Tangent: I always saw David as INFJ. He had a very very severe sense of right and wrong (I can't imagine an INFP male saying "Let me tackle the 8' tall giant because he has defamed God!", the INFP would waver back and forth at that age and not want to hurt anyone typically even if he was offended... David even at THAT age was ruthless, severe, and aggressive.) Even later in life, he had sharp opinions and took action based on them. This has been fairly typical of INFJ guys I have known; but not typical INFP, who interacts primarily with world through Ne.
I don't really agree with this, at least from my own experience. When I was religiously zealous, I would get into heated debates over my values with people that would invoke great verbal wrath and had it been a personal encounter, it may have developed into a physical altercation if the wrong thing was said. Yeah, I know...not very Christ-like.
Don't assume that because INFP's are generally peaceful that there isn't a raging antagonist inside waiting for someone to cross that forbidden line.
I think one irony about gay people being more visible is that it seems to have had a negative effect on male intimacy in general. Straight men today seem very paranoid about non-sexual emotional and physical intimacy with another man being interpreted as gay. I think that's too bad, because men in general don't built the kind of emotional support networks that women do.
So true!
I found this thread while doing some googling on Jonathan and David. I had a friend years ago--we were 14 and 15--and we bonded as soul mates like David and Jonathan. Unfortunately, his parents, and the church we were attending thought we were homosexuals and it ended up being a huge fiasco. I was really hurt and eventually had to leave the church. To this day my friend and I don't talk.
Anyways, I think anything can be sexualized, but things don't have to be. My friend and I were not gay, we just connected. I'd like to write a book about how we've lost a lot of positive same-sex affection in our culture because of our tendency to sexually pressurize everything.
I feel the same way about my best friend. Before he got married, people used to make comments that we were gay, but we are just really close friends and comfortable enough in our heterosexuality to not let other peoples' opinions bother us.
Growing up in church, David was always my favorite biblical figure. The story of him fighting Goliath impressed me as a child. Then when I got older, I heard about his adultery with Bathsheba and couldn't understand how "a man after God's own heart" could steal another man's wife, despite having a harem of his own, and then kill him to cover up his sin. He was quick to pass judgement when the prophet gave a metaphor about a rich man who had many sheep and stole the only one from his neighbor; David insisted that this man deserved to die and was completely oblivious that it was in reference to him. David seems like a conflicted, but passionate individual. He feigned insanity to spare his own life, which seems like quite a contrast to his valor on the battlefield.
I always liked this artist's perception of David, moreso than any other depiction of the young shepherd.