Slippery slope to stupid


This woman is deeply, painfully stupid.


She seems to think there is some biological trend. There isn’t. Heterosexuality will always be common, and so will homosexuality.

Except, here’s the future liberals want: everyone is free to choose whom to love without shame or punishment. Kids are free to explore who they want to be, without their church or the government dictating which subset of the populace they are allowed to form loving relationships with; boys can love boys, boys can love girls, girls can love girls, girls can love boys, boys can be girls, girls can be boys, and if they don’t find fulfillment in sexual relationships, they can do something else. All the people who get pregnant will be those who want babies. Families will come in all flavors, and no one will find it at all unusual, let alone want to tell other people how they are supposed to live.

I think it would be absolutely wonderful if no one were “straight” anymore, in the Marjorie Taylor Greene sense of the word: compelled to live in a narrow little box, no matter what their heart tells them. That does not imply that heterosexuality will be discouraged or punished, although the MJTs of the world will always project and think that what they do to minorities is what will happen to them.

Comments

  1. Akira MacKenzie says

    She seems to think there is some biological trend.

    I don’t know if she considers it a “biological trend.” The Bible-beaters have long fought the idea that there is any functional basis for human behavior, especially when it comes to sexuality. More likely she thinks that LGBTQ+ people are created through “grooming” and protected by “political correctness” by the shadowy Satanic Marxist cabal that allegedly rules the world.

  2. says

    Fundies always claim that the Biblical view of marriage is between one man and one woman while ignoring the Bible hero characters like Jacob, David, and Solomon who had many wives and concubines in their families. And God never went after them for it (except for the time when God went after David for an adulterous affair with Bathsheba).

  3. Ada Christine says

    it’s always that conflation between “abolish heterosexuality” and “abolish the concept of heterosexuality”

  4. kingoftown says

    I wonder how this works with replacement theory. Will I need to learn Spanish to join the pansexual orgy pit?

  5. cartomancer says

    So, we should cut way back on the projected 2122 glitter and tight speedos budget, is what you’re saying?

  6. JoeBuddha says

    “Satanic Marxist Cabal” – dibs on band name!
    I agree. Because after the global climate collapse, there won’t be any PEOPLE to be straight.

  7. Rich Woods says

    I’m surprised she didn’t get a specific dig in at the furries. Or was that another loudmouth, know-nothing Republican? I can’t tell them apart anymore.

  8. raven says

    She seems to think there is some biological trend.

    I see a problem here.
    You used “think” in a sentence referring to Marjorie Taylor Greene.

    She isn’t actually thinking about anything.
    Greene is just stringing insults together, and making whatever right wingnut extremist statements will resonate with her base of…right wingnut extremists.
    This is communicating emotional states of fear, anger, disgust, and especially hate instead of communicating meaning and information. In linguistic terms, phatic as opposed to semantic communication.

    The tl;dr version.
    Marjorie Taylor Greene is a wannabe demagogue babbling like a loon.

  9. raven says

    …while ignoring the Bible hero characters like Jacob, David, and Solomon who had many wives and concubines in their families.

    Why would god care?
    Polygamy was normal and accepted in the bible.

    Biblical marriage was between a man and however many wives he could round up and however many sex slaves he could buy.
    Solomon had 700 wives and 300 sex slaves.
    The word concubine means sex slave. You buy and sell concubines.
    The bible was OK with slavery as well.

  10. Larry says

    The Zager and Evans 1969 song In the Year 2525 has more logical predictions as to the fate of mankind than does our Ms. Greene.

  11. says

    God wasn’t mad at David for the adultery so much as for getting Bathsheba’s husband killed. David ended up marrying her anyway He’s actually one of the most despicable fictional characters every created.

  12. Walter Solomon says

    She believe teh gays are created by the “gazpacho” police armed with Jewish Space Lasers who created toxic fake meat in a “peach tree dish.”

    I’m sure her side believes her yokelism makes her “approachable,” “authentic,” or something. You obviously don’t have to pass a GED test be a Congress critter.

  13. says

    The Lauren Boebert debate performance was also epic stupid. She sounded like someone who was on Steve Tyler levels of cocaine.
    It is possible that these people are too stupid for the American right. They finally dumped Cawthorn. There’s some hope.

  14. Pierce R. Butler says

    cervantes @ # 11: … David…’s actually one of the most despicable fictional characters every created.

    So many historians thought, until the Tell Dan stele was discovered in 1994:

    The inscription tells how the ruler of a kingdom named Aram Damascus defeated a king of Israel named Joram and a king of Judah named Ahaziyahu, who were both members of the house of David.

    The reference to “house of David” indicates that King David likely existed, wrote Eric Cline, a professor of classics, anthropology and history at George Washington University, in his book “Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 2009).

    “At a single blow, the finding of this inscription brought an end to the debate and settled the question of whether David was an actual historical person,” Cline wrote.

    Unfortunately, there isn’t any other evidence of either David or his son Solomon.

    So the stories of all the melodramatic behavior could be anything from factual to parable, but we know that a Hebrew king by that name did exist.

  15. silvrhalide says

    How did anything this stupid survive to reproductive age? Shouldn’t she have been snuffed out at an early age (or at least before reproductive age) by playing in traffic or something similar? And she’s spawned too. So much for getting that Darwin Award, unless she manages to snuff the entire lot in a suitably horrific accident.

    I’m beginning to think that the counterargument to evolution isn’t creationism, it’s the opening sequence to Idiocracy.

  16. says

    Just remember that to some fundagelicals, teh gays aren’t supposed to “live” in a “narrow little box”… because the box is made of pine and buried 2m deep.

    Pierce @15: I’m afraid the Tell Dan stele proves nothing of the sort, contrary to the conclusion-jumping. The tradition of successor dynasties renaming themselves after prior figures to lend themselves legitimacy is ancient, crosses cultures, and is nowhere more prominent than in conquerors who move their locus to the conquest. Or just change their names to avoid what are now considered unfortunate implications — consider the “actual family name” of the House of Windsor, for example. The Tell Dan stele demonstrates only that the legend of the House of David was sufficiently well known outside the kingdom of Israel to serve as a shorthand identifier, sort of like House of Kennedy in US politics today (one can successfully identify them to college students from Uganda that way…). The views attributed to Cline in that quotation leap over both evidence and logic in a fashion that even MTG might question as excessive.

  17. blf says

    The eejit’s assertion puzzles the mildly deranged penguin. She (the mildly deranged one, not the totally deluded one) has been in contact with the Great Global Gay Goblin Genetic Genie Geniuses, and all she got has great guffing gales, and eventually a denial they’d even considered gigantic guns going gaypew gaypew geypewpewpew from orbit or even reality.

  18. brucegee1962 says

    If humanity does survive another hundred years, and I was somehow frozen and thawed out to witness what happens, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see the whole concept of gender looking quite different than it does today. If fashions follow the trends we’re starting to see, for instance, then there might be no noticeable differences between how men and women dress, and designating people (or things, in Romance languages) by their gender might be considered old-fashioned. People might fall in love without taking gender into account.

    What MTG has failed to articulate is why this world would be such the terrible place she seems to think it will be.

  19. wzrd1 says

    Ah, yet another great replacement theory. Originally submitted to support miscegenation laws, well, now we know what the cheap retread looks like.
    Or as I call the lot, Dumb Fuck 3.0, the anencephalic idiot generation.

  20. joel says

    I’m not sure MTG is stupid, because –

    Think about Ted Cruz. Every time he speaks in public he sounds like an idiot, but he definitely isn’t an idiot: Harvard Law School, Solicitor General’s Office, argued cases before the Supreme Court. The man has serious brain power. So why does he always sound stupid in public? Most likely he believes that’s the best way to appeal to R voters.

    Now, some congresscritters plainly are genuinely stupid: Lauren Boebert, Ron Johnson, many others. But MTG? I’m not sure. She might be in the Cruz category: a performance artist who knows exactly what she is doing.

  21. seachange says

    #13 Marcus
    I perceive the dumping of Cawthorn as something different.

    They didn’t dump him for being Batshit Crazy Looney Tunes. They’re fine with the whole BCLT thing, IMO. They dumped him because he is a threat to their power: he is better at it than they are, has figured out where some but not the important skeletons are yet, and is young, handsome and disabled.

  22. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 19

    What MTG has failed to articulate is why this world would be such the terrible place she seems to think it will be.

    Right-wingers have very vehement belief of how things should be. People should be heterosexual. People should identify as the gender they were assigned at birth based entirely upon what genitals they were born with. People should be in lifelong monogamous marriages that produce children. These aren’t just “good ideas” to them, but they written into the very fabric of the universe and any attempt to challenge or change them isn’t just doomed to fail but is quite literally “evil.”

    What would our sexually liberated world will be like according to MTG? Utter anarchy. All forms of sexual activity, no matter how deviant and depraved would become the norm. “Men” and “women”–gender identities and roles dictated by Gawd himself–will become meaningless. Populations will drop to dangerous levels as people abandon (either by trickery or force) heterosexuality. Abortions will be performed “for kicks,” children will be raped by library drag-queens while little boys will have their penises cut off by their parents because it’s “trendy” to have trans kids. Bedlam! Babylon! Sodom AND Gomorrah!

    At least, that’s what she’ll tell her throngs of ignorant, bigoted, superstitious constituents and fans.

  23. Reginald Selkirk says

    @11 : God wasn’t mad at David for the adultery so much as for getting Bathsheba’s husband killed. David ended up marrying her anyway He’s actually one of the most despicable fictional characters every created.

    About that last sentence, it has an uncertain antecedent. I see others have assumed it referred to David, but I would like you to clarify if perhaps it meant God.

  24. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 22

    Most likely he believes that’s the best way to appeal to R voters.

    Or, hear me out, he actually believes the shit he spews. Remember, he’s the son of a Cuban refuge turned Mega-church pastor. One isn’t raised in that environment and NOT come away with a negative opinion of secularism or the left in general.

    We need to stop assuming that our political opponents are all just grifters and opportunists seeking money and power. People can and do believe in this insanity and I have no doubt that Cruz, MTG, and others like them think that are in the right and their schemes and claims are entirely justified.

  25. silvrhalide says

    @19 “People might fall in love without taking gender into account.”
    Or maybe not.
    People might not be aware that they are making a choice… or at least not making a choice for the reasons that they think.
    https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/39298/how-statistically-significant-was-the-sweaty-t-shirt-experiment
    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_08.html

    Other t-shirt experiments had some interesting results… women were asked to smell t-shirts and judge a guy’s age, general fitness, etc. having never even laid eyes on the male subject. The guesses were remarkably accurate. Heck, another 10 minutes with the t-shirt and the women could have probably figured out the guy’s credit rating too.

    The studies linked here were only male-female pairings. Kind of makes you wonder what male-male or female-female pairings would have shown with the same t-shirt test.

    The heart wants what the heart wants. Or other body parts. I suspect that “he’s cute/interesting” is at least partially the conscious mind’s rationalization of MHC. That said, human sexual preference is complex and we’ve all seen the semi-attractive idiot who rendered themselves unfuckable the minute they opened their mouth and crap spewed out.

    @13 With all the incriminating photos of Cawthorn that are resurfacing, I’m waiting for the one that shows him in an owl mask and sub gear, in alone and ignored in a corner of the chateau. :P

  26. rblackadar says

    @22
    To come up with “gazpacho police” or “peach tree dish” intentionally — that would require some high-caliber brilliance. Nobody is that smart.

  27. consciousness razor says

    joel, #22:

    Think about Ted Cruz. Every time he speaks in public he sounds like an idiot, but he definitely isn’t an idiot: Harvard Law School, Solicitor General’s Office, argued cases before the Supreme Court.

    But that looks a lot more like evidence that he’s probably a sociopath, which is not the same as evidence of intelligence.

  28. consciousness razor says

    I mean, I understand that the implication is supposed to be from “not an idiot” to “sociopath.” But it seems like you could just go straight to sociopath there, without also implying anything especially good about Harvard and such.

  29. unclefrogy says

    for all the stupidity and blatant and willful ignorance displayed by these clearly ambitious politicians whether they are lying or not is irrelevant. They are doing what they can to manipulate the voters and show no inclination to any moral boundaries to what they will accept. they would give support “a final solution” if their personal future and fortune would benefit even if they themselves did not suggest it in the first place.

  30. silvrhalide says

    @22 POTUS 43 went to Yale (where he got some extremely charitable Cs) and then, we are supposed to believe, he was accepted into Harvard Business School on merit and not on family connections. Upon graduation, Mr. MBA/Cocaine Cowboy couldn’t manage to find oil in Texas. So let’s not pretend that nepotism, wealth and white male privilege isn’t alive and well and largely responsible for idiots like Cruz and The Shrub’s upward arc and inevitable soft landing upon their inevitable pratfalls.

    Cruz is a senator in a safe district/in Texas who keeps getting reelected to Congress because so far, no one has out-primaried him and the GOP keeps running him. And because the idiot voters in Texas will apparently vote for a dirty sock on a stick if it gets the GOP’s endorsement. Dude lit out for Cancun in the middle of a federally declared disaster in which an not-insignificant number of people died and these morons will still reelect him anyway. MTG is more of the same–a moron who represents other morons.

  31. Pierce R. Butler says

    Jaws @ # 17: The Tell Dan stele demonstrates only that the legend of the House of David was sufficiently well known …

    I don’t claim any expertise in “biblical archaeology”, but my readings indicate that those who do have such claims seem to have accepted the Tel [oops – pardon my previous 2-L misspelling] Dan stele as debunking David-mythicism (though not even going so far as accepting that the inscriptor actually won the battle thus memorialized).

    Looking up “Joram” and “Ahaziyahu”, it seems both are accepted as historical figures from ~850 BCE, or a bit over a century after David’s putative time – possibly long enough for a legend such as you suggest to have taken hold, though apparently centuries before the biblical version was written. But I’d like to see evidence that serious archaeologists still support David-mythicism: whatcha got?

  32. Rob Grigjanis says

    silvrhalide @33:

    Cruz is a senator in a safe district/in Texas who keeps getting reelected to Congress because so far, no one has out-primaried him and the GOP keeps running him.

    The Senate has nothing to do with districts. But it’s worth remembering that in the 2018 race against Beto O’Rourke, Cruz scraped by 51% to 48%.

  33. Reginald Selkirk says

    Meet the Real King David, the One the Bible Didn’t Want You to Know About

    Apparently there was a United Monarchy after all, posits biblical archaeologist Israel Finkelstein – just not under the kings Saul, David or Solomon, but centuries later under Jeroboam II

    Finkelstein is a big name in the field.

    And, it was the real-life reign of Jeroboam II that offered Josiah the inspiration for the biblical story of the magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon, according to the new theory proposed by Tel Aviv University professor Israel Finkelstein, one of Israel’s top biblical archaeologists.
    Finkelstein, 69, has spent much of his career trying to convince his colleagues to stop contorting the interpretation of archaeological finds to fit the biblical narrative.

  34. Reginald Selkirk says

    op cit

    Conversely, even though places like Dan are described by the Bible as being part of the United Monarchy, Hebrew inscriptions from this site show the Israelite presence there dates only to the 8th century B.C.E. So these northern areas could not have been part of David and Solomon’s supposed empire some two centuries earlier, Finkelstein says.

  35. silvrhalide says

    @35 Rob My bad typo. I should not try to type without glasses. Cruz is a senator, Texas is effectively his district, as it were but not a district as representatives have districts. OTOH, Texas has also elected such walking crapstains as Phil Gramm, so I guess Texas voters just roll up to the polls and as for more of the same.

    People will usually choose the familiar, even when the familiar is terrible.

  36. says

    Pierce @34:

    Leaving aside that IMNSHO “Biblical archaeology” is utter cowpatties† my point was twofold: That a reference to a legendary figure does not make that legendary figure “factual” (e.g., the various Arthurian legends), and that the history of designation adoption by outsiders does not support the logical inference made by Cline even if it did. The predicate conditions for the conclusion, and the conclusion itself, were just assumed.

    † I have some general historical knowledge of Southwest Asian cultures, etc., all of which — plus my ancestry — leads me to believe that “pursuasive story in furtherance of the existing patriarchy” was far more important to the writers of documents prior to ~900 BCE than twice the sum of all other considerations. I make no claim to be an “archaologist” or to read the original languages, although one must question why this particular sublegend gets “more credibility” than, say certain others.

  37. Pierce R. Butler says

    Jaws @ # 39: …“Biblical archaeology” is utter cowpatties† …

    Much of it is, much has serious grounding (e.g., as cited by Reginald Selkirk @ #s 36 & 37) Israel Finkelstein takes scrupulous care to work from the artifacts, not from the stories).

    … a reference to a legendary figure does not make that legendary figure “factual” …

    That has to be sorted out on a case-by-case basis. In the Tel Dan instance, the king of Aram-Damascus has little reason to support Judahite propaganda from centuries in his own future.

    … the conclusion, and the conclusion itself, were just assumed.

    Y’know, I suspect Cline has some experience of and has given some informed thought to exactly that question. Finkelstein & Co have built careers on sorting such things out; at least according to my (2006) copy of his & Neil Asher Silberman’s David and Solomon (highly recommended), they and many other professionals take the DT stele seriously. So will I, at least until I find out other pros dissent.

  38. JoeBuddha says

    Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. But the bible is a compendium of fan fiction starting with the Book of Genesis and going through several authors trying to keep the narrative alive. The joke is on the Orthodox Jews and the Right Wing Christians.

  39. anat says

    The joke isn’t so much on the Orthodox Jews, because many of them are capable of following a liturgy full of Biblical characters while at the same time accepting the Biblical accounts are fan-fiction. After all, they also venerate Midrashic tales which are known to be fan-fiction. There’s a story about an interaction between Israel Finkelstein and one of the settler rabbis, where Finkelstein explains to the rabbi that the structures in the site known as Machpela (the alleged burial site of the Genesis patriarchs) are from the Herodian period and there is no way they mark the burial place of Abraham, and the rabbi responded that was great news for him – this is proof the site was sacred to Jews for a long time (since the days of Herod, rather than since the days of the patriarchs), and that his faith did not depend on the cave being actually the one in the Genesis account.

  40. StevoR says

    @ Akira MacKenzie (31 May 2022 at 9:39 am)

    @ 9. Let not forget David and Jonathan… wink wink.

    I wonder if MTG is aware of these Bible verses on that? :

    1 Samuel 20:17
    Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him with his whole being.

    See among other sources : https://thebricktestament.com/david_vs_saul/jonathan_and_david/1s20_17.html

    1 Samuel 20:41
    They kissed each other. And they wept together until David exceeded.

    Source : https://thebricktestament.com/david_vs_saul/jonathan_and_david/1s20_41b.html

    1 Samuel 20:42
    Jonathan said to David, ‘Go in peace, for we have sworn in the name of Yahweh that Yahweh will bond you and me and your descendants and my descendants forever.’

    Source : https://thebricktestament.com/david_vs_saul/jonathan_and_david/1s20_42a.html

    Which especially the last bit seems to give Divine approval to equal marriage.

  41. StevoR says

    @11. cervantes (31 May 2022 at 9:25 am) :

    God wasn’t mad at David for the adultery so much as for getting Bathsheba’s husband killed. David ended up marrying her anyway He’s actually one of the most despicable fictional characters every created.

    Like #25. Reginald Selkirk I’m not sure whether you were referring to King David or the Bible’s god as the “Most despicable fictional character” there. If you meant God then fair enough but if you meant King David, well, I gotta disagree because David was a complex character that also showed mercy and compassion at times despite, yeah, doing a lot of horrific things including genocidal & murderous ones. (liek many, even most Biblical monarchs & “heroes”.) But compared to the likes of Lot (described as a “righteous man” despite offering his daughters up for gang rape and later being raped by them) Samuel (the prophet who preached absolute intolerance and genocide including personally murdering an unarmed captive Amalekite King who King Saul had spared*) and Jephthah who murdered his own daughter to keep a promise to God** – like Abraham with Isaac but a girl unnamed and actually killed among others e.g. Abram / Abraham. I mean there’s a lot of competition and horrible as some of the things he did were i don’t think I’d put David in even the top 30.

    As for the Tel(l?) Dan Stele and the historicity of the Israelite King David and his dynasty, I don’t really know. However, if King David is mentioned then by a nearish contemporary then I’d say its plausible evidence of a real King David and myths often do have a core of truth in them eg Troy. I think there’s no reason to conclude there wasn’t a real historical David around whom the myths were made even if he wasn’t exactly as described in those myths which are no doubt exxagerated and embellished. I’d say the case that he was purely fuctional and not at least based on a real figure is the one that has the burden of proof here especially given such evidence as the Dan Stele. Its also notable that David is shown with so many flaws and his later soap opera with his family eg revolt of Absalom and with Bathsheba and his relationship with Prince Jonathan etc likely indicates that he was real because why invent such an imperfect charcter with such inconvenient parts of his life story?

    Just like the debate of whether Jesus was a real person, there’s really insufficient evidence to be sure unless we get a time machine but I’m more inclined to say there probly was a real person rather than a pure mythological invention and take things like the Dan Stele at face value unless clear reason to do otherwise exists. Dunno if you’ve seen the long debate over the latter Jesus reality question at Dr Sarah’s Geeky Humanist blog here :

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/geekyhumanist/2021/02/25/deciphering-the-gospels-proves-jesus-never-existed-review-chapter-two-part-one/

    But basically, yeah, we really don’t know and probly never will but for me its more plausible that Jesus and King David were real albeit later mythologised than that they were completely fictional without any real historical basis.

    .* See : https://thebricktestament.com/king_saul/saul_rejected_for_incomplete_genocide/1s15_34.html

    .** See : https://thebricktestament.com/judges/jephthah_kills_his_virgin_daughter/jg11_39a.html

  42. StevoR says

    PS. Also at @11. cervantes : God then made David and bathsheba pay for their adultery and David’s murder by proxy of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah the Hittite – by god himself coming down and personally killing their baby son.:

    https://thebricktestament.com/king_david/god_kills_a_baby/2s12_16.html

    Oh, and by having all of David’s concubines raped in public by David’s son Absalom for which theos econcubibnes wer ethen punished with life in jail. Because Gawd is so vewy vewy just and kind and forgiving and yeesh. F ing L.

  43. StevoR says

    Needless to say but will say it anyway, the new born infant and raped then imprisoned for life concubines had nothing to do with the crimes committed by their father / (blech) owner. Killing children – real out of womb born ones even – Christians are fine with it if Gawd does it of course..

  44. StevoR says

    PPS. Make that child not son -seems the first born of David and bathsheba doesn’t ahev aspecified gender.

  45. John Morales says

    StevoR, I being a bit bored:

    But basically, yeah, we really don’t know and probly never will but for me its more plausible that Jesus and King David were real albeit later mythologised than that they were completely fictional without any real historical basis.

    Who gives a shit?

    Whether or not based on something historical, stories are stories.

    (Inspired by, as the movies put it)

    Do you hold this as historical?

    David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins.

    (1 Samuel 18:27, NIV)

    Hey, I get your point. Number may be exaggerated, but what’s the diff between scalps and foreskins? Probably historical.

  46. John Morales says

    [bored]

    “Probably, in about four or five generations, no one will be straight anymore. Everyone will be either gay or trans or non-conforming.”

    The obvious response: “So?”

    If anything, it’s a bonus.

    Having children will require deliberate effort, in that case.

    God knows (idiom) that not all children are wanted (or sustainable) under a hetero regime.

    (Also, bisexual people aren’t straight, but also present no barrier to sexual reproduction)

  47. anat says

    StevoR @44:

    Its also notable that David is shown with so many flaws and his later soap opera with his family eg revolt of Absalom and with Bathsheba and his relationship with Prince Jonathan etc likely indicates that he was real because why invent such an imperfect charcter with such inconvenient parts of his life story?

    The tales of David and Solomon in the books of Samuel and the early part of Kings are divided into 3 major cycles: The story of King David’s rise, the inheritance cycle, and Solomon’s rule. The only part of those that could have possibly be based on contemporaneous materials is the first, based on names of locations mentioned in the stories and match with times these places were settled according to archaeological finds (see Finkelstein, David and Solomon). The inheritance cycle, which includes the entire storyline from the war against Ammon within which the Bat Sheba story takes place until Solomon inherits the throne, is much later. IIRC Finkelstein places it in the 7th century BCE, but John van Seters believes it is from Persian times, based on anachronisms in the story. His thesis and arguments are summarized here. In the Persian era a negative presentation of David could have been intended to explain that the roots of the sins that caused the downfall of Judah went all the way back to its foundations, to its very first king, and thus the story may have served as an argument against reinstating the Davidic line (in the form of Zerubabbel).

    Personally I find the argument from embarrassment a very weak one, especially if one doesn’t know who are the people that would possibly be embarrassed. A negative story about a current or very recent king might be embarrassing, but a negative story about a king long dead at a time when said monarchic line was not part of political reality is a different situation.

  48. anat says

    StevoR @45:

    Oh, and by having all of David’s concubines raped in public by David’s son Absalom for which theos econcubibnes wer ethen punished with life in jail.

    Sounds like a parallel with Odysseus’ treatment of the women servants who had been raped by the suitors? I think he killed them? Maybe this is more support for Russell Gmirkin’s thesis that Genesis-Kings was written by Greek-educated Jews in the early 3rd century BCE?

  49. says

    People will fuck.

    There always seems to be a class (that wants to be an overclass) that controls other people’s sex. It’s a pretty obvious attempt to get some nookie.

  50. StevoR says

    @48. John Morales : Who gives a shit?

    Lots of people. The answer to that is almost always lots of people.Inthis case, historians, theologians of various stripes and lots of lay peopel myself included. Well, for certain values of “gives a shit” anyhow. I find it interesting and am curious over the matter FWIW.

    Whether or not based on something historical, stories are stories. (Inspired by, as the movies put it)

    Agreed. And? Inthis case I’m in essence saying just that – there was likely, very probably even – though NOT certainly a real King David who inspired a lot of stories and myths that were exaggerated in the telling.

    Do you hold this as historical?

    “David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins.”

    No idea. Perhaps althouygh there seems little if anyevidnece.

  51. John Morales says

    StevoR:

    Well, for certain values of “gives a shit” anyhow.

    Yeah. For shit values of “gives a shit”. Can’t argue with that.

    Agreed. And?

    And mythology is folk narrative. Whether it’s veridical is beside the point.

    (Just told you that)

    Inthis case I’m in essence saying just that – there was likely, very probably even – though NOT certainly a real King David who inspired a lot of stories and myths that were exaggerated in the telling.

    Yeah, and I retorted “Who gives a shit?”

    (Meaning: what is the supposed significance of its purported probable veridical value?)

    No idea.

    Heh.

    Sure, go ahead and think that David the foreskin-collector was an actual historical figure. Why not? Makes some difference to you, perhaps. Not to me, obs.

    But should you want to make the case why it supposedly matters, go ahead.

  52. StevoR says

    @ ^ John Morales : Huh. That all seems circular.

    So agreed some people care – but not everyone and you just told me what I was saying earlier anyhow and .. ok.

    As for the foreskins story, well, I really don’t know but it wouldn’t be the first time human body parts have been taken as trophies in battles and massacres. Its something that echoes what happened to the people of Shechem following the rape or seduction of Dinah* earlier. Its not implausible although the nice round number is almost certainly historically inaccurate and it’s also quite possible and very likely too that the whole incident never happened which would be good news for the fictional penii in question. As for it mattering, well that’s a subjective issue and a question of personal taste and preference. Guess we’re really just dicking around here. ;-)

    @ 49. John Morales : Seconded and well put.Agreed.

    @ 51. anat :

    Sounds like a parallel with Odysseus’ treatment of the women servants who had been raped by the suitors? I think he killed them?

    Yes. He did according to Homer :

    In book 22 of the Odyssey, just after the massacre of the suitors, Odysseus also has
    twelve maidservants executed, in part because they had engaged in sexual relations with
    his enemies. But in other passages we are told that the suitors would use force to get
    their way with female slaves (and Odysseus accuses them precisely of this crime in
    verse 22.37). This seeming contradiction has caused a great deal of confusion among
    commentators, translators and other modern readers..

    Source : PDF Domingo Aviles ‘Are the suitors in the Odyssey guilty of rape? A
    linguistic analysis’
    /Downloads/12251-Articolo-36670-1-10-20191028%20(1).pdf

    Or maybe his son did at Odysseus’es command via wikipedia page : “..Telemachus also hangs twelve of their household maids whom Eurycleia identifies as guilty of betraying Penelope or having sex with the Suitors.”

    See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey#Slaying_of_the_Suitors_(books_21-24)

    Plus see also the discussion of this question here :

    https://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/07/the-murder-of-the-slave-women-in-the-odyssey.html

    That also seems pretty unfair and needlesly cruel to me. Not wanting them around and telling them to leave his place – fair enough I guess. Killing them – no.

    Maybe this is more support for Russell Gmirkin’s thesis that Genesis-Kings was written by Greek-educated Jews in the early 3rd century BCE?

    Perhaps. I hadn’t heard of him or that before and don’t know enough to say.

    @36. Reginald Selkirk & #50 . anat : Thanks for that interesting reading and seems fairly plausible.

    @28. rblackadar :

    @22 To come up with “gazpacho police” or “peach tree dish” intentionally — that would require some high-caliber brilliance. Nobody is that smart.

    Auto correct actually I suspect!

    .* See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah

  53. Rob Grigjanis says

    StevoR @55:

    @ 51. anat :

    Sounds like a parallel with Odysseus’ treatment of the women servants who had been raped by the suitors? I think he killed them?

    Yes. He did according to Homer :

    In book 22 of the Odyssey, just after the massacre of the suitors, Odysseus also has
    twelve maidservants executed, in part because they had engaged in sexual relations with
    his enemies. But in other passages we are told that the suitors would use force to get
    their way with female slaves (and Odysseus accuses them precisely of this crime in
    verse 22.37). This seeming contradiction has caused a great deal of confusion among
    commentators, translators and other modern readers..

    Yes, Odysseus knows that the suitors have raped some of his servants. But it is by no means clear whether he considers those servants to be guilty of anything. After he has slaughtered the suitors, he asks the nurse Eurycleia to tell him which maidservants had dishonoured him, and which were guiltless. She names “…twelve [of fifty] in all have set their feet in the way of shamelessness, and regard not me nor Penelope herself.”

    http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D22