Jeremy Rosen
King David and the Limits of Monarchy
Summary
King David is seen in Judaism as the founder of the monarchy. Is he really the ideal of leadership?
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
That’s an excellent point because in fact, that’s exactly what God said to Samuel when he didn’t want to appoint the king. God said, “Listen, they’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting me.” And it’s ironic because in the Torah itself, in the Book of Deuteronomy, it says, “If you want to appoint a king, you may appoint a king. Just make sure he follows the Torah and doesn’t abandon it.” So it looks as though God changed his mind. Or you might say the text in the Bible was inserted at a later date, if you want to.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Livia. I’m sure you’re right. I mean, history is written by the victors. History is usually his story, and there are different versions of the story of King David. There is the Book of Samuel, then there is the Book of Chronicles. And these biblical accounts, of course, are biassed. The north is biassed towards the south, the south towards the north. But that doesn’t mean to say all the traditions are wrong. And many of these traditions are passed down orally and not written down because remember, a lot of stuff wasn’t written down till much, much later. But when it comes to actual evidence, we have very little archaeological evidence. Most of the archaeological evidence is in the form of stones, pottery, something that doesn’t disappear and stones can be excavated, and we have stones going back to this time and we have stones, the Moab Stele and the Moab calendar and other sort of stone records that talk about the House of David, that talk about the House of Israel, talk about them going to war with them and conquering them. And we do have evidence of the House of David. We do have evidence of the kings of Judea. And a lot of what is written in these stories we know from other stories is correct.