Talk:David

correction on David and Bathsheba section.

This article states correctly that David is told that because he took Bathsheva from her husband and sent him to his death, his first child will die. The article is incorrect in stating that this child was Absalom. It was the first born of Bathsheva (unnamed in the text) as follows in 2Samuel 12:

15 Then Nathan went home. And the Lord caused the son of David and Bathsheba, Uriah’s widow, to be very sick. 16 David prayed to God for the baby. David fasted and went into his house and stayed there, lying on the ground all night. 17 The elders of David’s family came to him and tried to pull him up from the ground, but he refused to get up or to eat food with them.

18 On the seventh day the baby died.

This is directly in the text. Absalom's death came later. Absalom's mother was Maacah. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naftalisz (talk • contribs) 05:55, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The text here is not that clear and needs improvement:

"Nathan prophesies the punishment that will fall upon him, stating "the sword shall never depart from your house."[48] When David acknowledges that he has sinned,[49] Nathan advises him that his sin is forgiven and he will not die,[50] but the child will.[51] In fulfillment of Nathan's words, David's son Absalom rebels.[52]"

We don't say what child (David and Bathsheba's adulterus child), and that it does indeed die. Whoever wrote "In fulfillment of Nathan's words" may have referred to "the sword shall never depart from your house." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:13, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The text is confused (I should know, I wrote it - I apologise for the bad writing). It should say, but doesn't, that the infant son of David dies (there's a long description of that in the Bible), and that Absalom's rebellion is in fulfillment of the prophecy that the sword will not depart from David's house. If there's a source listed at the end of the sentence or para it might be helpful to consult that.PiCo (talk) 22:57, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Religion issue

This is an interesting one. Sure, to a Jew or Christian it sounds strange, but if Muslims consider David to be Muslim, don't we have to show both in the infobox? See Prophets and messengers in Islam. Doug Weller talk 15:20, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, we don't even know if he was a Judaist, i.e. monotheist or monolatrist. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:29, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is an interesting thought experiment, but I think putting it in the infobox would be a step too far. It can be said in this article that Muslims regard him as a prophet/messenger in their religion, but we should not imply that he was a member of a religion that didn't exist during his life. That's a slippery slope that would have Biblical prophets being claimed as members of any number of restorationist sects. ~Awilley (talk) 15:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Argh infoboxes, and especially argh for quasi-mythological people. It was added in this diff on July 3 by an IP. I've reverted. Yes "judaism" per se was not a thing yet, at the time he may have lived. Perhaps "Yahwist" would be better. Or better yet: "Important in Abrahamic religions" or the like. {{Infobox monarch}} doesn't really have parameters for this. Jytdog (talk) 15:39, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Per the editors above, infoboxes are for simple stuff. I find infoboxes like this annoying, since there's nothing in it that indicates that the contents are nothing close to historical facts. Maybe if it had a heading like "Biblical king" or something. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:01, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd rather it not be in the infobox, but if it it has to be NPOV. @Awilley: I was responding to removal of Judaism and addition of Islam in the infobox. I will say that the edit summary reverting that as "anachronistic" was a pov comment as Muslims do not see Muhammad as creating a new religion. They "believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus." Doug Weller talk 17:45, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I had missed the reverts, thanks for pointing out that context. I knew that about Islam. That's what I was referring to by my clumsy use of the word "restorationalism" (apparently that word is mainly for modern Christian churches trying to be the same church that Jesus started). Anyway, for a more specific counterexample, Mormonism is almost exactly the same as Islam in the way they view Old Testament prophets, and they see their own Joseph Smith as the latest prophet in the cycle of restorations and fallings away from the one true religion that was revealed to Adam. (See Mormonism and Islam) So from the Mormon perspective David is as much a Mormon as he is a Muslim. That's why I don't think we should start down that slippery slope. ~Awilley (talk) 20:59, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Art and literature

I'm thinking of making this section a separate article, similar to Nephilim#Popular_culture. "Cultural depictions of David", probably. It is/can be well-sourced, but is given a lot of room here (though I've seen worse), especially in the ToC. Opinions? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:35, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

This strikes me as a good idea. Just off the top of my head, there's Absalom and Achitophel, [TV show] that reimagines David and Saul in a modern setting, the evangelical classic Dave and the Giant Pickle, the evangelical classic King George and the Ducky, all kinds of stuff about David in Rabbinical Literature (Louis Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews), a [[1]] ... Alephb (talk) 00:13, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

The three first are in the article, so that's good. Kings is pretty great. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:55, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Alephb So... Bathseba is the rubber ducky? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:18, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes. I'm afraid so. I really enjoyed Kings, and was sad to see it go. Alephb (talk) 22:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

The King George story seems somewhat sanitized. I wonder if there's a dark and gritty "directors cut" somewhere. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:58, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Good idea. David has been depicted in art for millennia, and we could probably find plenty of sources on depictions of this semi-legendary figure. Dimadick (talk) 07:04, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I shudder at the thought that there might be a director's cut out there. Alephb (talk) 23:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Citation

Some big citation issues here, in fact no citation is used at all in the opening section of the page. Many places you would hope to find a citation, there are none. Can we please work on fixing this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.167.80.171 (talk) 12:36, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Per a guidance we have called MOS:LEADCITE, it is fine (well, it can be if editors are ok with it) to leave the lead without cites, as long as what's there is expanded on and cited in the body of the article. If there are things in the lead that are uncited in the body, that is something that should be corrected. The body lacks cites in some places, and help with that is appriciated. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:39, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Introductory note

Here's the note at the beginning of the introduction:

(/ˈdeɪvɪd/; Hebrew: דָּוִד‬, Modern: Davīd, Tiberian: Dāwīḏ; Ancient Greek: Δαυίδ, translit. Davíd; Latin: Davidus, David; Ge'ez: ዳዊት, Dawit; Old Armenian: Դաւիթ, Dawitʿ; Church Slavonic: Давíдъ, Davidŭ; possibly meaning "beloved one"[1])

Why is this relegated to a note? And why is it so long anyway? With the exception of English (because this is en:wp) and Hebrew (the original language), I don't see why any of these belong here, since they're just derivatives of the original. Maybe they'd fit in an article about the name, but one can have a full understanding of the biblical figure without knowing his name in ancient Greek, Ge'ez, or Old Armenian. Nyttend (talk) 16:54, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

It is so long because editors have made it long. This is a chronic problem on names of people in the Hebrew Bible.

It is in a note because putting it there a) satisfies people who think it needs to be right up there next to the name and b) gets it out of the way so that the first sentence is actually readable. See MOS:FIRST as well as this thing from FAC. That stemmed from this AN thread, which led to this which led to this, where we got rid of only some of it. For the remainder, there was a boatload of bad discussion (e.g Wikipedia_talk:Wikidata/2017_State_of_affairs/Archive_5#Wikipedia_descriptions_vs_Wikidata_descriptions, Wikipedia_talk:Wikidata/2017_State_of_affairs/Archive_7#Concerns_raised_around_Wikidata_descriptions_on_English_Wikipedia, etc) That whole WMF debacle is being sort of resolved with a "short description" template, Template:Short description being manually populated by en-WP editors, per this RfC. How the WMF will use that, is of course another question.

But first sentences should be actually readable and not have an obstacle course of alt spellings etc between the subject and the verb.

I have note-ified this pile-of-clutter in many articles and will continue to do so. Sometimes I stick alt names and alt spellings in the infobox, or down in the lead, etc. Jytdog (talk) 17:04, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

"one can have a full understanding of the biblical figure without knowing his name in ancient Greek"

Wrong. Many of the texts written about him belong to the Septuagint and its derivatives. Dimadick (talk) 17:42, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I've just searched through the Deuterocanon, and nowhere is he a major figure: he only appears in texts referencing him as an ancient figure, someone who would already be known through the Masoretic, with the possible exception of the Syriac-original Psalms 152–155, and yet we don't provide a Syriac rendition of his name. What other Greek texts matter for this purpose? Greek-language Christian texts are entirely dependent on the Hebrew original (whether directly, e.g. Matthew's gospel with its Hebrew-speaking author, or indirectly, by monolingual grecophones who used the Septuagint), as would be works by Greek-speaking Jews and anything written by pagans. Even when born-Greek texts warrant mention here, whether in the Christianity section or elsewhere, the reader can understand the biblical figure properly without his name in translation. But even if we accept the importance of including the Greek name, why do the rest matter? Tiberian is a matter of Hebrew pronunciation, so including it makes sense, but Latin is more remote than Greek (being dependent on it), and Ge'ez, Old Armenian, and Old Church Slavonic are regional uses less important than Latin. Why not mention his name in every other ancient language that came into contact with Christianity or Judaism? Gothic, Coptic, Georgian, Old Persian, etc. seem to be just as relevant as Ge'ez, Old Armenian, and Old Church Slavonic. Nyttend (talk) 01:40, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

fwiw I note-ified this back in Oct 2017 in this diff; you can see the trainwreck that was there before. I don't think there is any P&G for what alt names to put there; it is just people's preferences (shudder) and it will probably require an RfC to trim it. There has been a big pile going all the back to 2011 (see here and even back to 2009 (not as bad, but still a pile, here) Jytdog (talk) 01:58, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Though I know precedent isn't a final argument on Wikipedia, I think the only Bible character with an FA article is Jesus, where notifying happens in the first sentence. At the very least, let me second Jytdog's suggestion that notifying is a good quick improvement to a great many of the Hebrew-Bible-related character articles out there. Whether there could ultimately be some better way to do it, I don't know, but if you can quickly turn a first sentence from an obstacle course into a regular English sentence, that's a good start. And nerds like me, who actually do appreciate the occasional Hebrew or Greek or even Latin spelling, are already the kinds of people who read notes, so I don't lose anything by moving collection of spellings into a note. Alephb (talk) 02:21, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

As a side note, if we really do need the Greek spelling of David, then do we need an explanation of the multiple spellings out there? You'd get (in English characters because I'm feeling lazy): Dauid, Daueid, Dabid, and, most commonly of all, the odd abbreviation Dad. The rabbit-hole of multi-lingual names could go so much deeper than it does. Alephb (talk) 02:29, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

The note seems a decent solution, and if necessary it could be a section like "Etymology" in Jesus. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:46, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I want to second Nyttend's contention that ALL of these other than ancient Hebrew and modern English are pointless cruft as far as the intro goes. There may be places in the article body where they are relevant, there may be other articles where they are relevant, but in the intro here they are pointless. --Khajidha (talk) 16:58, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Bathsheba and David did not have an affair

There is nowhere in the scripture that suggests David asked Bathsheba's permission or consent. He raped her. This was not an affair. Furthermore, the story that Nathan tells David to rebuke him specifically says the lamb was stolen, therefore, David stole Bathsheba and raped her.