Nothing, @DennyBurk ? Alright, I’ll tell you what I think. I think no one was stoned (per Deut. 22:23-24) because David was the king.
When a man lays with another man’s wife, whether it’s rape or (consensual) adultery, Deut. 22 provides that the man is to be stoned to death. In the case of rape, only the man is stoned to death. In the case of adultery, both are stoned to death.
Either way, if they follow the law, David is done. The king, in the person of David, isn’t about to let that happen. (This, incidentally, is the raw power dynamic that Samuel warns about in 1 Sam 8, prior to anointing Saul.)
For the very same reason—i.e., that David is the king—your application of Deut. 22 to the case of Bathsheba in 2 Sam. 11 is problematic.
A cursory reading of Deut. 22 might lead you to think that the law sets out two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive domains in which a man might lay with another’s wife: populated areas (or “in the city”); and unpopulated areas (or “in the field”).
On such a reading, you’d think that the law goes something like this. If a man lay with another’s wife in the city and she doesn’t cry out for help, then both the man and the woman are to be stoned. If she does cry out for help then only the man is to be stoned.
On the other hand, if a man lay with another’s wife in the field then only the man is to be stoned. (David lay with Bathsheba in town, etc.) That’s more or less your reading of Deut. 22, correct?
This is nothing short of hermeneutical barbarism. It disregards centuries of Jewish reflection on the text; and it renders the law frivolous and morally arbitrary.
What if a man lay with another’s wife in the city after rendering her unconscious? What if a man lay with another’s wife in the city and she cries out for help but no one hears her?
What if a man and another’s wife are engaged in an adulterous affair and they just arrange to meet in the field to mitigate the consequences for her if they’re caught?
What if a man lay with another’s wife in the field and she doesn’t cry out for help even though a caravan passes nearby?
What if a man lay with another’s wife in a small town—not quite in the city city, not quite in the field?
A much better reading of the text, consistent with Jewish scholarship, is this:
A much better reading of the text, consistent with Jewish scholarship, is this:
If a man lay with another’s wife in a situation in which it would make sense for her to cry for help (e.g., in the middle of a city) and she doesn’t, there’s a rebuttable presumption in favor of her complicity (i.e., adultery). They’re both subject to stoning.
If she does cry for help, there’s a rebuttable presumption in favor of her innocence (i.e., rape). Only the man is subject to stoning.
On the other hand, if a man lay with another’s wife in a situation in which it wouldn’t make sense for her to cry for help (e.g., in the middle of an empty field on the outskirts of town), there’s a rebuttable presumption in favor of her innocence (i.e., rape).
So only the man is subject to stoning. The only question, then, is whether it would have made sense for Bathsheba to cry for help when David summons her.
The text doesn't say she didn't cry for help. Be that as it may, there’s no reason to think she had any idea what was going on when she was summoned to the palace.
And once it became clear to her what was happening, for the very same reason that no one was put to death following the incident, it probably wouldn't have made sense for her to cry for help. Who would she have told? Who would have intervened? David was the king.
@DennyBurk , you represent an institution affiliated (however loosely) with the SBC. In sensitive discussions like these, it's important to get our analysis right. This is a painful subject for a lot of people.
I'll just add: at this particular moment in the SBC, it's not a good look for the @CBMWorg 's head man to be splitting hairs about what counts as rape.
