Talk:Uriah the Hittite

Untitled
Did Bathsheba want to have sex with David?
 * Maybe. The Bible does say "he was ruddy, and fine in appearance with handsome features." —Angr 12:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The answer to your question is a probable yes. First of all, Bethsheba's husband had been away for untold months at war. David, even though he was about 40 years old at this time, was a good looking guy (as stated in 1 Samuel 16). Third, he's the flippin king of Israel! What woman nowadays has not had some fantasy about some celebrity guy in the news, but David was the king, and still a rather youthful king. Added to that, there are absolutely no records of Bathsheba putting up any protest or any resistance whatsoever. So from all of the peripherals just stated above we can assume that Bathsheba might have had the slightest temptation to go to bed with the king. ManofRenown87 04:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * ---he was the king and she was a soldier's wife! Although no indication of rape is in the biblical account, she probably did not feel she had any choice in the matter.  WBardwin (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The description you quoted may not be a reliable indicator of his appearance when he met Bathsheba - it is written in 1 Samuel in the passage describing his appearance when he was anointed king as a probably teenage shepherd boy. In the intervening years he probably acquired a beard and maybe battle scars if his campaigns listed are anything to go by.Cloptonson (talk) 21:07, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but though I am a man and thus cannot give first-hand information, I have heard tell that a life of battle (or similar), with the signs it leaves on a body, is the very last thing to diminish a man's sex appeal.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:DD51:39B0:CD6B:DC0 (talk) 11:09, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Biblical account
I just reverted an edit by User:SamuelTheGhost. Rather than restating the Biblical account, I believe that more information relating to the "Hittite" designation of Uriah, which is found in the Bible, can be drawn from scholarly sources. WBardwin (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you do. So wouldn't it be a good idea to cite them? That's what WP:RS means. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 08:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Please -- look for cites first -- delete information only after all attempts to find the cite has failed. And, please, don't cite policy.  Just communicate here instead.  Reverted yet again.  WBardwin (talk) 23:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * With the greatest possible respect, could I point out:


 * I gave you a full week to respond here and was met with silence; then you tell me to "Just communicate".
 * the whole point of my deletion is that I don't believe that a conclusive reliable source exists, so it's hardly up to me to find one. If you think there is one, tell me and the wikipedia world what it is, then perhaps we can make sensible progress. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 09:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * "A whole week?" My -- so you don't have anything else to do but come to Wikipedia?  Believe me, a week is a very very short time on this site.  There are many sources for Hittite/Hurrian culture and their interaction with the people of Israel.  It is unlikely that you will easily find this material on the web.  But, these sources are at the university library, some 60 miles away from me.  I go there twice a month, or so, and try and do a little Wiki oriented research.  I've added this topic to a very loooong list.  Please be patient.  Once material is removed -- it is "invisible" to the casual editor who may have information to add.  And it takes away a visible reminder to those of us with long to-do lists.   Thank you.  WBardwin (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It's now over five weeks since I first took exception to the phrase "but particularly since after the collapse of the Hittite Kingdom" which you seem so determined to include, and you haven't come up with any evidence for it in that time. I want it out for two reasons: You've asked for patience, and I've been patient, but is not wikipedia policy that one editor can insist on the retention of fanciful ideas in an article on the off chance that someone else will happen to be able to substantiate them. I'm happy to use where proper evidence has not been supplied but there's still reason to believe it exists, but this is not such a case. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 21:34, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) It's importantly misleading, since it seems to imply that there was Hittite immigration into the Canaanite area at some stage during the Biblical period, which might be taken as having implications for the legitimacy of their presence there;
 * 2) It's baseless. Not only is there absolutely nothing in the Biblical account to suggest it, but you haven't given me any hint as to why you suppose it to be the case. Several scholars (e.g. Speiser, Bryce, see Biblical Hittites for details) say that the Biblical Hittites are unrelated to the Anatolian Hittites, so at best this idea would be disputed, but you haven't given even hearsay or anecdotal evidence to support your idea. As far as I can tell you just made it up.

Ethnic minority
With reference to the recent reversions between me and Keith H.:
 * According to wikipedia etiquette as given in WP:BRD, Keith should have come here to complain after I reverted, rather than repeating the edit. But I'll let that pass.
 * My motivation for preferring the original wording was that the history and status of the Biblical Hittites is very contentious, so the less one spells out the deatils, the less likely one is to say something wrong. After all the word "minority" implies some judgement about relative popuation numbers, about which we have in fact no information. I'm not inclined to make an issue of it, however, so I'm content to leave it there. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 11:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

On related point, why should there be a "probably" about Uriah being an ethnic Hittite? Surely a Hittite was a Hittite? If there are citeable alternative theories about his origins, I would not be unhappy to see them mentioned.Cloptonson (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The meaning of surnames is often a matter of presumption, not certainty. It seems most probable that he was one of the Biblical Hittites, whose precise nature is itself uncertain, as described in that article. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 22:36, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The idea that Bathsheba would have been forbidden to have married Uriah had be been an actual Hittite is presented in the article as unquestioned fact. Despite the obvious Mosaic prohibition, it is equally obvious that this prohibition was quite frequently ignored on a widespread scale (the last two chapters of the Book of Ezra are greatly illustrative of this).  It might be true that Bathsheba might have been less attractive to David as the wife of an acknowledged Gentile rather than that of a Hebrew, but that is merely speculation with no place in an encyclopedic article.  2600:1004:B14A:A290:B932:C987:2194:50C (talk) 22:35, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Fiction
Just like the rest of the bible this is pure fiction.

Agyemanduah
I am oll 82.12.81.97 (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2023 (UTC)


 * You see a bad thing 82.12.81.97 (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2023 (UTC)