The thirteenth episode of the second season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (October 31, 2018). You can listen to the episode and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

SHOW NOTES

This episode is based on 1 Samuel 28:3-25 in the Old Testament of the Bible. (Click the references to read the original story). Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the episode.

Who is King Saul?

The character of King Saul is unknown outside of the Bible, making it very hard to say exactly who he was or what his status was. A ninth century BCE inscription has been discovered at Tel Dan that does make reference to the house of his biblical successor, King David, so it is a little bit easier to confirm that David did rule as a king. It is possible that Saul was little more than a minor chieftain who ruled over a very limited territory.

The story of King Saul is only told in the First Book of Samuel and, briefly, in 1 Chronicles, but the story is merely a prelude to what is clearly intended to be the central narrative of the Samuels: the story of the rise of King David. The compilation of the tale may well have drawn on older sources, but it seems to have been controlled by scribes working for members of the ruling dynasty of David who would have had a vested interest in legitimizing David and his ascension to royal power. This means that we ought to read the story with some caution as regards its attitude towards Saul and his family.

The Story of Saul’s Rise

Even though Saul’s story is pretty clearly a part of a legitimization narrative for his successor, the story that is told of his rule in 1 Samuel is compelling and paints a rich and very human portrait of the man. Take, for example, Saul’s quest to achieve prophetic knowledge and understanding of events in order to act effectively as a leader. I note in particular the experience of prophetic ecstasy in which he joins with a company of prophets in making pronouncements. (1 Samuel 10:9-12) This appears to have been a one-time event in his life, but one can well imagine it having a profound effect on him and he may well have sought to make it happen again.

Prophetic experiences in the ancient world were often brought on by music, dancing and various substances, as it was in the case in the previous story (see 1 Samuel 10:5). Later in his career, we see Saul making use of music to attend to his dark moods — possibly in an attempt to provoke a prophetic experience again. He hires a young man named David to play the harp for him. (1 Samuel 16:14-23). This is but one of two stories that we are given in the book of Samuel to explain how David came to be in the service of Saul. The other is the much better-known story of David and Goliath. (1 Samuel 17)

Saul’s Relationship with Samuel

Saul has an interesting and complex relationship with the Prophet Samuel. In the early part of his story, Samuel seems to act as a wise mentor to the new king, but then there is a sharp break between the two. Throughout the story, and increasingly as the story progresses, Samuel is very critical of Saul and his choices and openly laments his role in making him a king. And yet, we continually see Saul craving the approval of Samuel — approval that seems impossible to obtain. Even after Samuel’s death, Saul does not seem to want to stop seeking the old man’s approval, which leads to the incident with the medium at Endor.

For this reason, I chose to cast Saul as a man desperately seeking approval from someone who will never give it. Many people I have known have experienced this problem in their lives and it can certainly be compounded when the person you always sought approval from dies leaving the entire situation quite unresolved.

A Ghost Story

The Bible recounts the story of Saul’s encounter with a ghost in a very matter-of-fact manner. It is just assumed that the medium has the power to bring up the spirit of Samuel and that the only thing that prevents her is Saul’s decree that prohibits such activities. The story had long troubled many Biblical interpreters who would argue that the overall message of the Bible and of Christian theology regarding the afterlife does not allow for any possibility by which the living may come into contact with the spirits of the dead.

But belief in ghosts and our ability to encounter them has always been quite common and it would have been common among those who first told the stories that made their way into the Scriptures.

I, like many modern western individuals, am very skeptical when it comes to stories of ghosts. And yet, I do recognize that people do have strange and meaningful experiences around the deaths of people who are important to them. I do not pretend to have an understanding of the realities of those experiences, but I do recognize that they may be psychologically important to us as we seek to work out unresolved issues with the departed. That is what I chose to reflect in my account of Saul’s ghostly encounter at Endor.

Media in this Episode

“AhDah” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/