The backbreaker

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Respectfully, Cath, that's horse-hockey about the "lifetime of mockery". Solomon was the second child born of their liaison, and he ascended to the throne.

Let's be really clear, Rocket: David married Bathsheba after Uriah was killed. Consequently, Solomon was a legitimate son and heir to David's throne.

2 Samuel 11:26-27
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. 27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.

Bathsheba was not the first wife of David. He already had sons by his first wives, which is why there was a power struggle for the throne. The entire story of the "wisdom of Solomon", in which he offers to cut a baby in half, is a metaphor for his ascension to the throne. Israel was only recently united under the David kingship, and there was a real possibility for civil war when Solomon took over-- in other words, when it says the illegitimate mother was willing to let the baby be killed while the legitimate mother would rather see her baby given to the pretender than to die, it's Solomon's triumph over the legit heir... Solomon had amassed enough support to split Israel in half fighting for that throne, and if the people really loved their country, they should give it up rather than see it cut in half.

Despite all that, the fact is that Solomon was the second child born of that liaison (wife or not), and he ascended to the throne. I guess killing the firstborn baby was enough to satisfy God's wrath for the death of Uriah?

And whether or not that kid "ascended into heaven", it was still a *baby* who was tortured to death (via lingering disease) in order to punish his father. It clearly states that, A->B. 

"Tortured"? You know this for a fact how, Rocket? "Tortured" has all sorts of negative connotations, and you'll have to do more than simply assert that God "tortured" the child in order to make your point. Yes, ch. 12 discusses the matter in detail, and yes, God caused the illness which resulted in his death. But merely causing the child to die is not proof that God is a psychopath. Only people who do not hope for life after death would see things this way. You're in that camp, aren't you?

Yes, it is. Have you ever watched an infant die a lingering death (especially in an age without modern medicines) of disease? Have you watched anyone? I would rather die about a million ways other than that. A slow, lingering death inflicted on purpose to a baby by any intelligent actor, especially to get revenge on that baby's father, is the action of a psychopath. The worst kind of psychopath I can imagine.

It's either one of two things: God is real and a psychopath, or else God is imaginary and this stuff about disease being the wrath of a deity is as ignorant as the people who claimed lightning striking someone was the wrath of Thor.

Or that God showed mercy to the child by taking him to heaven quickly where he has been enjoying the Beatific vision ever since. The either-or that you propose does not admit this possibility.

But that is due to YOUR presuppositions, isn't it?

Quickly? It says the baby lingered and took a week to die!

2 Samuel 12:15-18 English Standard Version (NASB)

"Then the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, so that he was very sick. 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground. 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them. 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died."

Oh, one more point before I forget...your signature...some Protestant spoke to you about how it's not possible for someone to lose his or her salvation. I realize that you were raised in a Protestant home, but "once saved always saved" is a relatively modern Protestant heresy, and "Bible Christians" ought to know better.

In Romans 11:22, Paul says, "Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off." In Galatians 5:4, Paul says, "You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace." This verse implies that they were united with Christ and in grace before they fell. In 1 Corinthians 9:27, Paul again warns the Christians against being overconfident: "I pummel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

This is not the language of "once saved always saved."

Yes, yes, I know you all are experts on the Bible and What It All Means™. I'm sure YOUR version is the right one (insert quoted verses _here_), though!

I wasn't JUST raised in a Protestant home, I was raised in a fundamentalist and therefore Biblical literalist home. However, I do agree with you that it's an incorrect reading to think of it as "once saved, always saved". I simply found their assertion ludicrous enough to mock, for the reasons I state in the second half of my signature.