story = https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=susanna1&version=CEB

 

Nice try but it is BS. The passages from the Talmud clearly say that adults can screw kids as young as three years and a day. It also tells them to check for three pubic hairs. Now imagine young kids getting checked every day to see if they grew a pubic hair overnight. The Talmud is pure garbage and indefensible by anyone with any morals at all. The number of disgusting things it promotes is almost without limit. You should ask for a raise if you are going to defend that trash.

 

Baby raping is newsworthy and the biblical Israelites/Jews/Hebrews were big fans of it. It is in the Bible (you know that book that some claim is the word of God).

It is entirely feasible that David knocked up Bathsheba when she was just 6 years old. Such events have happened. One girl was 5-years & 7-months & 17-days when she gave birth =
Shocking: The Youngest Girl To Have A Baby Was Only 5-Years Old
https://www.livealittlelonger.com/youngest-girl-to-have-a-baby/

The biblical David was a really disgusting person.

 

Islam is a hybrid between Judaism and Christianity with pagan Arab beliefs thrown in the mix. It is stupid for modern people to believe in those ancient ethnocentric Middle Eastern religious beliefs just because they are written on flimsy paper in books that some call holy. Would Aztec and Inca religious fairy tales be credible if they were written in similar fashion and had temples on every corner in the country?

 

The difference between Saul and David was David was deeply repentant. David paid the price for his mistake too, if you read about everything he had to go through. Being driven into exhile and his son trying to kill him.
The scriptures don't specifically mention it but several of the Psalms give indications of his troubles during that time. David didn't get off easy.

God had also promised that David's line would sit on the throne forever, so if nothing else there was a promise/prophecy to keep.

One last thing to note is that Saul screwed up three (or two?) separate times (even though it was prophesied to Saul after the first screw-up that he would lose the throne).

The scriptures don't say this but I rather suspect David knew from the turn of events that were suddenly happening to him that God had turned his protection away, and so David's flight from the palace into exhile was accepting the punishment he knew he had coming. He felt God was driving him into exhile, and wasn't going to try to fight it.

 

"Was bathing on the rooftop under the King's window commonplace in King David's time?"

I wouldn't thinks so. Water is quite heavy and would involve some very hard work to carry enough for a bath up stairs or ladders. Water is difficult enough to move by foot on level ground.

 

In fairness, after review (outside the lyrics of Hallelujah and the Richard Gere movie) we actually don't know where Bathsheba was. David saw her as HE walked around the roof of the palace). Still, I think she would have bathed with more privacy unless she had an objective (nab the King). Not that David was innocent or even close. This was still mostly his problem.

 

I think Bathsheba probably had a reasonable expectation of privacy (though we don't know the exact circumstances).
Either that or she was being very naive.

It was likely the palace was the only building with a vantage point that overlooked where she was bathing.

Maybe all the people she saw on that palace rooftop were women doing work. So she wouldn't have been that concerned. The multi-level palace would have had many different rooftops, and that might have been the women's area.

Maybe the king was sleeping in his private bedroom attached to the harem. If that was the rooftop for the harem, men wouldn't have normally been up there.

 

I'm just saying water is heavy. Clean and snatching a black bag 5 gal. gravity feed camp shower to a hook laced to a tree branch is a fair feat.

 

People back then did a lot of water carrying. Some of the homes even had a special staircase so pack donkeys could carry things up to the roof level.
And of course what do you think slaves and servants were for? There was a lot of heavy lifting in ancient times.

The bath water was probably reused and not changed out every day. And of course people may not have taken a full bath every day. (They could just wash themselves with a wet rag) Even Queen Victoria only took a bath once a week, and that was more frequent than considered normal.

Prostitutes and hookers in ancient times had a lot of perfume they could cover their bodies with.

 

2 Samuel 11: "2And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. 3And David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? 4And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house. 5And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child."


All upto verse 5.... same night?


That King David’s palace is prominent and prominently located is referenced in the Book of Samuel (2 Samuel 5:11; 2 Samuel 11; 2 Samuel 16:22). When Nehemiah returned from Babylonian exile half a millennium after the reign of David, he repaired the city wall and organized a dedication procession. One group on the east side of the city was described as having gone “up the steps of the City of David, on the ascent to the wall, past the House of David, and up to the Water Gate on the east” (Nehemiah 12:37). Nadav Na’aman suggests that King David’s Palace must be found at the top of the city’s northeastern slope, just above the Stepped Stone Structure that would have provided an ascent to the summit on the east. The location, date and scale of the Large Stone Structure, Nadav Na’aman believes, matches the Biblical descriptions of King David’s Palace.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org...s/jerusalem/king-davids-palace-and-the-millo/


The 'water gate' being the 'gate' for some kind of 'water stream' or something similar?

 

Okay, but I'm not reinforcing my roof for beasts of burden and water that don't run off.

 

This style of roof in the Middle East was very sturdy and covered in adobe, stone, and plaster. Large groups of people would often meet up there. It was flat, open and had plenty of space. It would be comparable to standing on the upper flat level of an Aztec pyramid or ziggurat. You can read in 2 Samuel 16:22 that David's son Absalom invited up a group of people to witness him and had a tent set up on the top of a roof.

This can also be seen as part of God's punishment for David, and a very fitting one. All his concubines that he had collected in his harem were defiled by his son, and in the culture in those days (and even still today in the Middle East) if your woman was defiled by another man you wouldn't want to be with them again, it would be considered disgusting. (Not to mention the mosaic prohibition against both a father and son sleeping with the same woman, which David would have wanted to keep as a man of God, and also it would have been embarrassing/scandalous to him if he kept those concubines when everyone had seen that his son had slept with them) So because of what happened, he basically lost his whole harem of concubines. It was a fitting punishment because, with so many concubines, he still got greedy and wanted Bathsheba on top of all that.

 

The story is written like a historical account, and it doesn't seem likely this is the type of story people would make up.
David is regarded as a hero by Jews, and sort of a father of Israel. If it was made up, one would wonder why people would want to have a story about something so bad that one of their heroes had done. Even having a harem of women would not have been the most flattering thing amongst religious Jews. The ancestry of Jesus also comes from the line of Bathsheba (through Mary's husband Joseph). If you had wanted to invent a dignified ancestry for a deified key religious person, why make up such a story?

 

David is probably a Tribal leader who took over Palestine when the indigenous tribes threw out the Egyptians, There was no invasion by the Hebrews. The 'invasion' was from inside. David MAY have been the leader of the tribe of Israel that were in Palestine. He possibly overcame the other tribes. The Jews have made him a hero by vastly exaggerating his life. Both genealogies are patently made up by Matthew and Luke and are full of errors.

 

That's such a disingenuous contention. David was king much later. You're forgetting the time of the judges.

 

There;s no evidence that the 'Judges',actually existed, just as no evidence for the Exodus. In fact there's little evidence for anything before the Tribal kings overthrowing the Egyptians. The Egyptian 'empire' - along with the Hittites and Myceans - collapse in the 12th century !200-1100. It was a gradual collapse. NO-one actually knows the dates for David. Any guess is based on the Bible which is not always reliable. In fact the existence of David is based on one piece of stone. The Bible concentrates on this 'David' and neglects the more influemtial King of the time - Omri. Probably because Omri was a pagan.