I found Baden's work both impressive and disturbing. Although I've always known that King David had to have been a ruthless person to achieve what he achieved, the very human cost of that and even whether it was worth it is now front and center for me. The fact, if true, that the biblical editors in fact deliberately revised history to clear his name is reprehensible. While I can understand the perceived need to do so, it is still not justified. Get the beauty and value of books like Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Book of Job, all remain. And even that text that we have to struggle with is valuable for the struggle as he says we would be immature if we did not find those actions reprehensible today. ( )

I found Baden's work both impressive and disturbing. Although I've always known that King David had to have been a ruthless person to achieve what he achieved, the very human cost of that and even whether it was worth it is now front and center for me. The fact, if true, that the biblical editors in fact deliberately revised history to clear his name is reprehensible. While I can understand the perceived need to do so, it is still not justified. Get the beauty and value of books like Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Book of Job, all remain. And even that text that we have to struggle with is valuable for the struggle as he says we would be immature if we did not find those actions reprehensible today. ( )

I started this book with disappointment as I feared that it might turn into one of these debating point by point affairs of biblical script. It did not though as I went on and finished it with a sense that I had learned about the man David and how the Bible tells a story to influence and spin their collective agenda.

Joel Baden does a good job of laying out things as they appear in the Bible that most people probably do not put a great deal of critical thought into. Over and over again I see evidence through this book and other interpretations that the Bible is a book of many cooks setting many agendas and purposes. The story of David is one such and Baden puts things into stark perspective that he was maybe not the great hero that many may think through what they have been told in the legend. David comes across as a very flawed individual who despite these flaws did create what would eventually evolve into the Israel of today.

The twist and turns, plots and murders read like a mafia intrigue. What really took place who is to say but Baden frames things in such a way that is more believable then what we are spoon fed from an early age and probably comes a lot closer to the truth of what was. ( )

***Received this copy from a goodreads giveaway***

I should start by saying that my mind was blown. I have always been skeptical of whats written in the bible but this book just drove home why not everything that is written is absolute truth.

David is the slayer of Goliath or was he? This book will have you thinking twice about this almost perfect specimen of man.

Every believer should read this book and decide for themselves, whether David was indeed a hero or a fraud.

Kudos to the author. I'll be thinking about this subject for a long time indeed. ( )

This book hooked me from the beginning. Definitely a fun read, especially during the beginning of David’s career.

Uncovering the historical David is no small challenge—more difficult than pinpointing the historical Jesus, I believe—but Baden makes a valiant effort. His research is fraught with speculation, and he certainly has no qualms about taking a controversial stand, but who knows? He may be right more often than he is wrong. The point is that we simply cannot know; we can only put our reasoning caps on and try to make sense of the tangled story in the Bible, for that’s all we have to go on. So keep a few grains of salt handy when you open the cover on this one.

It is definitely a fascinating journey. Baden’s picture of David is not very flattering. Our favorite Biblical king comes off as a power-hungry scoundrel. This is the story of a wilderness bandit who wields rogue diplomacy, military prowess, and ruthlessness en route to subjugating a kingdom for himself, ruled from his cultic center in the conquered Jerusalem.

While David’s accomplishment was astounding—unifying the diverse villages and peoples of Judah, and then stealing the northern kingdom (Israel) out from under Saul—one struggles to imagine him a national ruler. At least not on the same terms as Solomon, the next king of Israel. Saul ruled Israel humbly from “under a tree,” then David doubled its size and built a palace and worship center around the ark of the covenant, but it was Solomon who elevated Israel into a glorious kingdom on the backs of slave laborers. This unlikely trio would build a monarchy out of an unruly wilderness that would last for four centuries. ( )