RBL 01/2011 Borgman, Paul David, Saul, and God: Rediscovering an Ancient Story New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. x + 335. Hardcover. $35.00. ISBN 9780195331608. Andrew E. Steinmann Concordia University Chicago River Forest, Illinois This is the third volume of literary analyses of biblical books produced by Paul Borgman, Professor of English at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. His previous efforts treated Genesis and Luke-Acts. The present study tackles another biblical book with a large amount of secondary literature: Samuel. In his introduction, Borgman seeks to demonstrate that the book of Samuel slowly reveals a portrait of David in answer to repeated questions about David s identity that are raised at various points in the text (1 Sam 17:55, 58; 25:2; 2 Sam 7:18). Along the way, Borgman contends, the book also reveals another mystery: a view of God through his interaction with David and, to a lesser degree, Saul. Since 1 Samuel presents multiple introductions to David, and since biblical scholars have taken these introductions and other items in Samuel as a way to determine the sources used by the final editor of Samuel to produce the text as it survives today, Borgman contends that there has often been a misunderstanding of the David portrayed in the book. He examines the views of David put forth by David Gunn, Walther Brueggemann, Baruch Halpern, Steven McKenzie, and Robert Polzin. While finding merit in some of their observations, Borgman argues that the resulting negative or ambivalent views of David are deficient and that only a comprehensive examination of the overarching and interlocking patterns within the book of Samuel can yield an accurate portrait of David as intended by the final editor of the
book. The result is that we will find in the biblical text a David whose range of emotion, motivation, and deed for better, for worse, and for better still. The characterization of David suggests a unique and complex individual, a most unusual king. As the mystery surrounding David diminishes, the surprise of who David is becomes greater and his human depth clearer. Answers about David shed further light on God s change of mind in choosing David over Saul, and, in general, on the workings of divine decision-making (16). In the first chapter Borgman finds two interlocked patterns involving three anointing of Saul and two times that Saul does wrong and responds poorly. From the parallels in these accounts, Borgman argues that they are part of the development of Saul s character. If readers fail to note the developing patterns, the nuances of Saul s character as a hopelessly deficient king are missed. Next Borgman turns to a third pattern: the multiple introductions of David. Once David is introduced by the narrator to the readers (1 Sam 16:1 13), and three times he is introduced to Saul (1 Sam 16:14 23; 17:1 54; 17:55 18:5). Borgman argues that these introductions are integral to developing David s character and are not simply the result of a stitching together of disparate sources. Instead, these introductions slowly reveal David s heart and imply that the text is promising in the ensuing narrative to show why God has taken delight in David. Chapter 3 explores two more patterns that exploit the interaction between Saul and David. The first pattern contrasts incidents that show fear in both Saul (1 Sam 18:11, 29; 1 Sam 28:3 25) and David (1 Sam 21:12; 27:1 28:2; 29:1 31) and how the two men react differently to that fear. In this way Saul serves as a foil to David in the narrative, helping the reader better understand why God chose David over Saul. Both Saul and David resort to deception in the face of fear. Saul s deception is negative, as he attempts to kill David and later as he deceives the medium at Endor. David s deception, in contrast, is both clever and appropriate, as he uses it to escape from Saul and later from the Philistines. Moreover, the final three episodes of deception are a small chiasm, with David escaping Achish (1 Sam 27:1 28:2), Saul using the medium at Endor (1 Sam 28:3 25), and David once again escaping Achish (1 Sam 29:1 31). Intertwined with this pattern of fear is another one that contrasts David and Saul: the use or nonuse of sword and spear (1 Sam 17:45, 47; 17:39, 50 51; 18:4, 10 11; 19:9 10; 21:1 6; 24 26; 30; 31:3 5). David refrains from taking up the weapons inappropriately, since it is God who grants victory. In contrast, Saul uses weapons inappropriately, as when he tries to kill David or Jonathan or when he commits suicide.
The fourth chapter considers another pattern that also demonstrates interplay between the characters of Saul and David: three times in a row David spares an enemy. These three patterns form another small chiasm as David spares Saul, then Nabal, and then Saul for a second time. These three linked accounts allow the text to portray David s capacity for simultaneously demonstrating political savvy as well as morality and genuine devotion to God. The next chapter explores the five episodes concerning the ark and women, with a subtext of communal well-being. The episodes begin with the end of Judges and end in the beginning of 1 Kings (Judg 10:1 21:25; 1 Sam 2:12 7:2; 6:2 23; 2 Sam 15:13 16:22; 1 Kgs 7:51 8:66). In each episode except the last there is a significant involvement of women who either make trouble or are in trouble. In the last episode, the happiness of Solomon s wives contrasts with the troubled or troubling women of the other episodes. This supposed pattern is perhaps the weakest one that Borgman presents. The parallels are not as strong as he would have us believe, and his attempt to make the episodes parallel appears at times to be strained. Moreover, the inclusion of material from Judges and 1 Kings does little to enhance the character of David, and one could argue that, no matter what the ark s history is before or after the events in Samuel, it is only the ark episodes in Samuel that serve to develop the plot line in Samuel and the resulting portrait of David. The sixth chapter, however, points to a much stronger and convincing pattern: that of failed fathers who are overly indulgent toward their sons. First is Eli (1 Sam 2:12 4:22), and then are three instances of David s overindulgence of Amnon (2 Sam 13:1 29), Absalom (2 Sam 13:30 19:15), and Adonijah (1 Kgs 1:5 2:25). In each case the father s indulgent attitude leads to the son s death and to public woe. Here again it appears as if the inclusion of material from Kings is debatable. David s indulgence of Adonijah is mentioned only briefly (1 Kgs 1:6), and it is not clear from the text that David s indulgence is a major contributing factor in Adonijah s death. In addition, David s attitude toward Adonijah does not result in public woe, as in the other cases. Despite this, Borgman makes a strong case that the indulgent-father pattern is operative in Samuel. The penultimate pattern is laid out in the seventh chapter. This pattern involves reception of the news of death and reveals differences between the public and private sides of David. The pattern begins with Eli receiving the report of his sons death. Here we see both the private and public sides of the high priest, and this incident serves as a foil for David s receiving news of deaths (Saul and Jonathan, 2 Sam 1:1 27; Abner, 2 Sam 3:28 39; Ishbaal, 2 Sam 4:5 12; David s infant son, 2 Sam 12:15 24; Amnon, 2 Sam 13:21 39; Absalom, 2 Sam 18:24 19:8). Once again Borgman makes the questionable decision of including Adonijah s attempted coup (1 Kgs 1:5 31), this time as ominous news akin to news of a death. These incidents paint a complex picture of David, who at times reacts
appropriately and even with political shrewdness but who also can demonstrate his weaknesses as ruler and father in his reaction to the deaths of Amnon and Absalom. Chapter 8 explores one final pattern, an extended chiasm that covers the last four chapters of 2 Samuel. They serve as a conclusion to the entire story of David, Saul, and God. Borgman sees them as having been arranged with great care by the final editor of Samuel in order to round out the portrait of David (and of God). The pattern is: 1. Saul Sins: Three Years of Plague (2 Sam 21:1 14) 2. David s Warriors and Leadership (2 Sam 21:15 22) 3. David s Poem: Blamelessness of God (2 Sam 22:1 51) 3*. David s Poem: The Ideal Ruler and God (2 Sam 23:1 7) 2*. David s Warriors and Leadership (2 Sam 23:8 39) 1*. David Sins: Three Days of Plague (2 Sam 24:1 25) This final pattern gathers together all of the major themes developed in 2 Samuel concerning David, Saul, and God. A concluding discussion contrasts Samuel s portrayal of David and God in Samuel with the portrayal of Odysseus and Athene in the Odyssey. Odysseus and Athene are presented by a story in which the characters are in many ways flat and two-dimensional. Odysseus is clever and Athene implacable in her support of all he does. Morality is of little concern. In contrast, David is a complex three-dimensional character whose cleverness is sometimes extraordinary and at other times fails him. God is not at all uniformly supportive of David, since the world of the book of Samuel is a moral world. Throughout his treatment of David, Saul, and God, Borgman attempts to demonstrate that scholars who have claimed that David is an ambivalent or negative character in Samuel are misreading the text. This, he claims, is because they have emphasized the text as a compilation of sources with often-conflicting views of David. A more appropriate reading, according to Borgman, is to perceive the patterns that the final editor of Samuel has placed into his compilation of the story of the early years of the united kingdom of Israel. Borgman concludes that David is gradually revealed to the audience as a complex person whom God chooses over Saul because of David s grasp of the moral imperatives of the world that he inhabits and his delight in God and his mercy, something that Saul consistently lacks. According to Borgman, David s God is not the inscrutable and arbitrary deity that many scholars perceive in the book of Samuel, but a God who makes excellent sense in a more subtle and complex way than is often grasped by many contemporary biblical scholars.
Despite the reservations expressed above about some of Borgman s perceived thematic patterns in Samuel, I believe that Borgman has made a good case that such patterns exist and were indeed purposely arranged in the final text of the Samuel as we have received it from antiquity. David ought to be seen as a positive character who often comes close to being the ideal king in the eyes of the narrator. Yet David is not completely ideal, for he fails at times as both king and father. One upshot of accepting Borgman s patterns is that one must reassess many of the sourcecritical conclusions about the book of Samuel put forward by some biblical scholars. While no one would argue that the writer of Samuel did not use sources, and Borgman several times avers that his analysis is not an attempt to challenge previous conclusions of source criticism, it appears to me that to accept his conclusions (even provisionally) is to call into question some but not necessarily all of those conclusions. At times the patterns that Borgman puts forward require that the sources must have been different than previously assumed or that the sources have been so obscured in the final author s creation or enhancement of these patterns that they are unrecoverable with any certainty. There are two unfortunate characteristics of this book that are not to be blamed on Borgman. One is the use of endnotes instead of footnotes. Borgman includes much detailed and insightful critique of previous scholarly readings of Samuel in his notes. However, to access them the reader must have two bookmarks and constantly be flipping back and forth to see how Borgman interacts with other scholars and their contentions on various points. In an age of computer layout and typesetting, there can be no excuse for placing this burden on readers when footnotes can be easily placed at the bottom of the page for the reader s convenience. Another drawback is the number of unfortunate typographical errors in the text that should have been corrected by a proofreader. There is no endnote corresponding to note 7 on page 64. On page 70 in the heading near the bottom of the page the reference to 2 Sam 30 should be to 1 Sam 30. Likewise in the heading on page 71, the reference to 2 Sam 30 should be to 1 Sam 31:3 5. On page 167 Absalom is said to be dead. Absalom is a mistake for Amnon in this instance. In the last row of the chart on page 174, Amnon is a mistake for Adonijah. On page 230 there is a stray s in the middle of a sentence. Perhaps one error is traceable to Borgman himself: it appears that Borgman asserts that Solomon was born before Adonijah (134). However, Adonijah is among the sons born to David during the early years of his reign when he ruled from Hebron (2 Sam 3:2 4). Solomon was born much later, when David was comfortably settled in Jerusalem. Overall, Borgman s study of David is well-presented and compares favorably to the many similar studies produced in the last quarter century. Its attempt to place David in a
positive light, in contrast to many recent studies that see him as less than honorable, is well-argued. However, even for those who might disagree, David, Saul, and God should prove to be a formidable study that should be taken seriously.