Topic: History Channel "Crucifies" King David
norslyman's photo
Sat 03/21/09 03:16 PM
History Channel has this new series on "Ancient Battles" which I enjoy very much. Although it's obvious they were probably inspired by the success of the movie "300" and throw in a lot of extra blood and gore - a little over the top.

Anyways, they described David as more of a "mafia Don" and portrayed him as this power hungry, coniving tryant who used every circumstance to his advantage. He consorted with "criminals" during his period of hiding out from Saul. He strategically made war on neighboring countries to increase the wealth of Israel.grumble

Wow. King David was "chosen" by Yahweh to be King. He was a man "after God's own heart". The best king Israel ever had. He took Israel to the height of it's glory. Many of these power hungry attributes WERE true of Saul, but not David. He repented deeply of his greatest double sin of adultry and murder.

I imagine many here would have quite enjoyed the way he was portrayed however.yawn

AndyBgood's photo
Sat 03/21/09 03:24 PM
Calling King David Mafia Don was a little over the top but he was not a very nice person. He may have been a great king but that didn't mean he didn't use (which he did!) Machiavellian principles to get ahead. He also had a habit of taking what he wanted without thought of the cost to others. He may have repented later in his life but that does not erase the blood on his hands.

Israel had it era of Bloodlust like any other empire... King David was smack in the middle of that era.

splendidlife's photo
Sat 03/21/09 04:18 PM
Aren't we ALL to varying degrees power hungry, coniving tryants who use every circumstance to our advantage with the habit of taking what we want with little thought of the cost to others?

ThomasJB's photo
Sat 03/21/09 04:52 PM

Aren't we ALL to varying degrees power hungry, coniving tryants who use every circumstance to our advantage with the habit of taking what we want with little thought of the cost to others?


Mr reputation precedes me. :laughing:
It is an unfortunate necessity. The trick is balance between selfishness and selflessness.

TBRich's photo
Sun 03/22/09 12:57 AM
Mafia Don = Man after G-d's heart, hmmm, interesting; well they are talking about the g-d of the OT who frequently demanded slaughter, rape and pillage.

Dragoness's photo
Sun 03/22/09 01:00 AM

History Channel has this new series on "Ancient Battles" which I enjoy very much. Although it's obvious they were probably inspired by the success of the movie "300" and throw in a lot of extra blood and gore - a little over the top.

Anyways, they described David as more of a "mafia Don" and portrayed him as this power hungry, coniving tryant who used every circumstance to his advantage. He consorted with "criminals" during his period of hiding out from Saul. He strategically made war on neighboring countries to increase the wealth of Israel.grumble

Wow. King David was "chosen" by Yahweh to be King. He was a man "after God's own heart". The best king Israel ever had. He took Israel to the height of it's glory. Many of these power hungry attributes WERE true of Saul, but not David. He repented deeply of his greatest double sin of adultry and murder.

I imagine many here would have quite enjoyed the way he was portrayed however.yawn


Which portrayal is probably more accurate? The History Channel has no agenda but the historical accuracy so it would be more reliable in that area.

Abracadabra's photo
Sun 03/22/09 10:38 PM

Speaking of history, I just purchased the entire New Testament on audio CD. This is the KJV of the Holy Bible being read by professional readers. It's not commentary, but just the Bible word-for-word. I already know the story but I wanted to listen to is as a tale being narrated to me. It's far easier than trying to actually read it because these professional readers know how the story goes and it's like they are "telling the story in Matthew's words"

The very first thing that struck me was the way that Matthew is constantly stating every view versus that some prophecy of the Old Testament had been fulfilled by what he just wrote about Jesus. Listening to this being read aloud made it very vivid that Matthew was indeed quite desperate to be sure to establish that Jesus was the son of God. He began with the genealogy of Joseph to show that Jesus was indeed a descendent of both Abraham and David, and this is quite a lengthy genealogy covering something like 42 generations. Now where would Matthew get this detailed information? huh

That already sounds quite fishy.

Then in chapter 2 he moves into the foretelling of the birth of Jesus and establishes that Kings came from far distances following a star to worship the baby Jesus, yet the local King knew nothing about it other than rumors? huh

Finally when John the Baptist baptizes Jesus the sky opens up and God speaks in a clear voice to the people gathered there, "This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased". So there you have it, if you had any questions that this guy is the son of God all doubt had been removed. Except in all honesty the story sounds so utterly corny that I couldn't help but laugh like I was listening to comedy show.

My sincere impressions up to this point were simply that Matthew was seriously desperate to convince his readers that Jesus was indeed the son of God beyond any shadow of a doubt to the point where that's precisely the way it came across.

Then in chapter 3 he has Jesus being tempted by Satan. But it's extremely brief. In fact, the only real temptation was to take Jesus up onto an exceedingly high mountain to show him all of the kingdoms on the earth and offer Jesus to be King of all these earthly cities. Jesus isn't interested, and this shocks the Satan because no mortal man could refuse such a temptation.

Again, I couldn't help but laugh at this because it truly is stilly. I personally have absolutely no desire to be the king of even one city much less a whole bunch of them. So I would have refused the offer myself. In fact, this is precisely one of the reasons the Bible often seems truly insane to me, the authors are always acting like all men are supposed to be tempted by certain thing when in reality there's no truth to those assumptions at all.

The other thing that struck me when I listed to the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil was the similarities with other religious tales. I'm currently taking a very in-depth course on Buddhism and Siddhartha Guatama the founding Buddha of Buddhism also went through a very similar temptation by a demonic being immediately after fasting. The story is basically identical on that point and this was a story that took place 550 years earlier.

So I truly found the first four chapters totally devoid of originality or believability.

As the story progresses Matthew continues to tell the story and insert quotes from prophets of the Old Testament after every point he makes. It really gives the impression that he's sitting there writing this thing with the Old Testament in his hands and trying to just make up a story that will fit the prophecy. There's no question that he has the Old Testament by his side as he's writing this gospel because he's quoting from it all the time. So that also bring his motive highly into question. If he truly just had a story to tell he'd probably just tell it. The fact that he's trying to prove his every point and match it up with the Old Testament truly indicates that he clearly has an AGENDA. He's not just recounting a story.

Then he speaks to the issue of the ministry of Jesus and he has Jesus healing quite literally thousands of people. He says that there were multitudes and in many cases even speaks of thousands of people, and he says that Jesus healed all who were sick, maimed, or possessed by demons. He does this repeatedly in city after city and throughout the countryside. He also has the crowds standing in awe at the "instant miracles". According to Matthew these people were healed in the self-same hour, he repeats this quit often throughout the story. He also often says, "and the multitudes were amazed by his powers".

Well, actually I think he shot himself in the foot right there because if we think of this in terms of HISTORY, how could this be? huh

How could it be that a man Jesus was going around healing thousands of people in front of thousands of other people from city to city and all through the countryside and everyone was totally in awe of these obvious miracles, yet there is no historical record of this outside of the Bible!

That's truly absurd. If some guy had been going around healing thousands of people and "making withered hands whole, and curing leprosy, and touching the blind and they can instantly see again, not to mention routinely raising people from the dead" surely these people would have told about these events and people would have written about then and word of this would have spread all through the land and even to neighboring lands. Yet there is absolutely no historical record of any such miraculous healer on this scale.

The only place we hear about it is in the words of Matthew and the other Biblical Gospels.

From my point of view this would be utterly impossible. So when people tell me that I need to read the Bible they have to be seriously joking. The more I read it the more I'm convinced that it can't possibly be true.

Finally after the ministry Jesus goes into Jerusalem and he gets over on the Pharisees leaving them tongue-tied in every encounter with them until they finally give up and leave with their tail between their legs. Then Jesus supposedly sits down and gives a sermon about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He calls them hypocrites, over and over and over again in this lengthy ranting sermon that truly sounds like someone who is really peeved with the Pharisees and is basically whining about them. When I listened to this I truly got the feeling that this was coming from Matthew himself rather than Jesus. Whoever wrote that part of the gospel was truly a troubles man who was extremely angry and bitter with the religious clergy of the time.

Then I had to ask myself, would the creator of this universe have given such a whiny lecture calling the Pharisees hypocrites and stating that they'll get what they deserve being cast into a hell fire and they'll be sounds of gnashing of teeth?

I mean, really whoever wrote this sounded like they were LUSTING for revenge. If that particular sermon truly came from Jesus or the creator of this universe then I would have very little respect for our creator.

Matthew also had Jesus predicting his own demise several times leading up to the Last Supper. Then in the chapter about the Last Supper Matthew has Judas sell Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver before going to the Last Supper. Then at the Last Supper Jesus says that one of his disciples will "betray" him.

But this is already an oxymoron because if it was Jesus' purpose to be crucified for the sake of man and that's what he came to do and this was his plan, then Judas wouldn't be betraying him at all but actually helping him fulfill his very own plan.

In any case, I haven't gotten to the actual crucifixion yet. This is truly painful to listen to because it is so truly unbelievable and repetitive. Mathew has Jesus saying "they'll be gnashing of teeth" several times throughout this chapter for many different reasons. Also anyone who claims that hell isn't referred to in the Bible needs to read Matthew because he has Jesus saying clearly that certain men will be cast into the hell fire that had been prepared for Satan and his band of evil angels. So there's clearly a threat of tossing humans into "the eternal hell fire" in Matthew.

Anyway I got carried away and shared my whole experience thus far. The point that I really wanted to make was the point about HISTORY and how it doesn't match up with the Bible. In my humble opinion there is absolutely no way that the events that Matthew describes on the magnitude that he describes them could have possibly taken place throughout the countryside and in many cities and have not been recorded in any other historical context other than the biblical gospels.

So whoever wrote this book of Matthew has thoroughly convinced me that what they have claimed could not have possibly happened in the way they say and in the magnitude and scope of that this book of Matthew claims. It just isn't possible for that kind of an event to have slipped by unnoticed by history. Not if it happened in the SCOPE that Matthew claims in this gospel.

I think whoever wrote this book was way to over zealous and exceedingly desperate to make Jesus bigger than life. The only problem is that if those bigger-than-life events had actually taken place on the scale that is claimed in Matthew they most certainly would have been recorded in may historical accounts. There's no way the things that are described in Matthew could have taken place in complete historical silence. Either none of it ever happened, or it is blow WAY OUT OF PROPORTION by whoever wrote the book of Matthew.

That's my conclusion. HISTORY just doesn't support this magnitude of miracle healings in front of multitudes of thousands and thousands of people from many cities and countrysides. The Bible is the only place we can find mention of it. That flies in the face of human nature.

Why would all those people never talk about what they saw? In fact, Matthew even SAYS that they do run off and spread the word of what they saw!

But there's no historic record of this event where the magnitudes where reporting abnormally high accounts of miracles being performed by a man named Jesus. This event just doesn't exist historically. If it really happened the way it is written in Matthew there's be tons of mentions of it in all of the normal accounts of history. The historical record of this event just isn't there.


MirrorMirror's photo
Mon 03/23/09 02:01 PM
:smile: You can be a "man afer Gods own heart" and still do the wrong things:smile: