This was a fascinating book for me.  As a Christian, I have read about King David throughout my life.  This book was written from a Jewish perspective which included a lot more background regarding the culture and norms that were relevant to King David. I felt that the author had a thing against King David and didn't celebrate him like Christians.  None the less it seemed that the Jewish perspective is more "legal" than the Christian perspective that I am accustomed.  A great book for stretching one's understanding of ancient Israel. 

Israel Drazin, the author of this thin volume, has a unique writing style that often disregards standard English sentence structure and usage, which detracts from the flow of the overall commentaries he makes about King David. His insights are, for the most part, interesting, although many of them seem to stretch the issue beyond bounds or come across as exceedingly didactic. Because the structure of the book is so didactic, it loses much of its appeal to interest and for understanding the human condition. King David is a colossal figure in the Old Testament whose life, as delineated in the bilble, offers unending opportunities for deep analysis and observation with immense human appeal. ( )

I am reviewing this for Librarything. This book was amazing. I don't remember a book that I have ever read that I did so much research on my own. Not to make sure Mr. Drazin was right or wrong, but to broaden my knowledge of King David. I am so drawn to a book. I have read II Samuel in so many Bible translations and this book gave me another look at it and King David. Mr. Drazin gave you questions and then he made you really think. I have to say this is one book that I will keep in my library and let others borrow to read. It is such an interesting translation. ( )

Brilliantly researched and scholarly work which attempts to account for some of the difficulties and disasters of David's reign. Totally unafraid of the weight of previous scholarship Drazin demolishes many established arguments in a cogent fashion. His style is highly readable and yet he does not scorn the use of footnotes and appendices where appropriate. I learnt a lot from this book and expect to return to it often when preparing sermons. ( )

Israel Drazin’s “The Tragedies of King David” is a highly engaging book that explores the latter part of the biblical King David’s life from just after the death of King Saul to his own death and the start of King Solomon’s reign (II Samuel to I Kings 2:46) through posing a variety of engaging questions and then presenting various past Rabbinical interpretations as well as Drazin’s own view.

Drazin divides the book into seven parts: David’s preparation to rule the united tribes of Israel, David as King of Judah and Israel, David as King of all Israel, the affair with Bat-Sheba, the conflict between David and his son Absalom, Joab’s assistance to Absalom, the aftermath - including Saul’s surviving family - and the census, and finally, David’s death and the passing on of the throne to Solomon.

Drawing on from a variety of rabbinical and scholarly interpretations, Drazin provides the reader with several viewpoints from which to survey the incidents of King David’s life covered in this book. Generally, the three interpretative viewpoints covered might be termed: Traditional and Literal as represented by Rashi, a Deistic Position as represented by Maimonides, and the Historical Critical and Textual Critical view as represented by Erlich. Drazin himself, when presenting his own opinion, tends to side with the latter, more modernist, view of Erlich.

I found this book to be a very worthwhile and alternative look into the Book of II Samuel and the life of David. I would recommend the “The Tragedies of King David” to anybody with an interest in the Bible, and certainly those interested in the life of King David and those interested in the issue of hermeneutics; that of the problem of interpreting a written text.

The formatting of the book is superb. The decent font and layout made this book extremely enjoyable to read. Gefen Publishing deserves kudos on the physical layout as does Drazin for the informative and thought-provoking book itself. ( )

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The Tragedies of King David by Israel Drazin is a look at the life of King David focusing on texts from Jewish Bible. Dr. Drazin is has a PhD in Judaic studies, as well as with master s degrees in psychology and Hebrew literature, and is a retired Brigadier General from the US Army.

The biblical story of King David is full of treachery, betrayal, sex, violence and a few heroics sprinkled here and there. The biblical David is a fascinating character, a complex man in a complex time. The Tragedies of King David by Israel Drazin asks the question “who was the biblical King David?” through examinations of texts from Samuel and chapters one and two of I Kings.

Rabbi Drazin examines King David’s life, actions, his rise to power, how he commanded his armies. The author also does not shy away from the ugly parts of the stories, the rapes and murdered committed by King David also get a notable discussion.

The dissection of the story of the Biblical King David is easily read and understandable. The author points out the hard to understand verses while providing insights from past scholars. I especially enjoyed learning about the contradictions in the stories, something which scholars still argue about and many of which are still unanswered.

This is a refreshing and unique book, which provides a deeper understanding into a complicated, and sometimes contradictory, story. Some readers called this a “history book”, I wouldn’t go this far as we know that the Bible (Jewish, Christian, and the Koran) are not history books, nor are they meant to be.
But that’s a different discussion altogether. ( )

I received this book as a member of Early Reviewers.

I enjoyed reading Author Drazin's work; however, there are some historical points that I would need to research more to feel completely confident of the points raised.

The writing style is clear and concise, but assumes an audience familiar with certain tenets of Jewish thought and religious practice.

On the whole this is a book I will revisit and gain more understanding of the thesis and specific information each time. ( )

What are the Mistakes of King David?

New archaeological evidence has shown that biblical King David existed. Dr. Israel Drazin in”The Tragedies of King David” has written an intriguing insight through biblical passages of the follies and mistakes of King David. What an eye opener to me. This is a must read for all faiths especially all who are interested in the bible.

Sunie Levin ( )

In depth coverage of King David's life. With a lot of footnotes. Information on the thoughts of prominent Jewish teachers.
He argues that since King David did things that were not permitted under the Law of Moses he did not know about the law.
However knowing their religion taught one thing often hasn't stopped them from doing things. ( )

If you are a History buff, this is a well researched book - some of it is complex to read but as he brings the bible to life, it all comes together - answers many questions that you may have had in the past. Gives you an understanding of the people & their life at this time period. ( )

Have you ever seen one of those books called something like "Quantum mechanics made easy"? The kind that are labelled "No math required"?

Those books don't make quantum mechanics easy. They make it wrong. You truly can't do quantum mechanics without mathematics. You may be able to say what quantum mechanics reveals, but you haven't done quantum mechanics.

This book almost feels like one of those books to me. It's simple and easy to read, but I just kept getting upset about it.

The big selling point of this book is a claim that King David -- the great King David, held up as the ideal ruler -- did not know the Torah. Maybe this is news to some people. It will not be news to many Biblical scholars. To take one big proof that isn't brought forward in this book, near the end of 2 Kings, in the reign of Josiah, the Book of the Law is found in the Temple. And what it says comes as a shocking surprise to everyone in Judah who hears it. The evidence is quite strong that the Torah was not known in the pre-exilic community of Judah. (Indeed, literary critics would say that the Torah was not even finished until during or after the Exile; the so-called "P" source of Genesis-Numbers uses Babylonian elements, and was presumably finished in Babylon. But that's merely logic; it isn't based on anything in the Bible.)

So: The big thesis of this book is not new or original. That's not necessarily a reason to ignore the book. After all, it offers many other proofs of why we can confidently say the Torah was not known in the Monarchical Age.

But the way the text is handled drives me batty. For example, Rabbi Drazin points out on page 3 that there are many doublets (that is, differing accounts of the same incident) in Samuel. He even notes a few triplets, e.g. on p. 45 he claims that there are three different reasons why David was not permitted to build a Temple. Now for starters, I disagree with this count; Drazin's second and third reasons are the same, merely stated differently, and I would suggest that even the first, although it's different, is not an explanation so much as a statement that there is no need.

There are plenty of real doublets, though, e.g. of how the proverb "Is Saul also among the prophets" arose, or the tale of David sparing Saul's life, or the tale of how Saul died. (Drazin doesn't cover some of the doublets; I suspect they were in his other books.)

But, surely, the reason for the doublets is obvious: The books of Samuel was compiled from multiple sources. My personal belief is that there were five early sources: A source about the Ark, a Prophetic source (largely about Samuel, and opposed to Saul), a Saul source (about his rise and death, and pro-Saul), a David source (propaganda designed to convince people that David, the usurper, deserved to replace Saul), and David's "court history" (his affair with Bathsheba, Amnon's rape of Tamar, and Absalom's rebellion; it also includes chapters 1-2 of 1 Kings). These were all glued together by an editor who was of the so-called "Deuteronomic school"; his contributions were very like Deuteronomy.

If we assume this, or something like it, then the doublets are easily explained. They're just different versions of the same event taken from different sources. For example, the first account of the Death of Saul (1 Samuel 31) is (probably) from the Saul source, and gives Saul a relatively dignified death by suicide. The second account of Saul's death (2 Samuel 1) is from the David Source, intended to make David look good, and has Saul killed by an Amalekite -- which gives David just the outcome he needed: Saul dead, but not by David's hand, and David even gets to kill the man who claimed to be the murderer!

The whole book is like that: It spends much too much time digging around in the weeds of individual words without looking for a broader picture. Sometimes it wanders pretty far off-track as a result (as in its digression on the numbers three, seven, and forty on page 11). This is fundamental to what the book is: it is very, very Jewish (e.g. on p. 5 n. 9, Jews will surely know what tefillin are, but will Christians recognize that tefillin are what the New Testament calls phylacteries?) And specifically Rabbinic Judaism -- of the most nitpicky kind. With no acceptance of the possibility that the text has been corrupted over the years -- e.g. it accepts such absurd claims as the statement that Ishbaal ("Ish-bosheth") the youngest son of Saul was forty years old when he died (p. 20); the entire logic of 1-2 Samuel suggests that he was probably in his teens -- perhaps even younger.

The level of Talmudic scholarship here is high. The level of other scholarship, flatly, is not. For instance, he takes the text of Josephus from William Whiston's ancient, funky, inaccurate translation (p. 36). If Rabbi Drazin doesn't read Greek, then why not use one of the modern translations, which are much better?

Often the explanations he offers strike me as simply perverse. For example:
Page 21 ignores the possibility that Ishbaal ruled only the Trans-Jordan (since he was in Mahanaim) rather than "all Israel"
Page 56, noting that 1-2 Samuel never mention that David had Moabite blood (the theme of the Book of Ruth), writes off Ruth, rather than allowing that the misogynistic, racist writers of Samuel would not want to admit that David was part-Moabite
Page 112 says "We have no idea.... why David chose [Amasa] as his commander other than that he wanted to reduce Joab's role in the army." The reason is surely obvious: After the death of Absalom, David wanted to reconcile Absalom's followers -- and how better to do so than to make Amasa, Absalom's army commander, a high official in his administration? One can only suspect that David was very glad to have Joab take the job back by force....

To sum up: There isn't anything really wrong with this book (the thesis that David didn't know the Torah is obviously true; the readings it wrings from the text are ridiculous but not flatly impossible; the methods of analysis are much too rabbinic for my taste but seem to be acceptable if you like deliberately ignoring the forest, and even the trees, so as to concentrate on one little piece of bark). But readers should know that it is clearly a book for a Jewish audience, not a general audience, and should know that there is little here that is original, and that a lot of it just doesn't make logical sense. ( )