The Real David

The Real David

David is the hero of the Hebrew Bible: the great warrior, the great poet, the king against whom all others are measured, the “man after God’s own heart.”

From Goliath to the Psalms, David’s name and story have inspired generations, and continue to be deeply embedded in modern culture. Even his failings are held up as proof of his humanity: after all, what is a hero without a tragic flaw (or two)?

But how much of this story is true? What can we know about David, and how, at a distance of three thousand years, can we know it?

Everything we know about David comes from the Bible. So how we understand David is really a question of how we understand the biblical text. The narrative of David’s life is often read as if it is history—but what if it’s something else?

In this class, Joel Baden helps us recognize how the biblical authors worked and what they were trying to achieve—opening up the ancient world of literature, politics, and theology. This reveals not a simple history of David’s life but rather a complex narrative with various competing layers, and somewhere under all of those, perhaps, we can catch a glimpse of who David might have been in real life.

This class includes:

• Class recording

• Q&A session recording

• Downloadable class slides

Cost: $25

Topics we’ll cover:

• The difference between what we think of as “history” and what’s actually happening in the Bible

• The political and theological agendas of the biblical authors and what they mean for how the story gets told

• The likely historical David found within his literary depiction

• How David became the legendary figure he remains today

Joel S. Baden

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

JOEL S. BADEN

Yale Divinity School: Professor of Hebrew Bible; Director, Center for Continuing Education

Prof. Joel Baden works widely in the field of Hebrew Bible, with special attention to the literary history of the Pentateuch. He is the author of many books including Source Criticism (Wipf & Stock, 2024); and The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (HarperOne, 2013). Professor Baden has also written widely for a popular audience, in venues such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate, The Los Angeles Times, Politico, CNN, and The Daily Beast.