Reformed David(s) and the Question of Resistance to Tyranny

This study centers on the question: how do particular readers read a biblical passage? What factors govern each reading? DeLapp here attempts to set up a test case for observing how both socio-historical and textual factors play a part in how a person reads a biblical text. Using a reception-historical methodology he surveys five Reformed authors and their readings of the David and Saul story (primarily 1 Sam 24 and 26). From this survey two interrelated phenomena emerge. First all the authors find in David an ideal model for civic praxis-a Davidic social imaginary+? (Charles Taylor). Second despite this primary agreement the authors display two different reading trajectories when discussing David's relationship with Saul. Some read the story as showing a persecuted exile who refuses to offer active resistance against a tyrannical monarch. Others read the story as exemplifying active defensive resistance against a tyrant. <br/><br/>To account for this convergence and divergence in the readings DeLapp argues for a two-fold conclusion. The authors are influenced both by their socio-historical contexts and by the shape of the biblical text itself. Given a Deuteronomic frame conducive to the social imaginary the paradigmatic narratives of 1 Sam 24 and 26 offer a narrative gap never resolved. The story never makes explicit to the reader what David is doing in the wilderness in relation to King Saul. As a result the authors fill in the gap+? in ways that accord with their own socio-historical experiences.