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Divine Silence in Stefan Heym's the King David Report1

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Mary Versus Eve: Paternal Uncertainty and the Christian View of Women Vladimir Tumanov Neophilologus An International Journal of Modern and Mediaeval Language and Literature ISSN 0028-2677 Volume 95 Number 4 Neophilologus (2011) 95:507-521 DOI 10.1007/s11061-011-9253-5 1 23 Divine Silence Vladimir Tumanov Neophilologus (2009) 93 (3): 499-509. 2 Divine Silence in Stefan Heym's The King David Report1 Abstract: This essay deals with Stefan Heym's King David Report as a work of artistically-based biblical scholarship rather than a work of political allegory related to the writer's experience in the East Block during the Cold War. I consider Baruch Halpern's notion of complementary causation (the attribution of causes behind given biblical events to divine and human agency at the same time) in connection to King David's seduction of Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of Bathsheba's husband in 2 Samuel. I try to demonstrate Heym's refusal to attribute complementary causation to the biblical events in order to expose David and Solomon as Machiavellian autocrats rather than instruments of God. Given that (according to Baruch Halpern) the biblical story of David is an apologia of Solomon's illegitimate rule, Stefan Heym's novel undermines the traditional view of Solomon as a Christ type and a great Israelite monarch. Heym's position is contrasted with the deeply ingrained tradition in Judeo-Christian culture of seeing David's life in terms of complementary causation. The conclusion seeks to illustrates Heym's general philosophic stance that makes spirituality and power incompatible. Keywords: Old Testament _ 1 and 2 Samuel _ David and Solomon _ Complementary Causation _ Baruch Halpern _ Divine Intervention _ Bathsheba _ Stefan Heym’s King David Report 1 Published article here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k628q65069gq4p0j/?p=cac8ee60d534458fa4c0c93d4c570fe8&pi=2 Divine Silence Vladimir Tumanov Neophilologus (2009) 93 (3): 499-509. 3 Stefan Heym's retelling of King David's story from the Old Testament (1 and 2 Samuel) in the novel The King David Report has been extensively analyzed with respect to its allegorical implications. Parallels between East Block totalitarianism and the Solomonic court in the Bible are arguably the key purpose of Heym's novel. Its protagonist Ethan ben Hoshaja is given the task of writing "the proper" version of King David's biography for the purpose of propping up King Solomon's claim to power. Conducting his research into the legendary monarch's life, Ethan unearths a great deal of "improper" material which displeases Solomon's repressive court and leads to disastrous consequences for Heym's fictional historian. For his scholarly integrity, the protagonist is sentenced to a symbolic intellectual death: "Now, therefore, let him be silenced to death; let no word of his reach the ear of the people, either by mouth, or by tablet of clay, or by leather; so that his name be forgotten as though he were never born and had never written a line" (Heym, 1997: 247). As K. E. Attar points out, The King David Report thematizes the role of the writer in East Germany: "The accurate presentation of the subject matter subverts the desired propaganda effect, leading to the consequent condemnation of the writer(s) by his/their political employers" (2001: 276). Similarly, Peter Hutchinson explores numerous connections between the events in Heym's retelling of the biblical story and Stalinism: "King Solomon's mines provide a clear parallel to the Siberian slave-labour camps; exemplary confessions and apparently impeccable witnesses parallel the Stalinist 'show trials'; there is corruption and a black market, brutal suppression of all opposition (which includes regular purges), and a secret police" (1986: 133). Although Stefan Heym was indeed very much preoccupied with the power politics of his own time as he wrote this novel, to quote David Roberts, it would be erroneous to assume "that Heym is using his 'abstract' parable ('Gleichnis') solely as a transparent mask for a satirical attack on the use and abuse of power in the socialist block" (1977: 205). Even without any association with Stalinism or the Soviet realm, the power politics in the biblical material itself are worthy of literary reassessment. The protagonist of 1 and 2 Samuel — Divine Silence Vladimir Tumanov Neophilologus (2009) 93 (3): 499-509. 4 David, son of Jesse — is a strikingly paradoxical character. One the one hand, King David is perceived traditionally as a hero and perhaps the most important figure in the Old Testament. As Richard Friedman points out, "David stands out because if even half of what the Bible says about him is true, he lived an extraordinary life (1987: 39). David's reign constitutes the high point of the Israelite epic where the Hebrews are united and living in a kingdom that covers more land than before or after David (cf. Friedman,1987: 40). He is the conqueror of Jerusalem where the Israelite temple cult takes root and ends up defining the very meaning of Jewish identity (cf. Friedman, 1987: 92). David's persona lays the foundation for Jewish and subsequently Christian messianism, extending the king's role far beyond his own time (cf. B. Halpern, 2001: 3). In terms of national historic consciousness, whatever precedes and follows David's time is turmoil and fragmentation. Before David the Hebrews are constantly besieged by the Philistines and live as a loose federation of relatively disparate tribes in very precarious circumstances. After David, Solomon's discrimination against all the tribes but Judah causes the northern part of the kingdom to split away from the south, yielding two Jewish states: Judah and Israel (Freidman, 1987: 44-45). Thereafter, only decline follows, reaching its lowest point in Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE. No wonder David's name "appears more times in the Hebrew Bible than that of any other human person" (Marty J. Steussy, 1990: 3). And yet, despite his privileged status in Judaism and Christianity, the biblical King David appears as a highly unsavory character who does not shy away from extortion (1 Samuel 25), switching sides in armed conflict (1 Samuel 29) and contract killing (1 Kings 2), just to name a few of the monarch's misdeeds. However, as Peter Hutchinson argues, "although [1 and 2 Samuel] mention [David's] weaknesses and sins against the Lord, they play most of them down in order to give importance to other events" (1986: 132). David's biographer tries to exculpate the protagonist as much as possible in light of the Davidic Covenant, i.e., God's selection of David as a special king whose descendants are to remain on the throne of Judah permanently: Divine Silence Vladimir Tumanov Neophilologus (2009) 93 (3): 499-509. 5 The Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. (2 Samuel 7:11-13). Therefore, an attempt is made to distance David from his crimes by having him bemoan the fate of his victims (Saul's death in 2 Samuel 1:11-12), slay those who do his dirty work (the execution of Saul's Amalekite killer in 2 Samuel 1: 1-16) and appear as a "mock-traitor" (David's service under the Philistine king Achish in 1 Samuel 27: 5-12). And yet, as Baruch Halpern argues with respect to these and other incidents, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that under the apologetic veneer of the biblical narrative we witness a power grab which sets the pattern for countless future autocrats: "Where the author of an ancient text puts himself to the considerable trouble of denying an accusation explicitly, then the historian owes him, at a minimum, the courtesy of taking the accusation seriously. Second Samuel offers a laboratory course of denial" (Halpern, 2001: 80). However, this denial does not extend to what is arguably the most important and famous of David's dastardly deeds — the Bath-Sheba affair: It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, ‘This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.’ So David sent messengers to fetch her, and she came to him, and he lay with her (2 Samuel 11:1-4). Following this "royal seduction" David has Uriah the Hittite assassinated and marries Bathsheba. She then bears Solomon, the future heir to the Israelite throne, and the Davidic Covenant (see above) is implemented as the foundation of the Jewish (and subsequently Christian) ideological edifice. What makes the Bathsheba pericope stand out is the divine reaction to David's behavior. The prophet Nathan, speaking for God, spells out in very Divine Silence Vladimir Tumanov Neophilologus (2009) 93 (3): 499-509. 6 unambiguous terms that this time the king is not gong to "get away with murder": "You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house" (2 Samuel 12: 9-10). The events that follow are to be interpreted in terms of the Bathsheba affair. Baruch Halpern calls this "complementary causation" (47).
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