34.David and Bathsheba

As I mentioned in my post of 12th July, there was not sufficient time during the Torah study breakfast to do full justice to my chosen second literary gem from the Bible. It is one of my favourite stories. And from the 14th century onwards, it inspired many illustrations - which I have collected. They give a very accurate idea of the opinions of the artists - and of the Church - about the Biblical text and its implications. Unfortunately, this blogger is very unfriendly to the inclusion of images. It required much cunning and hard work: the images had to be added in reverse order and it was very difficult to out-smart the rigid layout and text formatting...

Unlike the story of Bileam and his ass, which is a simple straightforward narration, the text of David and Bathsheba and their adultery leaves a great deal to our imagination and interpretation. To begin with, we are not told, that David was already married at least twice: to Michal the daughter of King Saul (although Saul had given her to another man while David was an outlaw fugitive), and to Abigail, the widow of the villain Naval (who had died of a stroke just after David had wished him 'long life and good health').

From his palace in Jerusalem, David watches an attractive woman having a wash:-




These images of Biblical pornography were very popular. The woman is certainly having her wash in public, and especially in full view of David. David is told that the woman is the wife of Uriah, his Hittite mercenary. Her name is Bathsheba = 'daughter of the [marriage] vow'.

We are told that these events took place in the spring, 'when armies go to battle'. That is when the ground has firmed after the mud of the winter rain; and when the farmers have time available to serve their king while they wait for their new crops to grow. David has sent his army to fight against the Ammonites. They are besieging Rabbah in Trans-Jordan, present-day Amman. Uriah the Hittite mercenary is also there. But David has remained in Jerusalem.

What he is watching from the palace is Bathsheba's ritual bathing at the end of her monthly 'uncleanliness'. She had observed the prescribed Biblical ritual. She had waited for seven days after the end of her menstrual flow and then she had washed. This has two implications:
First, if she just had a period, then she is not pregnant. But if her marriage to Uriah had not yet been consummated, then her new husband was exempt by law from military service [Deut. 20:7]. So, why did Uriah abandon his new bride, preferring the male companionship of his colleagues in the army?

And second, Bathsheba was advertising openly - as all the artists show - that she was now available for intercourse, without incurring the Biblical prohibition on sex during menstruation - which was a cardinal sin for both parties. Adultery was a lesser offence.
But why is she already fed up with her new husband? Had she been shocked to discover after the wedding, that Uriah was gay? In that case she was doomed. Homosexuality is 'an abomination', says the Bible. But no punishment is threatened: so all these elegant Anglican clergy are safe. But she would not be able to get rid of Uriah, as only the man could divorce his wife.

























Who says, that the use of reflecting mirrors to enhance the appearance of the photo is a modern invention?




















The three pictures above (two of them by Lucas Cranach), and the next few images, contain a pictorial euphemism: an innocent expression that has a much stronger hidden meaning:-
The woman is shown washing just her feet; but in the Bible 'feet' can be a euphemism for 'genitals' - and after her period, it is of course Bathsheba's genital area that had to be washed.

The same euphemism is also used in the story of Ruth the Moabite. She is advised by her mother in law, Naomi, to wash and perfume herself and to go that night to the sleeping Boaz, the wealthy landowner, to lie 'at his feet'. She is doing in Biblical Canaan, what Monica Levinsky did to Clinton in Washington some 2,000 years later. And the euphemistic 'feet' appear again later in Bathsheba's story - as we shall see.





















As a result of Bathsheba's blatant naked publicity, David summons her 'to view his etchings over a cup of coffee', so to speak - exactly as she had intended.
Rembrandt portrays Bathsheba (modelled by his wife) twice. She is holding the king's letter of invitation, while she is having her 'feet' washed.




































On the left, the ritual wash has turned into a party, watched by David at the back.






On the right, during the washing of 'the feet', Jan Steen adds an old woman - a common personification of lustful evil advice.
In most of the illustrations David is watching the delivery of his message, alone or with his courtiers. Often, he is wearing his crown and holding his attribute, a harp.
























Here, David's invitation is being conveyed to the topless woman.
In Writing on the left, orally by a handsome courtier on the right.


















I have found only one picture of Bathsheba climbing the steps to David's bedchamber. She is shown four times - finally on David's lap.
We have to imagine the rapidity of the actions: She came to him and he lay with her and she returned to her house. - So she consented immediately and it was just a quickie. But it fulfilled her purpose:

And the woman conceived - of course: it had been at the peak of her fertility - exactly mid-cycle. Again, we have to imagine the developments: she missed her period, her breasts enlarged, the area around the nipples darkened, and she was sick in the morning. So she sent and told David 'I'm pregnant'.
But do not expect any dialogue or interrogation: I would have asked, 'are you sure you're pregnant?' And: 'Are you sure that it's mine?' Possibly, the palace staff did investigate her claim to have a bun in the oven.

Instead, David immediately summoned the cuckolded Uriah back to Jerusalem. He questioned him about the army, and the war with the Ammonites. But although David advised him to ' wash his feet ' [genitals again!] and to go home to his wife Bathsheba, and even made him drunk, Uriah refused. I personally believe that he had heard about his wife's adultery from the palace staff, who would have enjoyed embarrassing the foreign mercenary with the juicy gossip.




Uriah stayed in Jerusalem for 3 days. He did not visit his wife. And she did not come to see him either. Perhaps this is another indication that their marriage had broken down. Perhaps Carmel, from the Jerusalem District Conciliation Service, might have been able to mediate?

Now if Uriah refused both available options, either to adopt his wife's pregnancy as his own, or to divorce her, then he knew that he was signing his own death warrant.





Rembrandt portrays Uriah being sent back to the battle. David, Uriah and the old secretary all know exactly what is in the letter that he will hand to his army commander: 'put Uriah in the front row of the battle, and then withdraw and leave him to be killed'.






The two gospel illustrations combine the naked Bathsheba exhibiting herself during her bath and watched by David, with the scene of her husband Uriah receiving the fatal instructions from the king.






















Back at the battle scene, Uriah alone is not wearing armour.




















The expected sequel is a brilliant parable. Nathan the prophet arrived and told David about one of his subjects, a poor man, who looked after a beloved lamb - his only possession.
His wealthy neighbour had guests, but instead of preparing one of his own sheep, he took and slaughtered the poor man's lamb.
David was outraged and blustered about punishment and compensation.
So Nathan told him: 'You are that man'.
And he informed David, that the baby that Bathsheba had conceived would die.
























By then, Bathsheba had been told that Uriah had been killed in the battle.

So after the appropriate period of mourning, she became David's wife, and their next child was Solomon.





An exciting and touching story. I wish I could have written it.

33.The Silence of the Blogs

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When we studied the Old Testament at school very many years ago, certain phrases stuck in our mind. One such appears in the description of the contest of Elijah with the prophets of Baal. It is a dramatic and amusing story. It is among the scenes preserved on the walls of the fourth century synagogue in Dura Europos. The pagan prophets are trying to invoke their god, but 'there was no voice, and no reply, and none to listen.'
(I R 18:29)
The fresco (above the pictorial dado) shows the prophets of Baal trying to cheat, by hiding a man under the altar to light the 'miraculous' fire. But a serpent is sent by god to kill him - a post-biblical addition. We were told by our teacher that this threefold lack of response was the greatest possible insult: there was no one even listening.

This absence of Baal's response brings me to my blog. Ruth installed a 'stat counter' for me, so that I can see how many people have looked at my blog either once, or more than once. The total is about a dozen per week. As Maureen Lipman in the BT advertisement would say, 'it's not exactly all the rage, is it?' Yet my blog gives my email, and you can even respond anonymously. In conversation, a few friends have told me 'by the way', that they do read my blog. And today, for the first time, Judith received an unsolicited comment from an 'avid reader'. Thank you, Shirley!
Maybe I should not grumble. We are all more likely to complain, than to praise. So no response is probably a good sign. And I would not like to receive a message from some solicitor saying,
'We are acting for XYZ, whom you have libelled in your blog of [date], etc'
I am cynical, outspoken, and not legally trained: that is a dangerous combination. So I'm careful. The nearest I have dared to come in previous blogs was the naming of two individuals 'whom I detest'. They cannot touch me for that; and I have plenty of dirt to dish about them if necessary, just in case.

Many years ago our eldest daughter earned some pocket money in the evenings by scanning the draft of The Times for libel or defamation before it went to press. But she is working hard nowadays, and I do not wish to involve her in any extra tasks. Furthermore, she does not actually read my blog, because she prefers messages to be directed to her explicitly. So when a post is relevant, I will attach it to an email.
Another reason not to involve her is because one should not deal professionally with one's own relatives - although I myself have totally ignored this principle, provided that it is within my medical competence: I even cut a sebaceous cyst out of a close relative's neck.

Blogs are impersonal and require some stimulus to invoke a response. Looking at the responses to my daughter's blogs, they are certainly a mixed lot. Some comments only signify that the blog has been read: 'ooh, ah!' - similar to the inane comments by 'MED, USA' about the Israel photographs in Arutz 7 on the web.

But emails are different. If I have a question or comment - I send an email message. This action will reveal the other phenomenon of those who do not respond. My most recent example is my critical blog about the book of Egyptian medicine [17 July]. It had an undeserved complimentary foreword by a Pennsylvania professor, Donald Redford. On Google, he was quite famous. So I emailed him, attached my post and asked him why he had not been more critical. My email did not 'bounce', but it was not acknowledged as I routinely request; and he has not answered. A number of reasons are possible, and replies are sometimes delayed. We shall see - and an addendum may follow.

Blogs are useful. Apart from giving me an outlet for venting my anger or for amusement, we now get much more day-to-day information about our middle daughter from her blog than from any number of enquiries by phone. So now we phone her not to ask, but to comment.

Emails are free: please do respond - anonymously if you wish. But remember: I know where you live!

32.The Happiness of our Leaders

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Here is Ehud Olmert. At this moment, he is still prime minister of Israel. There are people who claim, that he is dishonest and has molested his secretary. With such a face? Never!!

Here are three images from our British Parliament: a youthful, almost juvenile, Alan Johnson. He is still our minister of health. To appear more mature, he has dyed his hair grey and painted rings under his eyes. Let us pray that he survives the re-shuffle.
He is flanked by the happy, almost ecstatic, images of Gordon Brown and Hazel Blears. They are both doing their best not to show their happiness. They must be thinking fondly of dear Tony and his brilliant transparent honesty.

Please print these pictures and frame them. You can hang them, or put them against the wall.
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31.A Poorly Written Book

This is part of the book's dust cover:

'MEDICINE IN THE DAYS OF THE PHARAOHS'.

The French authors are Bruno Halioua, a dermatologist, and Bernard Ziskind, a cardiologist, both 'members of the French Society for the History of Medicine' - no qualifications for this membership are mentioned. The translator is M B DeBevoise.

Their research apparently started with an attempted explanation of the ten plagues of Egypt for their children during the Passover Seder. But most Biblical historians [except for the fundamentalist orthodox] now believe that the Exodus story is a myth - a fiction composed many centuries later to provide the Jews in Babylonian exile with a legitimate history. The ancient Egyptians kept no slaves except prisoners of war; and 600,000 Israelite did not escape en masse across Sinai to Canaan - which was under Egyptian control at the time anyway. And the volcanic eruption of Thera / Santorini does not fit the plagues' description either.

Furthermore, these authors clearly do not understand Biblical Hebrew, when they translate 'kinim' as mosquitos instead of lice, and plague as 'oth'. You can safely skip this chapter at the end of their book. The authors love to quote from old Fench authors' works, often without giving references. I call this sycophantic name dropping.

The text is not well organized. Each chapter starts with a fresh sequence of references. But in the list, the pages to which these references refer are not indicated at the tops. Footnotes would have been better.

Many important clinical and paleopathlogical findings are ignored - particularly the serological detection of Tb, leprosy and Bilharzia. And the two interesting cases of big toe prosthesis are not mentioned either. Nor is the image of gallstones shown. They do illustrate the limestone painting of a female acrobatic dancer but claim [without evidence] that she was a prostitute - and they ignore to mention her elongated limbs, probably due to arachnodactyly.

I'm not sure of the evidence, on which they base their description of spinal pathologies in embalmers as due to the need 'to lift corpses and to carry them up and down stairs'. Really??

The classical book on Ancient Egyptian Medicine is by John Nunn. This book is not remotely in the same class.

30.A Case of VISA Fraud

Ten days ago we were due to see Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe. Together with Judith, Daphne, Jeff, Ruth and Heather we had a meal at Strada restaurant near St Paul's. When it came to payment, the waiter brought the Visa device to our table for me to enter the pin. He tried three or four times with [apparently] different devices. Each time he said that the Tesco card was faulty. Finally I used a different card and it 'worked'. We crossed the Millennium bridge to the theatre. Being suspicious, I mentioned to Judith that we should check the Tesco visa account next day.

But before we did, Tesco Visa Fraud phoned. Of course, I phoned back to make sure that it was them. ' Had we withdrawn cash with our card?' - which we had not. Apparently we never use this particular card for cash withdrawals. So our account had been robbed, and we were told to destroy the cards and wait for replacements.
I subsequently found out from Tesco Visa Fraud that the cash withdrawal attempts had been made at Hammersmith. They got £100, which Tesco assured us would not be debited from us. But then, when they tried to withdraw £200, then £100, and £200 again, these further transactions were blocked. I was also told, that they had copied the magnetic strip data from my card and cloned it - they apparently did not need the pin, that I had to key into the device at the restaurant. This copying must have been done with one of the devices at the restaurant. It had been modified but I had not noticed. I would look more carefully in future!

I phoned the manager of Strada to inform him what had happened, and of my suspicion. Our only use of the card had been there. He was quite aggressive. They had some faulty devices but definitely honest staff. He denied any responsibility or interest and advised me to go to the police. So I suspect that he might be in on the scam.
I phoned the police who explained, that as I had not lost any money, I was actually not 'a victim': Tesco visa were the losers, and they would investigate if they wished. I'll wait to hear. It would be interesting to know the following:
# at what time after we had paid for our meal, had the cloned card been used?
# what are the home addresses of all the restaurant staff: any near Hammersmith?
# an inspection of all the card devices that are used at Strada - although I suspect that the 'faulty' device was quickly rotated to another premises - that's what I would expect them to do.

Within a week we received our new Tesco cards. We signed them, and phoned as instructed to activate them. I also phoned and was assured, that the pin for the new cards had not been changed.

But Judith returned from shopping [at Tesco!] to report that the new card had not been accepted at the till. So I phoned Tesco Visa. They confirmed that the card was valid, but that 'no transactions had been registered'.
To quote Ronnie Corbett on TV, I thought: 'Funny?'
On a hunch, while still on the phone, I turned the card over. There was no dark brown magnetic strip across the upper back of the card! The person at Tesco visa went to consult her supervisor. After some lovely Bach Brandenburg music, she returned. The cards that we had received were faulty. She apologized. I commented that if it was a faulty batch, they would get more complaints. I don't think that she was impressed.

She promised that we shall get replacements within 10 days. And by the way, She had some special offers for me from Tesco. I kept my cool and politely declined. It shows you that I have mellowed with age. I did not even tell her, that she couldn't possibly make me an offer that I really wanted... not over the phone. That would have turned a case of fraud into one of vice. It would have shocked my reader[s] - and Judith was listening across the landing!

29.An Update

A mixed bag - but then I do not know what is of interest to my reader[s]. Judging by the Stat Counter, my popularity is not increasing. And I suspect that Mugabe, he who tried to rig the synagogue council election, only reads my blog [if he does] so that he can sue for defamation: I hear that he is 'very litigious'.

I met the new rabbi of Judith's synagogue who has just been appointed. A pleasant man with a good sense of humour and a beard: for me these are two important attributes. He told me about his dissertation for Leo Baeck college. A literature analysis of the Biblical episode, when Jacob's eldest son Reuben had sex with Bilha, one of his father's other wives. A very well researched and interesting paper on a topic that is obviously not represented in the Biblical illustrations that I collect.

He was kind enough to let me read his dissertation. I learnt a number of new facts - always an exciting event for me. Of relevance to other biblical episodes is the ritual Law, that if a wife had sex with another man [adulterous, rape or even while she was unaware - drunk or asleep], her husband was thereafter forbidden ever to have further intercourse with her. I reckon that if that law was truly kept, and known to the cuckolded man, it would sooner or later in their marriage force half the Jewish husbands to become celibate. Needless to say, the reverse does not apply: a cheated wife and an adulterous husband are allowed to resume their intercourse. Otherwise, most other husbands would have to become celibate too.

On Friday we were notified that Sheila Flashman had died. Although we knew about her carcinoma of the pancreas, and the chemotherapy, she had seemed to rally. Apparently the end was rather sudden. A merciful fact, but we never managed to say good bye. She had oncology privately and was given a 50:50 chance. From her description, I got a much more pessimistic impression. I fear that sometimes people with malignant disease are still given too optimistic an opinion for a variety of reasons. She was one of the founders of Redbridge U3A and did a lot of good work.
I used to neglect attendance at funerals. I felt that my efforts should be directed towards the living. But I have changed my attitude - the surviving relatives deserve my presence. So we shall go to Chesunt tomorrow.

Some weeks ago I agreed to conduct another Torah study session before the Shabbat Service at Judith's synagogue. Given the choice, I picked the episode of Balak, when the she-donkey had a conversation with Balaam [Numbers 22 onwards].
There had been good publicity, including the synagogue newsletter with a picture of a medieval woodcut from Nuremberg and a photo of me [only one of them showed the donkey]. Coupled with the rolls with salmon or chopped egg, some 20 people attended. It went very well.
I told them that these days, talking donkeys and talking serpents are only found in the house of commons. Balaam's description of himself as 'the man with the closed eye' enabled me to allude to an illustrious present-day 'prophet of prudence', Gordon Brown.

I knew that this episode would not fill the hour - particularly as I deferred part of it for the Torah reading during the service. Therefore I also prepared a contrasting story of David and Bathsheba [2nd Samuel 11 onwards]. Telegraphic in style, it has much scope for comments. I modernized Bathsheba's message to David, 'I'm pregnant' into an updated version of the 'bun in the oven': 'I've got a beigel in the microwave'. This story has plenty of sexy illustrations, and I suggested a future 'Oneg' - an hour's programme with slides after the Friday night service. I think they were tempted.

I also read from the Torah scroll during the service. As an ex-Israeli I am one of the people who can master the unpunctuated text without too many errors. Of the two people who were 'called up', the first was an Israeli boy of 13 who was celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in this way. Quite unusually, they had chosen this reform synagogue and had come from Ra'anana to London for a week to celebrate Alon's coming of age in this modest way. I understand that they had some diificulties with the email arrangements in English.
His father had been bullied by his own orthodox father and hated religion. Strictly speaking, of course, Alon would have become ritually responsible as an 'adult' Jew even without being 'called up'. He only recited the blessings before and after my reading, but his Hebrew reading of the punctuated few sentences was poor - he certainly had not been tutoured or prepared in any way. It will take another 5 years before he is allowed to cast his vote for that crook Olmert.