Three Bible Scandals

There never seems to be a lack of scandals lately. Christian celebrities, Hollywood actors, musicians, politicians, clergy and average people get exposed to a world of different scandals.

Because the Bible was written about real people in the context of real communities, it has its share of scandals  The following is a list of the top three Bible scandals.

NUMBER 4 - UNKNOWN ADULTERER IN THE BOOK OF PROVERBS (PROVERBS 7)

Proverbs 7 tells the story of a religious woman who faithfully served to God in her church.  She faithfully fulfilled certain promises to God and brought food into the temple for a loving sacrifice to her God.  There was food left over from her temple worship so she took the food home and invited her boyfriend over for a snack.  The problem with this romance was that she was married.

Seduction works both ways.  A man can seduce a woman just as much as a woman can seduce a man. In this case it is the woman who seduces the man.  Either way, no one gets seduced who doesn't want to be seduced.

The young woman promised that no one would know about their affair because her husband was gone, but at least one person watched them through his window.  He saw the young man and the married woman in plain daylight for the whole city to watch.  It seemed like the perfect picture of eroticism, with both the man and woman  pushing boundaries and moving in closer to each other, focused so much on their attraction for each other that they didn't notice that they were being watched, neither did it occur to them that they were nowhere secret as they thought.

As he watched from the window the writer (who had been around for a while) knew that this picture of romance was more like the picture of cattle unknowingly going into the place of slaughter.  The lovers were like 2 mice lured into mouse traps loaded with cheese - the taste of food was good, but the snap of the trap was deadly.

Proverbs 7 ends the story with a poetic warning to his readers: 

Adultery is a highway to the grave,

Leading down to the chambers of death. 

So these are my top five scandals in the Bible.  What do you think?  Are there scandals you think are more scandalous than these in the bible?

NUMBER THREE - FATHERS AND SONS HAVE SEX WITH THE SAME TEMPLE PROSTITUTES  LYING ON TOP OF GARMENTS TAKEN BY PLEDGE (AMOS 2:7)

The prophet Amos was appalled at the behavior of people around him.  He saw creditors take all that was valuable from those who could not pay their bills. And the most valuable possessions one had in those days besides their houses and their families, were the few clothes they had - especially their cloaks because those cloaks not only kept them warm during the day, cloaks also served as blankets protecting them at night.

The creditors were business men who had so much money that they could lend to those who struggled day by day to pay their bills.

Today if you don't pay your bills, your car or house will be taken by the banks; in those days your cloaks were taken first, then your children were taken away, and finally you and your spouse would be taken and sold into slavery.

Amos wrote about certain wealthy creditors who took their sons into buildings designed to worship other gods. There were prostitutes in those places - both men and women - who helped people to experience unity with the gods of nature.

These same creditors had cloaks from those who owed money and brought those cloaks with them to worship. They carefully placed these cloaks on the ground and took turns with their sons having sex with the same temple prostitutes.

While the higher class of society accepted this picture as normal, Amos spoke for God and he spoke for the poorer classes, calling it scandalous. 

NUMBER TWO - AMNON RAPES HIS STEP-SISTER (2 SAMUEL 13)

There were a lot of people who lived in David's castle.  There were cooks, servants, body guards, workers, many of King David's wives, and David's children of all ages.  Amnon was David's oldest son and out of all the people in the castle, Amnon  liked Tamar the most; in fact, he had a crush on her. Unfortunately for him, Tamar was his sister.  Well actually she was a half sister, because Amnon's dad had several wives.

Night and day Amnon thought about Tamar. He grew so obsessed with her that he couldn't eat until one day his friend gave him an idea.

On his friend's advice, Amnon pretended to be sick and asked his dad to send Tamar into his room to feed him.  Amnon's dad thought it was an odd request but agreed, so Tamar went into his bedroom, and while she prepared the meal, Amnon grabbed her, pulled her into bed with him, and raped her.  Then a strange thing happened.  Upon completion of his conquest, Amnon's obsession with Tamar turned into hatred and he demanded Tamar to leave his room.

Amnon destroyed Tamar's life.  No man would ever marry her knowing she had been raped by her brother.  She plead with Amnon to take her as one of his wives. She said this not because she loved him, but because it was the only shameless life available to her - in her culture - after being raped.  Even the Law of Moses said that if a man raped a woman, by law he should offer to marry her.  But Amnon wanted nothing more to do with Tamar.

With her life ruined, her closest brother (who had the same mom and dad) one of Amnon's younger brothers killed Absolom for raping his sister.

NUMBER ONE - DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (2 SAMUEL 11 & 12)

President Clinton told the world that he "did not have sex with that woman" as he messed up some young White House aide's dress. And for that people wanted him out of the White House.  Ironically, many of those same people hold King David, who in his day did far worse, as a hero of their faith.

David faced two big scandals in his life.  He narrowly escaped the first scandal, but fell head and heals into the second one.  Both scandals involved a woman and both scandals ended up with David marrying another man's wife. But before we get into all that, it is informative to get a closer look into what kind of man David was.

When he was young, King Saul was made king.  Saul was the tallest man in Israel with the most weapons - so when this huge warrior from the Philistines challenged Israel to a cage match - one on one - everyone on both sides looked to Saul for the match; but Saul knew he had no chance in the ring with Goliath, so he did what many leaders would do, he offered a deal to anyone who could survive in the cage with Goliath - the prize? Saul's daughter in marriage and no taxes to the family of anyone who would fight and kill Goliath.

David who was a young man, good looking, and with red hair took the challenge, went into the cage with Goliath, exchanged some trash talk, and then killed the guy using unconventional tactics. Seeing a helpless man, struggling to get his bearings, on the ground; David took the man's sword, and with several blows to his neck, chopped his head off. As onlookers on both sides looked in unbelief, while the head was still dripping with blood, David picked up the bleeding head and held it high for all to see.  For the rest of the day David walked around the Hebrew camp holding on to his trophy.

David turned out to be a great and vicious warrior - even the Bible says he was a "bloody man." Because David was better at killing than Saul, his life was threatened, so he took off and hid in the desert. Meanwhile people ran out to the desert to join him. There were people running from the Law, people who didn't want to pay taxes, and people who couldn't pay their bills.

Running from place to place, David demanded local farmers to feed his army of runaways, but one in particular remained loyal to King Saul and refused to help David and his men. So David decided to slaughter the men and boys on his farm. It turns out that the man's wife was not voting for King Saul in the next elections and it turns out that she favored King David's party, so when she had the opportunity - and that opportunity came when her husband got drunk - she sent a donation to David and his men. Her act which was contrary to her husband's wishes saved a lot of lives in her family that day. Because of what she did, she helped David to escape a major scandal - slaughtering a nice conservative family.

Lucky for David, her husband had a stroke, and God killed him. So David married her, and became king when King Saul died.

Even though David escaped one scandal because of another man's wife, David was not able to escape a second scandal dealing with another man's wife. After several years as a king, David entered his mid-life crisis and while watching from his balcony, he saw a nice looking woman taking a bath on the top of her roof (for that's where people bathed in those days).  She was hot, so David had his guards bring her into his home where he had sex with her and then sent her back home after he was satisfied.  Unfortunately, a few weeks later Bathsheba who was that woman he had sex with sent a note to David, telling him that she was pregnant.

He couldn't hide the affair as long as the husband lived, so David had him killed to cover up the illegitimate pregnancy.  I suppose David felt that he was doing the only right thing by covering up an embarrassing political faux pas.  I suppose he felt like he represented faith and leadership and it was important to protect his iconic image.  Murdering Bathsheba's husband seemed the right thing to do.

Despite his best efforts, King David's affair leaked out in social media and David lost his popularity, he lost his kingdom to his own son who quickly became more popular with the people; but after a short civil war and after David's general killed the people's choice, David and his men were able to get back into leadership. And the people resigned themselves to David's rule, accepting the fact that the man they really wanted in leadership was now dead.

CONCLUSION

Scandals oftentimes carry unseen consequences even in the Bible.