David at last!

I love the story of David. After the chaos of Judges and the disappointment of Saul, David emerges as a strong leader anointed by God to take Saul's place. I have been struck this week by just how long it takes David to finally reach the throne. Saul really makes things tough on him. I found it sad after the poignant portrayal of David and Jonathan's friendship, to learn of Jonathan's death through a list of names of Saul's sons who died in battle.

I love that Scripture portrays David in such an unflinching way. David is the greatest hero in the history of Israel from its time as a nation. The temptation would be to portray only his many strengths and victories, but the text does not shy away from his flaws and mistakes. It tells the whole story. It shows David needing to change his mind, to repent, to amend his life, time and time again. The contrast between David's willingness to change and Saul's repeated failure to change, despite his epiphanies here and there, is striking. In 3DM language, I'd say that David chooses to learn from life, but Saul passes over his kairos moments as though they were speed bumps :) David stops, reflects, and asks God is doing in his life and how he can respond to it. Saul admits at times that he's made mistakes and needs to change direction (how many times does he say, "David, you're right, I should really stop trying to kill you!"), but he ends up continuing down the same path, and it leads to his destruction.

As a resource for those who might want to study the story of David, I would recommend Rober Alter's translation of the David story which includes his commentary as well. He shows how this narrative is a cohesive and literarily brilliant one, rather than simply a patchwork of information about David from various literary sources. While his approach is more scholarly than faith-based, Alter's argument that the narrative is cohesive meshes well with the Christian view of the Bible as the inspired word of God. 

Maps in a Digital Age:
I have found myself slowing down while reading because I want to have a sense of where in Israel these events are happening. I had been mostly turning to the maps in Reading God's Story, but many places aren't listed on those maps, so I would spend lots of time searching the entire map in vain. I finally hit upon a good solution for me - the Glo App on my iPhone. The Glo Bible is software that is packed with information about the Bible set up in an interactive way, so that you can explore maps, timelines, historical information about the Bible. The app has various levels of content that you can purchase, but there is a free version. If you have an iPhone, check it out. When I type in a location name, it immediately shows me the location on a satellite map; I can then click on the name to get more information about the location.
My Progress:
I am catching up on my reading and have decided to simply blog about whatever I'm reading instead of trying to catch up before starting to post again. If you're on track and I'm posting about stuff you read a couple weeks ago, my apologies!