I wish to inform you of my feelings of gratitude for your free publication of TSR. I am still uninformed of the source who submitted my name to you. However, I suspect it was someone who wished me to have relief from my state of confusion.
I am in prison and have been for the past six years, and I was raised in a devout Christian family. I was afraid to express my disbelief and the utter conflict of ideas on what life is all about. When I first received your paper, earlier this year, it was in a way like touching a hot potato. I scanned its contents, and the brainwashing in me made me put it down. I did not throw it away, but I wouldn't allow myself to really read them until my third issue. Yes, it took six months for me to let myself even read about my own doubts and secret ideas and opinions of what I have so long been forced to believe. I really don't feel I ever truly believed. Sure, there must have been a creator of some origin, but why all the myths? Greek myths are as believable to me, and they too make little sense. The good old phrases "read your Bible" and "put it in God's hands" are so often recited in prisons--and all over, I am sure. Total cop-outs! What a way to be! I've found I get much better results and solutions by doing something actively, not just by "praying" my fate will change.
I hope you will print my letter, because I have no access to e-mail or a web site. Actually, after six years in this place, when I am released by December of 1998, I will have to discover what they are. Anyway, if you do choose to print my letter, please print my full address, and perhaps I will receive some open-minded correspondence. I have written a few people who have expressed opinions and viewpoints that I am very impressed and inspired by. However, none have answered me as of yet.
I intend to start my new life of freedom, after paying my debt to society, a reborn, free person, less burdened by doubt and brainwash, a totally free woman of the world! My liberation from all the religious propaganda is so refreshingly honest to me and is a new lease on life. I am actually experiencing a personal freedom within these walls. Praise progress!
Thank you again for all the wonderful work put into TSR and its printed wisdom and food for thought. I promise you when I am able to pay for my subscription upon release (Texas prisoners are not paid), I will make up the cost of your generosity of the free subscription I now receive. Please keep me on your mailing list. TSR has opened many doors to my now open mind.
My subscription expires 1-98. Please renew!
(Amy Smith, 620118, 2305 Ransom Road, Gatesville, TX 76528)
EDITOR'S NOTE: I can't remember who asked me to send TSR to Ms. Smith. There are about 60 prison inmates on the subscription list, and almost all of these came directly from the inmates. I do remember receiving the request to add Ms. Smith to the list, but I don't recall who sent it.
As for continuing her subscription, I send TSR free to all inmates who are unable to pay the subscription cost. Therefore, she will continue to receive it. I thank her for taking the time to notify me that it is appreciated.
The Lucifer Principle...
In reading a book called The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom, I was suddenly astonished at something he related. His perspective concerning biological survival of all life, including human, is that all species and divisions within the species want to propagate their genes and in order to get rid of competing genes simply kill off the competition when given the chance.
He tells of the langur, an Asian monkey, that when the younger males topple the leader, will go in and kill off all the baby langurs but leave unhurt the females in their sexual prime. Do humans do this? Yes, the Yanomami of the Amazon region will raid a neighboring village, kill or chase away the men, but leave the sexually capable women unharmed. Both the langur and the Yanomami, after destroying the chance of their competition's genes being passed on, then mate with the captive females and thus pass on their own genes.
Somewhere a bell began tinkling in my head. Hadn't I read something like that somewhere else? Oh, my God, yes! The children of Israel would kill off the inhabitants as they went rampaging through their land in order to reach the promised land. Sometimes they killed everyone, even the suckling child; at other times they kept all the virgins alive for themselves. So that wasn't the voice of God after all telling them to do this. It was just the old animal brain saying get rid of those competing genes. Surprise! Surprise!
(Marie Micheletti, Box 335, Tremont, IL 61568)
EDITOR'S NOTE: That is indeed an interesting hypothesis. Whether it is true or not, it is still a disgrace to fundamentalist Christianity that its adherents will go to such extremes to justify the barbarity of the ancient Israelites on the grounds that they were guided and directed in their take-no-prisoners policy by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity whose "higher purpose" is simply beyond our comprehension. What is so hard to understand about the barbarity of killing babies?
The 24-Hour Day...
Several times in your article "Is Roger Hutchinson for Real?" you used the term 24 hours as referring to the time of the biblical "creation." However, I would like to point out that the 24-hour day did not come into existence for millions of years after the world began. According to the March 1998 issue of National Geographic, p. 74, 3.4 billion years ago each day "lasted less than 18 hours." This was when the first-known life appeared on earth, which, presumably, had been in existence for some time.
(R. S. Craggs, 25 McMillian Avenue, West Hill, ON, Canada M1E 4B4)
EDITOR'S NOTE: The intention in my article was to identify the way that the Genesis writer used the Hebrew word yom, and the writer obviously had no awareness that the earth was billions of years old. The writer spoke of evening and morning the first day, evening and morning the second day, etc., etc., etc. Biblical chronology also indicates a belief that the earth was only a few thousand years old when Genesis was written; hence, it is appropriate to assume that the writer used yom in the sense of 24-hour periods divided into evening and morning.
The Internet Again...
Please renew my subscription to The Skeptical Review. Enclosed is a check for $6. I always read each issue from cover to cover. I've also been reading material from the Internet Infidels page and the American Humanist Association. I wish I'd had access to all this back when I was in college. I'm finding others who have the same viewpoint as I do (and are willing to admit it).
(Julie Blevins, 125 Bercado Place, Apt. 34, Mishawaka, IN 46544-4132)
EDITOR'S NOTE: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will say again that the internet is going to spell serious trouble for traditional religion. When Ms. Blevins was in college, she didn't have access to information that is now on the internet because the religious establishment could control what the public read by simply using its influence to keep objectionable books off the shelves of public libraries. Needless to say, that kind of control can no longer be exercised. Anyone with an on-line computer can easily access information that was previously censored.
Another Anonymous Tirade...
Is this all you can find in the whole Bible to disagree with? Then study John 3:16, John 14, 15, 16, 17.
Jesus died and was resurrected so we can live abundantly. If all you do is hunt things to disagree with you only cheat yourself.
God is very real whether you believe it or not. Saying there is no God is like going into a deep cave and saying there is no sun. Living with the sun is similar to living without God. How do you imagine the sun has burned for eons and not burned up. Only God's power can make it so.
Hell is very real whether you believe it or not and everyone had the choice to believe in God and His Son, Jesus and go to Heaven when you die or not believe and go to Hell. It's your choice.
Plus if you give your self to Jesus, He will help you in every way.
Or you can struggle thru [sic] life without his help. That is your choice also.
I do not want any of your anti-Christ material. It is from the devil, who is very real also. If he can keep you doubting God's word, he has you.
(Anonymous)
EDITOR'S NOTE: I receive many anonymous letters, most of
which I laugh at and throw away, but occasionally I like to publish
them just to show the pathetic inability of biblicists to respond
intelligently to the evidence that disputes their claim that the Bible
is the "inspired, inerrant word of God." The letter above was sent to
me on the back of a print-out of three rather basic biblical
contradictions that someone had posted on the internet with an attached
notice that a free subscription to The Skeptical Review was
available on request. Hence, the anonymous letter-writer incorrectly
assumed that I had posted the alleged contradictions, which
incidentally I do agree are contradictions but of the type that can be
"explained" by alleging that they resulted from copyist errors.
Why should I study the scripture citations that "Anonymous" listed? I know what they say without even taking the time to look them up, because I have "studied" them many times. I know of nothing in them that would in any way prove that the Bible does not contain inconsistencies, contradictions, and other discrepancies.
Jesus was resurrected so that we can live abundantly? I don't suppose that "Anonymous" has any real evidence that he can present in support of that claim, but until he does produce convincing evidence that this unlikely event happened, he should not expect me to swoon over another biblicist who is just parroting something he was indoctrinated to believe but has never really taken the time to investigate.
God is very real whether I believe it or not? I don't suppose that "Anonymous" is even capable of realizing that the mere assertion that "God is very real" doesn't make it so. If there is any "real" evidence for the existence of this entity that "Anonymous" says is "very real," why didn't he present it?
As for going into "a deep cave and saying there is no sun," I think it should be very obvious to everyone who is living in a deep cave. "Anonymous" is in so deep, in fact, that he has lost touch with common sense and basic reality.
How has the sun burned so long without burning up? Gee, I'm not even a physicist, but I can easily explain that. Its size and the amount of fuel in its core accounts for that. That is a far more reasonable explanation than the God-is-doing-it answer that theists invariably resort to in matters that seem difficult to understand. In the case of the sun, however, I see nothing at all difficult about understanding that it contains a mass so large that it will require billions of years for it to burn out.
Hell is very real whether I believe it or not? If "Anonymous" should be reading this, I invite him to read again my comments above about his assertion that God is very real whether I believe it or not. Let's hope that he will begin to understand that reality can never be determined by merely asserting that something is so.
If I give myself to Jesus, he will help me in every way? Well, I've been there and tried that, but it didn't work. I'm not very likely to make the same mistake twice.
If "Anonymous" doesn't want any of my "anti-Christ material," all he has to do is let me know who he is, and I will stop sending it to him if he is on the mailing list. At the same time, I will inform him that I don't care to receive any more of his anonymous letters from Albany, Georgia. If he has the courage to sign his name to his letters, I will be glad to discuss with him whatever issues may be on his mind, but if he just wants to fire anonymous potshots at me, I don't care to hear from him again. I don't suppose he would even begin to understand that every anonymous letter I receive--and I get a lot of them--merely convinces me that the writers of these letters found themselves unable to respond to arguments against the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.
A Reaction to the "Larger Picture..."
I received The Skeptical Review, Vol. 9, Number 2, in the mail this morning. It was, as it always is, thoroughly delightful. I can't help but stop whatever it is that I am doing and read your publication in its entirety immediately. That was the case today. Dr. Peter Righter's "The `Narrow View' vs. the `Larger Picture'" was just wonderful. That story he told about the down syndrome baby and the 30 converted hospital workers had me howling with laughter. I live in a county that is 99% fundamentalist. We have two weekly local newspapers here and there are stories like Dr. Righter's converted hospital workers in every issue of both papers each week. Most of our local stories like this are about a famous atheist (never named), who is speaking before "thousands" of listeners. A reformed drunk in the front row then stands up and with one pithy conundrum shuts that famous atheist up but good. (Sometimes the person who stands up is an old lady.) These stories remind me of Jesus "shutting up" the Pharisees or Sadducees of the Bible. I've been in plenty of arguments, and no one ever gets in the last word. I should say that no one ever gets in the last word unless he is telling the story ten years after its occurrence and is telling it to a group of like-minded persons. Of course, in the Bible (or the Juniata Sentinel) arguments mostly seem to end with Jesus (or a local fundamentalist) shooting his opponent down so forcefully that the opponent is standing there with his tongue hanging out.
Well, I for one have my tongue hanging out in pleasure and gratitude for such a publication as The Skeptical Review. Your publication is just wonderful.
(Robert L. Brown, HCR 67, Box OH-39, Mifflin, PA 17058)
EDITOR'S NOTE: As I said in my response to Dr. Righter, the tale about the 30 hospital converts has all the earmarks of what I call "pulpit legend," a tale that is told so often by so many preachers that it acquires the status of an actual event.
The type of stories that Mr. Brown referred to are also legends that circulate and recirculate, often from pulpit to pulpit, until the gullible come to accept them as real events. A common type of this legend is the story of the famous biblical skeptic or atheist, like Thomas Paine or Robert Ingersoll, who confessed his sins on his deathbed and died a Christian. The way that some Christians circulate these tales, they must believe that there never has been a famous skeptic or atheist who died without first confessing his error. The truth is that these stories are invariably assertions for which no supporting evidence exists.
Another version of the type of story that Mr. Brown encounters so often in his local newspapers is the claim of the preacher who recalls the time that he silenced a skeptical professor in his college days. In these tales, all it took was just a short comment or question to leave the unidentified professor standing in embarrassed silence unable to respond to his/her student's well chosen rebuttal comment. All I can say is that if such inept professors actually exist anywhere, they deserve to be silenced.
At any rate. Dr. Righter is no longer with us. A few days after the March/April issue was mailed, I found a message waiting for me on my answer machine when I returned from out-of-down business. He informed me that he wanted his name removed from the subscription list, because he thought I had been "disrespectful" to him in my reply to his article. Another opinion of his article is published below.
Twisted Logic...
I was appalled by the twisted logic of Dr. Peter D. Righter in his article "The `Narrow View' vs. the `Larger Picture,'" in which he related the tale of the "conversions" of thirty hospital nurses and staff members as the result of the birth of a baby with Down Syndrome. To this horror story, one can only say, "God certainly works in mysterious ways."
When I was a young, God-believing child and witnessing the great many deaths of tiny babies and young children, I often asked why these infants had to die so young. The answers I invariably received were something like, "Oh, God doesn't just want all old people in heaven; that would be so depressing for him. God also wants young people and babies with him in heaven to make it a more cheerful, happier place."
Having only an immature mind with which to work, I nevertheless managed to question God's motives. I would think to myself, "If God is all powerful, why could he not change old people into young people without having to inflict a lifetime of sorrow on a young mother who has just given birth and now has to give up her baby?" And, "If God controls the entire world and universe and already has everything imaginable, why would he be lonely for one more dead child?"
Any questioning along these lines always brought sharp rebukes from the ministers. As a child, I did not understand why these preachers were so defensive. As an adult, I knew: the minister had no more knowledge than anyone else on these matters.
Today, if a father (Abraham of the Old Testament) were to take his son (Isaac), a pile of wood, and a knife up to a mountain with the intention of stabbing and burning the boy to death as a "sacrifice and burnt offering to God," the man would be hauled before a court of law, charged with mental and physical abuse, judged insane, and placed in a mental institution. The poor child undoubtedly would suffer nightmares for the rest of his life, still imagining himself bound to this "altar" with his father standing over him with a knife, intent on committing a horrendous deed. However, in the Christian Bible, Abraham is praised as an exemplary man, possessing great faith in God, and has "his seed multiplied as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the sea shore" (Gen. 22:1-18).
As Robert Ingersoll so rightly stated, "If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would strictly follow the teachings of the New, he'd be insane."
(Joseph Cunningham, 320 Grant Drive, Mascoutah, IL 62258-1031)
Enhancement of Sierichs' Article...
There are a number of varying myths of ancient Sumer that have familiar resonances. In one, Ea and Aruru made a man out of clay and animated him with the power of divine word. In the later Enuma Elish, the human race was made of clay and animated by the blood of the sacrificed god Kingu.
The original paradise myth was about the land of Dilmun. The mother goddess created eight plants, and when Enki ate them, she cursed him. But she showed mercy by creating eight healing goddesses, one for each of his eight wounded parts. One of these was Nin-ti, who healed his rib. The name Nin-ti meant "lady who gives life," but it could also be taken to mean "lady of the rib." This is why, in the Genesis creation tale, the first woman was made from the rib of the first man. It was an idea suggested by what was virtually a pun! Otherwise, there was no reason why Yahweh couldn't have made woman the same way as he made Adam, whose name was a reference to red clay.
Sumerian mythology also gave us the original story of Noah's ark. The gods regretted making the human race and decided to destroy it by flood. One man, Ziusudra, escaped it by building an ark in which he carried samples of all life. In the end, the ship came down on a mountain in the land of Urartu (later called Ararat), and he released a dove and a raven.
The Tower of Babel story, furthermore, was based on a real ziggurat at Babylon, called Esagila, the largest ever built, whose construction was interrupted and completion delayed for centuries. To this, the Hebrews appended an explanatory myth to account for diversity in language.
Sumerian civilization is the seminal civilization of the world. Everything that followed in the Near East is directly or indirectly dependent upon it and is probably more often than not morally inferior. It's a shame we know so little about these vanished people, other than that they were not Semites.
(Stephen Van Eck, Rural Route 1, Box 62, Rushville, PA 18839)
Just Who Is Surmising?
For shame, Till! Your remark, "One could easily surmise that... she (Bathsheba) was trying to send a message to David," sounds like the reasoning of a redneck sheriff who figures that any attractive rape victim was "just asking for it." I'd say you had to do a lot of surmising.
Here are some questions to consider: (1) If Bathsheba was attempting to seduce David, what was her motive? Had she been an unbetrothed virgin, she might have had an excellent motive, for the law (Deut. 22:28-29) said that a man who had intercourse with an unbetrothed virgin had to pay the bride price, marry her, and never divorce her. The possibility of snaring a royal groom might have been enough to make a young girl forget her modesty. But Bathsheba was a married woman, and the penalty for committing adultery was death (Deut. 22:22). I know some men consider themselves irresistible, but I'm almost 60 years old, and I've never yet seen a man with so much sex appeal that I'd risk death, probably by public stoning, just to have a romp in the sack with him. Of course, the death penalty applied to men as well, but that would have been considerably less a deterrent to David. Rich and powerful men often get away with breaking the law, and David was the most powerful man anywhere around.
(2) How did Bathsheba know just where and when to take that bath so she could send her message? Bathing in that time and place was nowhere as simple as it is in modern America. This is especially true if Bathsheba was performing the ritual purification at the end of her period of "uncleanness." I understand that this ritual bath requires submerging one's entire body in water--not the easiest thing to arrange when you have no plumbing.
So we must ask whether it was David's habit to walk on his roof at a particular time in the evening? We don't know. But if this wasn't his habit, Bathsheba wouldn't have known when to take that fateful bath, and arranging a full-body bath on the spur of the minute wouldn't have been all that easy. And how did Bathsheba know just what David could see from the roof of the palace? Had she been up there to check it out? Did he have a favorite place to stand? If not, how could she be sure when he would be looking her way? Perhaps we should "surmise" that she bathed 24 hours a day for a week or so, just hoping to catch the king's eye. It seems to me that David seeing Bathsheba as she bathed was an accident.
Regardless of how it happened, an honorable man would have put the incident out of his mind. Instead, David "sent messengers, and took her." From the time the messengers arrived at her door, Bathsheba had no choice. And it makes no difference whether David used physical violence or simply his authority as king. When a woman is placed in a situation where she has no choice, where she has to acquiesce to sex, she has been raped. Ask any judge.
As for Bathsheba using her charms to gain influence over David, it seems apparent to me that the gal did what she had to do. Biblical women had few rights. All their lives, they were dependent upon and subservient to men--first, their fathers; then, their husbands; and, after they were widowed, their sons.
After her rape, Bathsheba found herself pregnant. She was in great peril. When her husband returned from war, he would of course accuse her of adultery, and then he could have her executed. Soon David saw to it that she was a widow. This did not remove the possibility that she would be found guilty of adultery, and, even if she should escape that fate, it left her with nobody to provide for her. She couldn't go on welfare, and she couldn't go out and get a lucrative job, either. When David offered to marry her, she had little choice but to accept, even though she may have hated the fellow's guts. For that matter, when the king wanted to marry a woman, she probably had little choice anyway.
But her position still wasn't all that great, for she was not the senior wife. When her son died, her position became more precarious, for men quite often favored the wives who gave them sons. The only way she had to secure her position was to keep David so besotted he would keep returning to her bed until she had another son. But even the birth of Solomon did not bring real security to Bathsheba, for David had a number of other sons who were older than Solomon, and it was normally the oldest surviving son who inherited the father's position and property. Had another son succeeded David, she and Solomon could have been treated as poor relations, even turned out of their home. Her only security lay in keeping David so beguiled that she could persuade him to leave the kingdom to Solomon.
Bathsheba was the victim of a powerful, selfish, thoroughly immoral king. She did what she had to do to protect her interests and those of her child. I don't see how anyone can condemn her for that. And I find it absolutely reprehensible that anyone would take the sketchy Biblical account and use it as grounds for accusing her of adultery or even immodesty. As I pointed out before, even the Bible, which has a definite anti-woman bias, doesn't fault her for what she did.
(Carol Faulkenberry, 1308 Crest Avenue, Gadsden, AL 35904; e-mail, alncarol@internetpro.net)
EDITOR'S REPLY: Why do I have the feeling that nothing I say is going to satisfy Ms. Faulkenberry, unless I say that I am wrong, she is right, and Bathsheba beyond all doubt was raped? However, I will not say that, because there is simply insufficient evidence to support this claim. In the first place, we are talking about an event that probably didn't happen. The actual historicity of David is very much in question. Although archaeological records of comparatively minor kings like Omri, Ahab, and Jehu have been discovered, only two widely disputed references to the "house of David" have yet been found. This seems strange indeed when we consider that David was allegedly the person who unified the tribes of Israel into one kingdom. One would think that if any biblical person had left his mark in archaeological records, David would have, but this is not the case. Many scholars therefore believe that he was just the "King Arthur" of Israelite legends. Biblical inerrantists, however, are stuck with what the Bible says about David, so they have to agree that everything the biblical record attributes to David actually happened. But that does not explain why Ms. Faulkenberry is so intent on making a rape victim of the female character in what may well be only a legend.
Even if we assume that this story is historically accurate, there is really nothing in it to support Ms. Faulkenberry's insistence that Bathsheba was raped. In comparing me to a "redneck sheriff," who thinks that an attractive rape victim was just asking for it, Ms. Faulkenberry begged the very question that is in dispute: if this story actually happened, was Bathsheba raped? I find nothing in the biblical account to support that view.
Ms. Faulkenberry asked what Bathsheba's motive could have been, if we assume that a possible desire to entice David was involved when she bathed where he could see her, but I have to wonder if Faulkenberry is really that naive. With a little imagination, couldn't she "surmise" what the motivation could have been? A husband away on military duty, a king who had a history of adding women to his harem (1 Sam. 25:39-44; 2 Sam. 5:13-15)--gee, I don't have to strain my imagination at all to guess what Bathsheba's motivation could have been.
On the grounds that Bathsheba was married and knew that adultery was punishable by death, Ms. Faulkenberry dismisses the possibility that Bathsheba had any interest in a sexual relationship with David, but since when has marriage been a deterrent to adultery? It happens all the time, and history has seen many cases of married women who had sexual relationships with kings. If she doubts this, Ms. Faulkenberry should read the works of Tacitus and Suetonius. As for the death penalty, it obviously was not applied impartially, so why wouldn't a woman of that time have assumed that if she became sexually involved with the king, she really wouldn't have had to worry too much about being executed for adultery? The fact that the story indicates that neither David nor Bathsheba was executed tells us that if there is any historical basis to this tale, the threat of execution for adultery with the king was probably a minimal concern to Bathsheba.
Ms. Faulkenberry seems to be basing her position primarily on the fact that the Bible says that David sent messengers and "took" Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11:4), but before she puts too much stock in this point, she should do an analysis of the Hebrew word laqach (took), which was used throughout the Old Testament in the sense of "send for" or "fetch." When Saul heard that young David had indicated a willingness to confront the giant Goliath, Saul "sent" (laqach) for David, but there is no textual evidence that force was involved in bringing David before the king. When Yahweh appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre, Abraham said to him that he would "fetch" (laqach) him a morsel of bread (Gen. 18:5). Rebekah told Jacob to go to the flock and "fetch" (laqach) two kids so that she could make "savory food" for his father (Gen. 27:9). In Exodus 2:5, Pharaoh's daughter sent her maidens to "fetch" (laqach) the ark of bulrushes in which the infant Moses had been set afloat. If Ms. Faulkenberry will check Genesis 27:45; 42:16; Judges 11:5; 1 Samuel 16:11; and 1 Kings 17:10, she will find just a few of the many places in the Old Testament where the word laqach was used in the sense of "send for," "fetch," or "go get" with no suggestion of force involved. Hence, there is no basis for her claim that Bathsheba was raped because David send messengers and "took" her. The statement could well have meant only that David sent messengers to let Bathsheba know that the king wanted to see her. In fact, the NRSV, NIV, NEB, GNB, Jerusalem Bible, and others support this meaning in the way that they translated the verse. "He sent messengers to fetch her," the Revised English Bible says, "and when she came to him, he had intercourse with her...." So where is any implication of force in this statement?
If this event actually happened, it may well be that
Bathsheba was an unwilling participant who submitted to David out of
fear, but there is nothing in the text to support this view. Ms.
Faulkenberry objected to my surmising, but her letter contains far more
surmises than space will allow me to address. She surmised, for
example, that Bathsheba "beguiled" David as the only means of securing
her position by producing another son. If so, she succeeded famously,
because she actually produced four sons for David (1 Chron. 3:5).
Furthermore, the Bible claims that Yahweh informed David that his
kingdom would be established forever through a son who would be born to
him and named Solomon, so if David really believed that Yahweh had made
such a promise to him, Bathsheba, as the mother of this son, would
hardly have needed to beguile David in order to secure her position.
Ms. Faulkenberry is simply surmising far more than the Bible text
justifies. It claims that Bathsheba had sexual relations with Solomon
and later became one of his wives but in no way indicates that she was
forced into either relationship. It claims that she had gained such
favor with David that she was able at the end of his life to manipulate
him into naming Solomon as the son who would succeed to the throne,
although the custom of primogeniture should have given the kingship to
an older half-brother. It really is hard for me to work up much
sympathy for poor little Bathsheba. If she was raped, she certainly
adjusted well to a situation that was forced upon her.
