King Arthur and King David

[shiningbrow]

Does anyone have anything to say about how Arthur would compare with or differ from King David in the Old Testament?

[Child of Immanuel]

Both warrior kings who struggled to attain the throne (in slightly different circumstances- Arthur had no Saul)
Both highly devoted to God
Both conquered quite a lot

Arthur didn't seem to have a 'one great sin' like David with Bathsheba and Uriah

[Zonker]

King Arthur and King David have a lot in common in this series.

*King David had Samuel and King Arthur had Myrddin.
*King David had to hid from Saul and King Arthur had to hid from the small kings who would have killed him as a baby.
*King David did all for the furtherance of the Kingdom of The One True God, As I believe King Arthur does.
*King David struggled with sin as all men do including King Arthur.
*King David was a man after Gods own heart and I believe that is the way King Arthur is portrayed.
God Bless you all and if I have forgotten anything please let me post it.

[Margim]

King Arthur was a better man by far... of course, Lawhead's version of him is purely fictional, so its not hard to make a fictional saint.

But David I have several issues with. Wife stealing (possibly twice, depending on how you read it), genocide, breaking temple law (even if the author decides to let him get away with it), demanding a census that gets massive portions of Israel's population wiped out, and so on.

I'm not so sure he was such a man after God's own heart, rather than a man Samuel-Kings' author wanted to make look like he was after God's own heart.... even though he was little different than any of the other despotic ancient near eastern rulers.

[zoob]

I feel that I should point out that, given the time and location of Arthur's life it is almost certain that he was a Christian (assuming he actually lived), there's no evidence as to whether the historical Arthur was devout or not.

And going further, some of the early monk writers on Arthurian legend badmouth him quite a lot, and at least one historian I've read (I believe Leslie Alcock, but am not positive it was him) has theorized that monks deliberately edited him out of history because he did something that angered them (presumably took money from them and/or usurped their authority for his war effort).