Abstract
‘Can the so-called good book be bad for you?’ (p. 142). Eryl Davies has engaged with ethical issues throughout his career: from Prophecy and Ethics (1981), through The Immoral Bible (2010), to ‘The Ethics of Worship’ (2021). This volume demonstrates mature engagement with big issues presented with admirable clarity. We are promised ‘discussion . . . unashamedly literary in its approach [that] will largely focus on the final, canonical shape of the text’ (p. 3). Davies commends Martha Nussbaum’s contention that ‘if philosophy is a search for wisdom about ourselves, philosophy needs to turn to literature’ (p. 23): reading fiction nourishes ‘intuitive perception’ (p. 25); ‘in the act of reading, readers become, in Proust’s words, readers of their own selves’ (p. 26). He welcomes (p. 56) her insistence over against Kant that ‘moral obligations do sometimes collide’.
Davies introduces Narrative Ethics by exploring how the narrator in 1 Sam 25 guides us to sympathise more with David than with Nabal, the victim of his mafia-like protection racket. Lies and Loyalty are explored with reference to Michal (1 Sam 19) and Jonathan (1 Sam 20) deceiving Saul to David’s benefit. Unsurprisingly the two longest chapters concern Adultery and Murder (2 Sam 11) and the Rape of Tamar (2 Sam 13). The former is followed much more briefly by Nathan and David (2 Sam 12), while Nathan’s response to David is further explored, along with the census story (2 Sam 24), in Ethical Criticism and the Character of Yahweh.
The deliberate ambiguities in these several texts are carefully explored. At our distance, the complexities are further increased: we do not know whether Michal’s loyalty to her husband trumped or was trumped by her loyalty to her father. Nathan’s legal ‘parable’ does not speak directly to adultery or murder; yet ‘he showed no pity’ does fit the case. And the way Amnon had Tamar thrown out of his house may be even more telling than whether lying with her had constituted incest as well as rape. ‘It is not done so in Israel’ was the relevant standard rather than (il)legality. Uriah had embodied the higher values that the king betrayed (p. 91); yet we do get caught up in David’s emotional responses.
Davies’ critical interaction with a wide range of scholars is fair and mostly persuasive. Yet I am less sure that he is right to complain (p. 163) of my assessment that the divine punishment fitted David’s crime in having Israel counted. David’s role in the earlier episodes was more that of a private individual; but in 2 Sam 24 he acts as king to give a public order for a national census and overrides Joab’s objections. It is a fact of life – unfortunately – that governmental mistakes result in hurt to many people. David did belatedly recognise his culpable stupidity and did seek to exculpate the ‘sheep’; but he could not avert national disaster.