Certainly, Judaism does not teach that we are all damned for eternity on account of the sin of Adam and Eve. However, we do understand that their sin transformed the nature of the world in a way that compels us to live in a world where evil frequently masquerades as good so that we are forced to search constantly and diligently for clarity in choosing right from wrong until we restore the world to the perfection that existed before the first sin.

Reconciling science and Torah in a way that shows how the Creation narrative is not necessarily contradicted by such widely accepted hypotheses as Big Bang and evolution is a serious undertaking, but not an impossible one. It may be a challenge to demonstrate how the literal Torah narrative is compatible with science, but it is an even bigger challenge for science to explain away its own unanswered questions.

I’ve addressed this topic already in my article “Atheists in Bubbleland,” linked on the sidebar or found at this url:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1009/goldson_bubbleland.php3

Quite simply, they can’t which means Christianity will be forced to move closer to the Jewish view of mankind and anyone still believing in ‘original sin’ will eventually be marginalized. It will be the opposite of how its been traditionally where everyone denying ‘original sin’ is considered a heretic. The theory of evolution, therefore, is an act of G-d Himself to wipe the evil doctrine of ‘original sin’ off the face of the earth. Praise the L-RD!

It’s been a while since I studied the laws of gitten, but post dating and predating would prohibit writing the get for a date other than the day on which it is signed. This is precisely the point. David instructed his men to write their wives gitten for they day the left, but on condition that they did not return. Consequently, each get was pending, and would go into effect (from the day given) only if the husband did not return but would become null and void if he did.

David instituted this practice, which his men accepted willingly, to spare their wives the anguish of being unable to remarry in case their husbands were lost in battle. The stipulation of making each get conditional was a concession to the husbands who feared that their wives, if left alone and unmarried for too long, might choose to remarry while their husbands were away at war.

From my memories in Kew Gardens, a get couldn’t be ex post facto . . . couldn’t be predated. It had to be given of the mans freewill (hardly something that could be commanded).

Two shoplifters come before a judge. The judge asks the first about his background. The man answers that his father was a mafia hit man, his grandfather was an axe murderer, and his great-grandfather was a serial killer.

The judge says, “And you’re only a shoplifter? You’ve really come a long way!” Then he lets him off with thirty days in the local jail.

When they judge asks about the second man’s background, the man answers that his father was a priest, his grandfather ran a homeless shelter, and his great-grandfather was president of the United Way.

The judge screams, “With such an illustrious family you became a shoplifter? How dare you!” Then he sentences him to five years in the federal pen.

Both men committed the same crime, but the severity of the crime was radically different for each.

On David’s spiritual level, his actions circumventing the letter of the law were comparable to murder and adultery committed by a lesser person. Therefore the prophet’s and G-d’s condemnation.

As far as the matter of the “get,” compare it to this case that actually happened to me. A neighbor had an object of modest value that he no longer needed. He gave it to me, on condition that I make a donation to the charity of my choice. The instant he gave it to me, it was mine. However, if I had not subsequently given the money to charity, then retroactively I would have been a thief from the moment he gave it to me.

David was wrong to assume that G-d would orchestrate events in order to bring him together with Bathsheba, and he was wrong to manipulate the normal process of jurisprudence even though Uriah was in fact guilty. Because of the “get,” he escaped an adulterous relationship because of a technicality. Nevertheless, he should have waited until Bathsheba was available to him without resorting to such unsavory tactics. For this he was chastised, punished with a life of troubles, and would have suffered death if not for his immediate and sincere repentance.

I hope that helps.

“whatever his sin may have been concerning Bathsheba” — was this not the sin of coveting? You tell me, is coveting worse than adultery? or vice versa?

While the ‘get’ may be effective retroactively, David was not in that “space” yet. Uriah had not been killed or missing in battle yet, so the “retroactive” stuff wasn’t operative? How could it be? If Uriah had returned alive from the battle, the ‘get’ would not have been effective, no? He would still have been married to Mrs. Uriah.

I can’t punch my way out the mamzer paper bag yet; I’m still working on that.

As I have already explained, the Torah and the prophets often presented narratives in a way that did not render the whole story. They did this for two reasons. First, because the figures involved were so great that a literal description of their subtle errors would often fail to communicate the magnitude of their transgressions relative to their extraordinary spiritual levels; consequently, scripture magnifies their sins so that we can better learn from them.

Second, to remind us that truth lies beneath the surface, and that a surface reading leads to superficial interpretations, in the same way that we cannot appreciate the complexity of our world until we look through a microscope.

This is not my own opinion. This is what Jewish tradition has taught for over 3300 years. One who dismisses the collected wisdom of our sages and scholars with a wave of his hand is like a six year old arguing with Einstein. He can’t understand the concepts and doesn’t recognize the genius that authored the ideas, so he argues. A professor of physics knows better and assumes that if he doesn’t understand Einstein, the inadequacy lies within himself.

David did commit a monstrous transgression — monstrous on his own exalted spiritual level. What he did not commit was adultery or murder, although his sin on his level might be compared to adultery or murder if committed by someone on ours.

The point of the “legal approach” is that the entire piece is written in legalisms . . . the contortions you go through in order to explain why “David is not guilty” is the apotheosis of legalism.

And so I asked the obvious: in a legal trial, intent is a major contributor.

David was not guilty of murder directly, but was rebuked by Uriah for exactly that, striking down Uriah with another man’s sword.

Uriah wasn’t receiving justice for disobeying the King’s orders to bed his wife in an attempt to cover up the illicit affair. David never said such. He didn’t order Uriah to the front lines because he wouldn’t sleep with his wife to cover the tryst David had with Bathsheba.

The relevance of the child being too young for his bris when it died means he never received the mark of the covenant G-d had with Abraham.

It’s also difficult to understand what point you are trying to make with the “legal approach” you bring. In any case, I have already explained why David is not guilty of either adultery or murder. I have also explained that his is rebuked by the prophet for his attempt to circumvent the normal channels of justice, a crime so serious for a king of David’s stature that he would have deserved the death penalty had he not repented at the moment of his denunciation, and for which he suffered for the rest of his life.

And the relevance of the child being too young for its bris when it died is…?

I have been ridiculed for explaining how the Oral Tradition interprets the Written Word and am now criticized for not being open-minded enough to allow creative explanations.

Torah scholarship is no less a discipline than any other field of study. The conventions are routinely ignored by those who have not invested the time in learning them and mocked by those who have already made up their minds that their own conclusions are superior to the collective wisdom of the Talmudic sages and their successors.

Canuck, if you say we are on the same side, please look at what I’ve written more closely. The answers to your questions are already there for you to find. Indeed, half my article on JWR and the linked essay provided refutations of the claim that King David committed adultery. I’m sorry if you have taken offense at my words, but it strikes me as an exercise in futility to restate explanations that have not been carefully considered.