Week 11 1 Samuel
A while back I heard an audio recording of a talk about the David & Goliath story. The guy said the story is baffling unless you understand what’s really going on. And what’s really going on is that David was not as inferior – and Goliath wasn’t as fearsome – as you might think. In fact David was so dangerously lethal – and Goliath so physically deficient – that an informed person wouldn’t be surprised by the outcome.
It was a pretty interesting intelligent perceptive & well-told tale. And surprising too since it turned the bible story on its head so that D&G is not about weakness-overcomes-strength. It’s about strength camouflaged-as-puny vs. feebleness disguised-as-power.
Creative as it is I don’t get the impression the revised version is the point the bible writer was making. David told Goliath: you come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord Almighty…Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. The writer isn’t saying David is stronger than he looks. He’s saying the Lord would conquer the giant, and David would just finish him off.
When I’m reading through it isn’t illegal to think my own thoughts about what the bible’s saying. At the same time I figure it isn’t up to me to decide what a writer was actually thinking. He gets to make his own point.
Note: quote from 1 Samuel 17:45-46 (NLT). Speech by Malcolm Gladwell.