Tragedy of the Commons: A Christological Companion to the Book of 1 Samuel

by Daniel J.D. Stulac

Tragedy of the Commons invites readers into a fresh exploration of the book of 1 Samuel, which tells the story of Saul, Israel’s first monarch and the personification of its chronic sins. Stulac’s unique voice combines sensitive exegesis with probing meditations on culture, art, literature, memoir, and Christian spirituality. He cuts deftly through the moralistic reductions of Old Testament stories for which the church too often settles, and in doing so, reveals the life-giving rhetoric of a biblical book aimed squarely at the reader’s transformation of mind and heart. “Israel’s common tragedy,” writes Stulac, “will be solved through a lengthening and a deepening of the tragedy itself. Finding his people up to their eyeballs in sewage, God dives into the polluted abyss, swims to the bottom, and unplugs the pipe below their flailing feet.” From Hannah’s miracle baby to Saul’s suicide, Tragedy helps readers to recognize both their own predilection for idols as well as the surprising ways that 1 Samuel anticipates the gospel of Jesus Christ. “King Saul serves not as a finger-wagging argument for God’s disengagement from his people’s fate,” Stulac claims, “but as the shocking conduit of God’s incarnational involvement in their corporate mess.”

Genres: Old Testament

158 pages, Paperback

Published November 27, 2023

Reviews

[John Damon Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stulac has caused me to become absolutely obsessed with 1 Samuel.
He rightly corrects our widespread misreading of the Old testament as collections of moralistic fables with bad guys and good guys we're supposed to imitate. Rather it is to be read as theological literature: iconography that explores the character of "God through meditations on his triumph over sin." In order to read like this, Stulac advocates a kind of radical epistemological submission to the untamed nature of our God and the scriptures he has given us. At times this was bit annoying when he raises really excellent questions and explores confusing topics and then refuses to give any elucidation claiming that that's part of the point.
But in the end, any of my frustration with his post-liberalism is completely counteracted by how well he presents the literary and theological depth and beauty of Samuel. It's not about moral lessons but it is supposed to theologically confront us personally.

[Jared Greer · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

I've gone through this book a couple times now. Some things I missed the first time around struck me on my second read. Stulac's idiosyncratic writing style will either make or break this book for you. Most of the time, I love it. Stulac intends for the book to have an artistic quality/character to it; and so his prose is often elevated and decorated. That makes for some *killer* turns of phrase scattered about; but it also makes for a few eye-rollers, and some moments where I honestly have no clue what he's talking about. In other words, it's a beautifully written book; but there are a few places where I might have chosen to "chop it off" or "gouge it out" in the editorial process. ;)

The strongest chapter (by far, in my estimation) is the chapter on David and Goliath (ch. 5). My highlighter was put to heavy use during that one. Here's an example:

"David doesn’t join the fight because he has to. He joins the fight because he wants to—because he, as a prophetic representative of the Living God, feels what the father feels when the idolator issues his scornful request: 'I wish you were dead, and that your estate were mine' (1 Sam 17:9). God addresses the sin-soaked insult that Goliath expresses not because he has been roped into the problem and cannot think of more sanitized, more ethically palatable, more seeker-friendly mode of mopping up the mess. God is not Israel’s butler. Rather, he meets Goliath on the field of battle in munificent defense of his own self-respect. There is no Rock like my God" (p. 106).

I also appreciate a lot of Stulac's Christological emphases—particularly, the recurring motif of God saving "from the inside out." That's a theme that certainly lies at the heart of the Samuel narrative, as the monarchy is somehow both the epitome of Israel's idolatry and the vessel of God's salvation. Stulac powerfully accentuates this motif at several junctures throughout the book. Additionally, I found myself amused by the motif of bad eyesight—another theme that Stulac locates recurrently in the text. I had never considered the theological implications of Eli, Samuel, and Saul all being portrayed as seeing poorly; but it's definitely a pattern worth noting and considering.

I will say that Stu's Christology is sometimes heavily laced with his Reformed theological leanings—and so I'm not always super comfortable with it. For example: his discussions of sovereignty and 'Providence' often lean into a kind of divine determinism that I'm not really on board with. Granted, it's sometimes hard to parse Stu's actual theology from his decorated prose and hyperbole—so it's possible that I'm just misunderstanding him, and that he would nuance things a bit differently given a different medium. But in light of his strong Presbyterian background, I kind of doubt that's the case. He also seems to lean pretty heavily into a certain brand of penal substitutionary atonement that I find theologically problematic. But again, this could just be a failure on my part to correctly parse his theology.

In any case, I benefited greatly from reading this. It opened my eyes to several aspects of 1 Samuel that I had not really considered before. He mentioned at the outset that his goal was not to produce a scholarly commentary or compendium, but to produce a text that focuses on how 1 Samuel "prepares its reader to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ." To that end, he does very well. And it's worth noting that even though the book is more of an art-piece than a traditional commentary, it's obvious that Stulac is a careful scholar who really knows his stuff. I benefited a lot from the perspectives he offered and from the various resources he cited in the footnotes.

Btw, I read this on Kindle for iPad—which I would *highly* recommend. Almost the entire time, I had the Kindle app split-screened with my Bible app; and I cannot tell you how much more you glean from reading this book when you have the biblical text open in front of you, and you are reading all of the verses that Stulac references. Unless you have every verse in the book of 1 Samuel memorized, having your Bible open in front of you will add *so much* to this reading experience.

[Ethan Sink · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a rich, deep reading of 1 Samuel that understands the text Christologically but not at the expense of the text’s own message. The style is probably not for everyone, but I think Stulac exemplifies the way Christians *should* read the Old Testament.

[Jared Saltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In the Old Testament I meet a stooped and haggard soul a lot like Jesus: a cruel hunter enslaved to and crippled by his manifold crimes. This man has wiped the blood of eighty-five innocent priests upon the hem of his royal robe, not to mention their wives and children. Do no imagine for one second that you and he could have worked out your differences over a beer or two at the local pub. I think you would have found yourself suddenly impaled upon his unpredictable pike, for Saul remains Israel's archetypal despot, a maker of orphans and widows. Never has a stranger stained glass been crafted! He is the fascist or the abortionist of your political nightmares, the slavedriver or the liberal bogeywoman, the Trump or the Biden from which you instinctively recoil. He is Hitler and the city of San Francisco rolled into one. He is the face of your non-preferred network news. He is Michael from sixth grade, and Jennifer from eighth. He is the man or woman who strives to make the world into a place that I find downright terrifying: a world boiling with Western individualism, DIY ethics, and agroecological collapse. He is the Subway sandwich 'engineer' who cannot be bothered to spread out my pickles. He is the search committee indulging in either hard racism or soft. He is the thief who robbed me of fifteen photo albums; he is my ex-wife. He is everyone and everything in this world that my stone-cold heart refuses to forgive. Will I mourn for Israel's beheaded king (2 Sam 1.17-27), a man so wrung that all his hair, his skinne, his garments bloudie be? Can I learn to weep for him who died--not so much for me, but for all of them, including her?" (Stulac, 97-98).

From reading this excerpt, you might be forgiven for not knowing exactly what you read. "What is it about?" you might ask. "I noticed a reference to George Herbert, is it about poetry? I noticed commentary on King Saul, is it about the Bible? But it equally seems devotional, and terribly, terribly personal?" Stulac's book, Tragedy on the Commons, is all of those things and none of them.

Objectively, this volume isn't as good at his first work, Gift of the Grotesque (which was one of my favorite books I've read in the past few years). It's halting and at times too self-indulgent (even for someone like me who loves the literary aspect of Stulac's writing). In fact, I'd read through the first two thirds of the work mostly on inertia before stalling out as other projects and reading too my time. But when I returned, last night, to read the last third of the book I found myself nearly overwhelmed with emotion through every aspect--the exegesis of 1 Samuel, the Christological reflection, and the haunting personal anecdotes. I cried, I was convicted, I was encouraged--in 1 Samuel things come in threes.

Because of the *effect* of the work--and I think that Stulac's work needs to be considered more like artwork than commentary--I'm giving this 5* and I'll definitely read it again. But read it slowly, and let its effects present themselves. Cut it off, gouge it out. Find yourself in Saul, beheaded for pride and mourned still by the Son of David whom we have done our best in life to kill.

[Jesse Bingham · Rating 5 out of 5]

It might be even better than “Gift of the Grotesque,” since Stulac manages to be equally (if not more) stimulating in his synthesis of Biblical connections (both linguistic and conceptual), while feeling less dense and more accessible on a first reading than “Gift” was. Or, perhaps I’m simply more used to him now.

This is a genuinely powerful little book.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to find Jesus in the hot mess known as the First Book of Samuel.

That did not stop Daniel Stulac from trying in Tragedy of the Commons: A Christological Companion to the Book of 1 Samuel.

I read this as part of an online book club experience; it is not something I would have likely chosen otherwise. I freely admit this kind of book is not my jam. I’m not going to come out and say the author is wrong; that would be an unfortunate judgment. I think the author is a bit too harsh on historical and historicist readings of the text, and I believe his exegesis suffers as a result. I can appreciate a canonical and Christological framework and reading of a text.

This work is very personal and written in a very particular style. We learn a lot about the author; we can tell he is Reformed in theology and perspective, and it shows at times.

I can appreciate the overarching analysis of 1 Samuel in terms of God meeting His people in the mess and mire of life, something best exemplified in Jesus. I appreciated how the author did not make it all about Christological typology between David and Jesus; the author keeps coming back to Saul as the primary and tragic figure of the text, which is appropriate.

I felt the author was a bit too hard on Eli. Perhaps there is the intent to see Eli as fairly wicked and less exemplary than Samuel. But I have to wonder if too much is being brought forth from the book of Judges, which surely comes before 1 Samuel canonically and chronologically, and regarding which we are tempted to want to make a point of a lot of forms of continuity. But there remains some tension between the two: there is an editorial judgmentalism about the book of Judges as a time when everyone did what they thought was right because there was no king in Israel. Stulac recognizes the pro- and anti-monarchic tendencies in Judges and 1 Samuel, but will make much of the condemnation of wanting a king. Eli and Samuel both are not model parents; Eli certainly suffers a family curse, and can be seen as cursed. But for all his faults, Eli seems to have cultivated and developed Samuel quite well, which is quite the stretch for someone who is himself a son of Belial.

I found it interesting how the author did not make anything of the Samuel : David :: John : Jesus typology which seems manifest in the Gospel of Luke. What also seems entirely missing is recognizing where Saul was better than both Eli and Samuel: Saul’s sons were not sons of Belial; Jonathan was in fact quite superior to Saul in almost every quality, and not for nothing would Saul reckon David as “his son.”

But the author does well grapple with the tragedy of Saul and how he proves less than worthy.

Some of the connections and associations the author attempts to make with various aspects of Jesus and the Gospels I found tendentious. But I did appreciate grappling with Jonah in terms of Saul and his end: we want to see Saul and Jonah redeemed, and there’s no redemption for them. Jesus giving the “sign of Jonah” is much more controversial than might be imagined. Yet even here I think Stulac undercuts Jonah: one can argue his running away from YHWH’s burden is very much because he has prophetic insight, not from the abandonment thereof. Elisha wept when he looked upon Hazael, recognizing how much pain and distress Hazael would bring upon Israel; how much more anger and pain then, then, to be tasked with proclaiming a repentance to the very people which you know will come and devastate your people and exile them, and to see YHWH show them mercy when you know what that will mean in the future for Israel?

As indicated, I am a fan of Christological readings. I would very much agree the presence of Jesus in 1 Samuel is one showcasing God working in the midst of His people in the muck and mire and the less than ideal, and there’s much to be gained from it. But I am less a fan of Christological readings unmoored from historical restraints. Stulac seems to primarily see the excesses of historiography - excesses I would also condemn - and not the important forms of temperance it can provide.

I remain all the more convinced one must read 1 Samuel in light of the original contextual purpose of the work: to explain and describe how Israel went from its condition after Samson in the days of Eli, Samuel, and Saul, and how David arose and, in 2 Samuel, would become King of Judah and King of Israel. The prophet compiler/editor of primary source documents is constrained by the events as they played out and to make practical and theological sense of them. And it’s not hard to notice how the prophetic 1/2 Samuel author does not have the same theological motivations and purpose as the Chronicler (who completely passes over this entire period by just providing the genealogy and quickly narrating the end of Saul), or, for that matter, even the Kings author. Saul’s sons are named Ishbaal and Meribbaal, a situation so embarrassing to later scribes their names were changed in the Samuel narratives to Ish-bosheth and Mephibosheth (exchanging Baal for “bosheth,” shameful thing). But of all the sins of Saul, we hear nothing of association with Baal or idols. I guess we can rationalize Samuel’s service in the Tabernacle on the basis of being a literally dedicated firstborn, but the fact remains he is an Ephraimite by birth but officiates in the Tabernacle. In 2 Samuel 8:18, it is noted David’s sons are priests, yet they are Judahites, not Levites. Later kings will be condemned for this kind of behavior; yet not a word of condemnation about it in 1/2 Samuel.

These kinds of “discrepancies” are embarrassing but we have to make good historiological/contextual sense of them so we can then do good, healthy Christological analysis of the text. 1/2 Samuel are thus contextually a theological explanation/rationalization of the rise of the House of David; Judges, Israel’s faithlessness at the beginning and the chaos engendered without centralized authority; 1/2 Kings, monarchic descent into idolatry and faithlessness leading to exile. This is not to say we cannot see Jesus in them; but we first need to confess what we’re looking at before we can really, truly, and well find Jesus in them.

Sure: in the end, we see a dark time yet hope and promise extended in those dark times. We see God working in the muck and mire, and that should give us hope in the hot mess life continues to be. The Word is at work in 1 Samuel indeed.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hannah's prayer, Eli's disgraceful sons, Samuel's faithfulness, Saul's impetuousness, David's courage, Goliath's head–we find all these familiar stories in First Samuel. Daniel Stulac offers us a wonderful, challenging set of personal and theological meditations that provoke, startle, and get us meditating too.

What we usually call the history books of the Old Testament are known in the Jewish tradition as the Former Prophets. And Stulac shows us how to read them as "narrative prophecy rather than proto-modern histories." Their aim was not primarily to give us the facts of a story but to give us theology that changes our hearts.

The book of 1 Samuel is not a collection of moralistic tales. (Nope, it's not telling us to be like Hannah or to even be like David.) Rather it intends to take us apart and perhaps put us back together-or better, to transform our conceptions of God and therefore of ourselves as well.

Here is a book full of hard-earned, internalized, biblical and stirring insights which are at once poignant and profound. Here is a book worth reading twice.