3 - How Open is the David and Jonathan Narrative?

Summary

This letter, written by a friend of ours,

Contains his death, yet bids them save his life:

(Reads) Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est,

Fear not to kill the king, 'tis good he die.

But read it thus, and that's another sense:

Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est,

Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.

Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go.

To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. Failure is to form habits; for habit is relative to a stereotyped world; meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike.

Introduction

The previous chapter pointed to two interrelated problems in the interpretation of the David and Jonathan narrative. The first is that the questions scholars ask, the way they go about answering them, and the answers they get are influenced and shaped by deeply rooted ideological agendas, even where these are not explicitly acknowledged. But this only goes part of the way towards explaining why competing interpretations of the narrative exist. The second problem is the predominance of binary thinking on the part of interpreters.