Was bathing on the rooftop under the King's window commonplace in King David's time?

Question for anyone that can answer:

Was bathing on the rooftop under the King's window commonplace in King David's time? I thought they were almost expected to wear the Hijab back then.

2nd bonus question: were women in that era reasonably aware of their menstrual cycle?

I ask because I'm wondering, did Bathsheba set this whole thing up? Was she hypergamous, trading up an army officer for a King?

Your thoughts are invited.

 

Its cooler on the roof.. They didn't most cooking on the roof as well.

 

I believe the scripture says David was walking on the rooftops (presumable some kind of battlements) but doesn’t say where she was. Presumably he could have overlooked pretty much anywhere. They were relatively modest in the place and period depicted but the story also isn’t clear on exactly what he saw. Could have just been a flash of an ankle.

Not really my place to comment but I expect it’s difficult for a woman not to be aware of it. Whether they were aware of the link with pregnancy, as a whole or individually, I don’t know. Given pretty much all recorded history was written by men, details like that often remain open to speculation.

I don’t see any reason to presume either way. I suspect the whole thing is a largely invented story anyway, certainly in the details. It seems perfectly viable that a king might marry a military officers widow, and the royal line was probably relatively well recorded but the rest could be anything from exaggeration through to complete fiction for all we know. After all, it was first written several hundred years after the events occurred and as religious scripture rather than raw historical accounts. The point of the story is to give reason for attributing divine intervention to later events.

 

I had read that David gets Bathsheba pregnant and the pregnancy fails. I think there was civil war as David names Solomon the next King rather than his first born son. These were such retribution.
Thank you for your considered response.

EDIT: Wiki says David was on the palace roof.. not touring the battlements. Reviewing... David's first interactions with Bathsheba are described in 2 Samuel 11, and are omitted in the Books of Chronicles. David, while walking on the roof of his palace, saw a very beautiful woman bathing. He ordered enquiries and found out that she was Bathsheba, wife of Uriah. He desired her and later made her pregnant.[2][3][4]

2nd Edit: https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=nasb:2_Samuel.11–11
"David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king’s house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance."

 

She likely wasn't expecting anyone to be looking, but the King's palace had a much higher vantage point than any of the other buildings around.

Not many other buildings would have been tall enough that they could get a view of the roof.

It was common back then (and even still in some parts of the Middle East today) to sleep on the roof during the Summer, it's much cooler, more air circulation. The roofs are flat, so they are almost used like a home courtyard. Women would have washed and dried clothes up there, and the wash tub would also be there.

I met a guy from Morrocco and he told me his grandpa had two wives, and when he visited, his whole extended family used to sleep on the roof. Pretty traditional.

Think hot desert climate, and nights that quickly cool off from the scorching hot days, and it will start making more sense.

 

A lot of things in the Bible that seem bizarre to us are because of cultural differences. You go to many parts of the Middle East and you can still find the same sort of culture that existed in the Bible.

 

I now understand what Honest Joe was talking about above. David was on the roof. We do not know where Bathsheba was when bathing. The roof? Did David see her through an open window? "David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king’s house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance."

https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=nasb:2_Samuel.11–11

 

It was probably a multi-level palace. The king's bedroom would have been on an upper level. He wouldn't have needed to go up any stairs to go to the roof.

Look at illustrations of the Hanging Gardens of Babyl. There were multiple levels of roof.

 

Oh, by the way, women would have been very modest back then, at least a respectable woman. If a woman went around allowing herself to be viewed without clothes it was practically a license to rape her. (Again, similar story to many parts of the Middle East today)

Roofs would have normally had privacy, because no one could see up there.

I suspect the part of the king's palace that overlooked her roof might have been the palace harem. If that was the case, she wouldn't have been so concerned about other women seeing her. (Wasn't unusual for women to bathe together naked)

(Men weren't allowed in the king's harem, besides of course the king, and possibly sometimes eunechs. Very severe punishment, sometimes the death penalty.)

 

http://www.funwithcy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Hangng-Gardens-2.jpg
Interesting stuff, thank you for suggesting I look at this.

 

David lived about 1000BCE. This story was written about 600BCE. That's what it is - a story.

 

You are pretty savvy... Bravo.

 

Hmmm. Leonard Cohen added to my confusion. He writes in Helleluja, "You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you" https://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-hallelujah-lyrics The next 2 lines are about Samson, not David.
I'm pretty sure the Richard Gere version also has her bathe on a roof standing nude in oils. If I recall correctly, it has a feminist slant with Bathsheba berating David for his sins.

 

Yep.. They also cooked on the roof.. Have you ever heard of "camel stairs"?

 

According to the Jewish Babylonian Talmud, David knocked up Bathsheba when she was six (6) years old.

 

Interesting. As, 6 year olds as we know them are not fertile. This problem works in the other direction. Do we believe these ages: "Genesis chapter 5 lists nine men who had very long lives. How and why they lived such long lives is not specifically said. Adam lived 930 years (Genesis 5:5). Seth lived 912 years (Genesis 5:8). Enosh lived 905 years (Genesis 5:11). Kenan lived 910 years (Genesis 5:14). Mahalalel lived 895 years (Genesis 5:17). Jared lived 962 years (Genesis 5:20). Enoch lived 365 years before God took him (Genesis 5:22–24). Lamech lived 777 years (Genesis 5:21). Genesis 9:29 records that Noah lived 950 years.

But the oldest man in the Bible, outliving all the rest, is a man named Methuselah, who lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27). "

https://www.gotquestions.org/oldest-man-in-the-Bible.html

I wonder if Bathsheba's age is mentioned anywhere else. Thank you for sharing.

 

So, what the hell did Methuselah do worthwhile during his 969 years?

Remember, in the Talmud it is acceptable for adults to have sex with toddlers who are three years and a day old. We know know the biblical stories that David was one of the most despicable major characters in the Bible. He might have been OK as as kid but he was a waste as a man.

 

If you have a supercomputer you can use it to evaluate this newsletter about David & Bathsheba =

Biblical Horizons Newsletter
No. 93: Bathsheba: The Real Story
by James B. Jordan
March, 1997
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-93-bathsheba-the-real-story/

 

Highly unlikely, since Bathsheba was already married, and I don't see a 6 year old being able to seduce a man that already had a harem full of hand-picked seductive attractive women.

Just for everyone to be aware, The Wyrd of Gawd says all sorts of misleading disingenuous things.

 

Nope.

One approach concurs that Bathsheba was destined to David in the week of creation. The world was then six (6) days old.

Feel free to quote the Talmud if you disagree. Or give a source for your assertion.

Quotes, please, or other sources.

 

Further edit for both posters

Biblicalhorrizens appears closed and directs you to https://theopolisinstitute.com/

What David did to Uriah was arguably 2nd degree murder at least. He supposedly redeems himself after some outrageously immoral behavior.
The stuff about 3 and a day? I could see arranged marriages happening at that time but I'd think sex had to wait until 13, which is both puberty and the age when one can take on the responsibilities of an adult. I am wondering what you were reading that came up with that.

Thanks for the tip about destiny. Interesting. Would everything have been predetermined according to this view at day 6?

EDIT: http://talmud.faithweb.com/articles/three.html
There is a site making the 3 year old assertion. This link is to one calling that patently absurd, writing, "To those familiar with the Talmud, this claim is patently ridiculous. However, the majority of people — particularly those making this claim — know little to nothing about the Talmud, its contents, or its methodology."

 

Interesting article.. Sure sounds like fiction.

 

You should know what people think before you believe their ethnocentric religious fairy tales = http://www.come-and-hear.com/kethuboth/kethuboth_11.html There are other references in the Talmud that you can find at your leisure. It is a disgusting thing to read.

 

The problem with the biblical stories are that they illustrate one or more of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 34:11-28. Therefore, the stories don't have to make logical sense because they are merely devices to show a basic point. The details about the David & Bathsheba story are hard to dig out because there isn't very much information about Bathsheba, such as her age or when she died. We know that David was 70 when he died and that Solomon was 14 at that time. So David had knocked up Bathsheba when he was 56 but we don't know how old she was at that time.

The writer of the article examined that using the ages of other characters and got a range of 21-34 for Bathsheba. That is why you need a supercomputer so that all of the data points can be analyzed in a reasonable manner. From the story we know that David had known Bathsheba since she was a baby. Does the story also illustrate the Tenth Commandment = (You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk)?

 

Solomon was the first child of David and Bathsheba?