Greetings.
Jewish date: 6 ’Av 5769.
Today’s holidays: The Nine Days, Monday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time.
Today’s quasi-holiday: Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day.
Worthy cause of the day: “Curb Global Warming With a Powerful Climate and Energy Plan”.
Relevant to Divine Misconceptions: I saw the finale of Kings, “The New King, Part Two”, and it moved the plot further back towards that of the Book of Samuel with the characters displaying various mixtures of politics, idealism, and obedience to the Divine Will. The whole business of Jack trying to usurp Silas, the murder of Reverend Samuels, and Silas considering himself the enemy of God have no equivalent in the original text. However, once Silas is back on the throne, he goes crazy again and decides to kill David again (despite David helping him regain his throne), much as Sha’ul periodically went crazy and tried to kill Dawidh. Samuels also appears twice after his death, reflecting the famous episode of the Medium of ‘Endor, though in the original text Shemu’el never spoke posthumously to Dawidh and Mikhal. In an odd twist, the deceased Samuels proclaims that David and Michelle are married, correctly reflecting the marriage of Dawidh and Mikhal. (It was about time. Courtships today are relatively long and drawn-out. The Hebrew Bible depicts marriage as usually happening very quickly. The biggest exception coming to mind is that Ya‘aqov waited seven years to marry Raḥel. However, it only took so long because Raḥel’s father Lavan was trying to squeeze work out of Ya‘aqov. But I digress.) David also has to flee to Gath to save his life, much as Dawidh had to flee to the land of the Pelishtim. The series ends on a strange cliffhanger, with Jack essentially sentenced to produce an heir whether he wants to or not, with said heir to be raised by Silas and Rose. Michelle is also essentially imprisoned, with the implication that her parents want to get their hands on her and David’s baby when he/she is born. This is not how I expected the series to end, but apparently the writers were planning on a second season. Unless there is sufficient demand now to convince NBC to bring the show back, what happens next must be left to writers of fan-fiction.
General evaluation of the series: Writing sufficiently good to be watchable. The outline more or less resembles those of the Book of Samuel, even though the details do not. (Expecting too many details to reflect the Book of Samuel would be asking too much. Some aspects of the culture back then come out as very strange in the modern world.)
Major problem: Poor understanding of how prophecy works, with an emphasis on “signs” rather than clear communication. This may reflect that many of the prophecies that people obsess over today, End Times prophecies, are often couched in symbolic language and thus may be hard to understand.
For the entire series and further information: Official Web-site #1, Official Web-site #2, Kings on Hulu.
Today’s news and commentary:
As previously noted, there will be no new weird things until after the Nine Days. Peace
Aaron
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