David & Bathsheba
The hottest Sunday school lesson I ever sat through (and what we were really being taught).
Sunday school as a Mormon could be pretty repetitive.
By the age of 13, I’d been taught the same stories from the Book of Mormon and the Bible year after year.
But this lesson hit different.
Sure, I’d heard of David. Everyone in the Bible was named David. I’d never heard this story about him, though.
Brother Bridger, was just doing his duty as a Sunday School teacher. The lesson he had prepared for my class of eight, 12-13 year old children was straight from the manual. Yes, there was a manual.
Awkwardly, he began to tell the story of David and Bathsheba. Why awkwardly? Well, this was one of those stories in the Bible that would give any cinematic adaptation of the holy book an R rating.
And he had to explain it to a bunch of pre-pubesceant kids in white shirts and ties.
See, David was king. He had everything he wanted. He had a wife. Probably multiple wives. A kingdom. Riches. God’s favor. This dude was killing it. He was a prophet and a monarch and a general. He had it all.
One day, Brother Bridger told us, David was just hanging out on his roof, looking at his kingdom, and something caught his eye.
There was a woman. On her roof. Bathing.
She was… naked, Brother Bridger said.
I felt something. Something I wasn’t supposed to feel in Sunday School.
The room went silent. That doesn’t happen very often with 13 year old boys. Unless you’re talking about naked women, I guess.
Brother Bridger continued. Cautiously. He explained how David watched Bathsheba bathe. On her roof, In the night.
I don’t know if there is a way to tell this story without infusing it with eroticism, but Brother Bridger had not figured that out. His careful narrative sprung to life.
We all listened — intently — as Brother Bridger explained how David’s obsession with Bathsheba grew. How David had the choice to look away, but he didn’t.
David tells his servant’s to find out who this woman is. And they’re like, “Isn’t that Uriah’s wife.” This is some Game of Thrones shit.
So she’s married — not a problem if you’re king.
David has his servants go get her. Not sure how that conversation went down (hey, the uh, King wants to see you), but Bathsheba goes to David (not like she really had a choice), and they — I’m sure this is how Brother Bridger put it “lie together”.
Whew. You guys feeling this? Is it getting hot in here? Just me. Brother Bridger was only getting started.
She came back and told David — you guessed it — “I’m pregnant.”
See, now, David has a problem. Not surprising. Any good Mormon boy who’s been listening knows that choices have consequences. Here was David’s consequence. At least, one of them.
So how was David going to fix his problem? I love that Brother Bridger just kept teaching us this lesson. He didn’t mince. He gave us all the details. All eight, 12 year olds. Like, this is a very “adult story,” he said. This is a “mature lesson.”
David sends for Uriah (her husband) — who was away at war for David — and tries to convince him to go sleep with his wife. But Uriah was so loyal that, that evening, he didn’t go home, he slept at the palace with the king’s servants. Aghast, David asked him why? Uriah said he felt bad going home and having sex with his wife when all his soldiers were at war.
This guy was too good. Or maybe he wanted to spend time with his soldiers… instead? Who knows. We can’t know. We can only speculate. We only know that his king brought him home from war to have sex with his wife and this guy was only thinking about his bros.
So, David got him drunk.
And Uriah still didn’t go home.
So, David sends him to the front of the line to be killed. Dude.
I was shook. This was not the Sunday morning I had planned on.
After the story was over, the lesson took a turn towards, in classic Mormon form, to pornography.
Pornography was all around us, we were taught. In magazines. On the computer. On the roof. We might catch a glimpse, but it’s up to us to choose whether or not we look. And by choosing to look (like David), we also choose the consequences.
There’s something very interesting about this connection, this story, and the way it’s told. As Leigh Powers points out, Bathsheba was never ON the roof.
Why would a woman be bathing on the roof? Obviously, it makes for a better painting. But, in reality, the Bible never says she was on the roof — David was. Bathsheba was just bathing, minding her own business, and David saw her.
This way we were told this story makes Bathsheba the temptress. She was flaunting for David. She was pornography.
As young Mormon boys we were taught that women — girls — were pornography.
The girls were taught it too.
“Young women, please understand that if you dress immodestly, you are magnifying this problem by becoming pornography.”
That’s a direct quote, from Dallin H. Oaks, a Mormon apostle, speaking to the worldwide membership in 2005.
In the same talk, Oaks talks about Joseph in Egypt, when his master’s wife wanted Joseph to lay with her. Here, Oaks refers to “temptation” as a “her”.
“When temptation caught him in her grip, he left temptation and got him out.”
These poor girls.
In the world Mormonism created, they were temptation. They were pornography. David was the victim.
I wonder what this lesson was like for the girls in the room? What were they being taught this week? Were they taught the same lesson?
As young men, the takeaway was clear. Women were temptation. They were pornography. We needed to be careful. We needed to avoid temptation. To avoid women. Getting “caught in their grip” could lead to unspeakable things.
Several years after I was taught this lesson, I would be “allowed” — encouraged — to start dating.
At 16, Mormons are taught to date and build relationships with members of the opposite sex. But like, how? How were we supposed to build a relationship with someone we were taught to see as a villain. As the embodiment of temptation?
We tried our best. We dated anyway. But, we dated cautiously. We were always vigilant. But rarely speaking about what we were afraid of.
We were afraid to be close. Afraid of what we were feeling. Afraid of each other.
I like to imagine a world where young people were instead, taught that they were going to feel sexually attracted to each other. And that, instead of being afraid of that feeling, afraid of each other, and afraid the consequences of attraction, we could acknowledge how we felt, together. We could talk about it. We could see each other as people, not as temptation, and make choices that best reflected our goals and desires.
That would be pretty cool. I wonder how Brother Bridger would have taught that lesson.
Can confirm we were (or, at least I was) taught that poor David was caught by a terrible, super-hot slut who was posing naked on her roof on purpose to trap him and it was *all her fault* that David did everything he did after seeing her.
So glad you're writing here. I can't wait for the next Mormon Sunday School un-lesson.