Greek David for Pride Week

What do you think, did King David speak Greek?

But wasn’t he the famous Jewish king? Shouldn’t he speak Hebrew?

Well, there is a developing consensus among progressive theologians, archeologists and Middle Eastern scholars that the legendary unified monarchy of David and Solomon really never existed. The lively stories about David are exactly just that: lively, formative stories which were composed many centuries later under the influence of Hellenistic culture.

Those are quite bold, if not presumptuous claims! Is there any evidence to support them? 

There are hardly any archeological traces of the unified kingdom of David and Solomon. Jerusalem at that time was a small settlement of about few thousand. And in the Bible, those lively and thrilling biblical stories abound with interesting anachronisms. For instance, units of Greek mercenaries among David’s troops were impossible before the late Persian period. Above it all, the literary style of grand narrative prose would have been itself anachronistic, something like that came only with Greek historiography. Before that, such expansive heroic storytelling was all in poetry. The literary character of king David was inspired by Greek culture, and as such he could easily understand or perhaps even speak Greek! 

 
It is all Greek to me! After all, who cares? What real difference does it make?

Oh it does, for instance on this Pride Sunday, it can liberate us from the shackles of religious fundamentalism. It can help us to confirm and celebrate a unique biblical loving relationship between two men, Jonathan and David. It can also help us to better understand and celebrate surprising cross-culturality rooted deep in our Judeo-Christian faith.

Then, let us celebrate!