The field of cyber-archeology is both exciting and promising. As more and more ancient servers are being discovered and the contents translated, the more we are discovering about ancient customs and laws. In addition, we are discovering that many ancient tales had another side to the story. Here is an excerpt from the personal blog of Amnon, son of David.
. . . The thing I hated more than anything is how the palace virgins walked around, acting so virginal. Tamar was the worst of the lot. She was the original ice queen—remote, aloof . . . extraordinarily beautiful, I’ll give her that. But that was just the thing. You could tell, just by looking at her, that she knew what she was doing, knew the effect she was having, and that she liked it. She had to have liked it. If Jonadab told me once, he told me fifty times. “Oh, she knows, all right.”
You know how some women flirt with you by ignoring you completely? You know how some women think they have the right to ignore you completely? Oh, she pretended to be pious and dutiful. She pretended to be a thoughtful and obedient daughter of the king, but anybody who has been out in real society knows that it had to have been a sham, a pretense.
Jonadab said that he was doing her a favor as much as he was me. He is a cunning man, and he knows how the world works. “Look,” he said, “if she hadn’t wanted to be with you, why on earth would she have gone back into your bedroom? She wasn’t born yesterday,” he said.
The thing that really chafes me is that the story is circulating around the palace now is that I loved her, and then hated her. As though I were the fickle one. If my luck holds out, that will be the story that will go into the palace annals until some historian gets a hold of it. Typical man-bashing feminism.
Everything was fine until she started carrying on. She said that she had said no, which was technically true, I suppose. But I had been fully prepared to continue our relationship—until she started acting like the palace roof had collapsed. I know a trap when I see one. Before it happened, she even had the nerve to start talking about marriage. Marriage. I hardly even know her.
Look, life goes on. It has to go on. Tamar needs to grow up. She is not at all like her brother Absalom—he keeps his wits about him. I saw him a week afterward in the corridor outside the throne room. Do you know what he did? He came up and shook my hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.
Where would we be if we had self-awareness?
Wait. I’ll have to ask my husband. ;)
Now that is funny.
“Fringe of audience bell curve suddenly explodes!”
Got any blog posts from Elija?
I think I’d like those better! ????
Pastor Wilson is cray-cray. Cray-cray like David!
Nice and Screwtapy, from the point of the sinner. It has been said that while good people understand how bad people think, that doesn’t seem to work in reverse. I was reflecting that any time I have committed a major sin, I have not had much in the way of coherent thought preceding it. No bells and whistles have gone off, no sound of my guardian angel’s wings hovering like a chopper overhead. Only what I thought was an irresistible impulse and blind emotion. I guess that’s what the theologians meant when they said that virtue is a habit. It… Read more »
The Tamar story breaks my heart. And it illustrates that for all that he was a man after God’s own heart, King David was a terrible dad.
I was thinking of Dinah yesterday. How different would the Bible had been if she had had a child.
Those girls had a raw deal, that’s for sure. Imagine a world where marrying your rapist is your best hope for the future. And they didn’t even get that.
With all good humor here, the last thing we ever want to say to a rape victims is,
“…Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart….And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad…”
So…how to create a huge and festering mess…
Doug, have mercy. If you keep this up I’m probably going to pass a kidney.
I do hope you are well Pastor Wilson, what is your take on the validity of The Zeitgeist Film, The movie, “The God Who Wasn’t There”, and the Christ myth theory in their portrayal of the Historic Christian Faith? Thank You.
I very much appreciate these paired satires. I wish more people were aware that there is nothing new under the sun…
Among other things, these posts demonstrate how dangerous it is to attempt to develop a method of helping individuals who have been raped, apart from the Bible. The secular approach and the biblical approach simply do not mix. The differences are not accidental but essential, as shown by the differences in vocabulary and methodology. For example, the secular approach to dealing with this subject is to put forward the following rule: Anyone who claims to have been raped must be believed (even wording it this way is considered triggering). It must be vigorously defended that “people do not lie about… Read more »
Next we should hear from Lot’s daughters and Noah’s son Ham.
Sorta strange how few comments there are on this post compared to the previous one. Wonder why that is….
Clinton Fatigue.
And so far not even one has actually criticized our host for his insensitivity to all the male victims of real abuse that might read this.
Of course, as all good feminists know deep down inside, that’s because there aren’t any. There’s no point white-knighting for a group that simply doesn’t exist.
LOL! Okay, let me criticize Wilson for his obvious insensitivity toward male victims of real abuse! How is poor Joseph supposed to feel reading something like this?
All men are not Amnon, but out in the culture, at least within feminism, all men are Amnon. That’s a heavy weight to bear, not exactly fair. So all men become what we would call “co-abusers,” men having nothing to do with anything bad that may have happened, but “co-abusers” just the same.
The problem with this post is that it assumes the reader is familiar with the story. For those who have ne Er read this story, Absalom kills Amnon for raping Tamar.
Anybody else remember Jay Ward’s “Fractured Fairytales”?
Y’know, as entertaining as this is, it wasn’t written with the same scathing tone as the first post. Amnon’s just a clueless good ol’ boy. I guess Wilson saves his sharpest, and most critical wit for the ladies.
“Amnon’s just a clueless good ol’ boy.”
I did not get that impression from this post. I think it’s more painful to look at and that comes through in the writing of it. I’m actually rather grateful that Wilson does reserve his “sharp wit for the ladies,” because that’s a far gentler approach.
Also, I was reminded of the rather ominous tone in the last sentence, “He came up and shook my hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.”
And than they murdered him outright. Amnon loses his life over this incident. Murder is not exactly rape apology.
You did catch that Wilson’s entire point was to excoriate him specifically because he was being a clueless good ol’ boy, no?
I’m curious – if you think this satirical critique was not so scathing as the former, what specifically might you have added to make it as sharp and critical and scathing as the tone he used for Potiphar’s wife?
What?! No “comments” from N.P. or others rejoicing in this act of truthful vulnerability? Could this be an appeasement to the other post?