What do you think?
Rate this book
1 & 2 Samuel for Normal People: A Guide to Prophets, Kings, and Some Pretty Terrible Men
Give yourself permission to read 1 & 2 Samuel honestly.
1 & 2 Samuel is home to some of the most beloved stories in the Bible. It is here we find such Sunday School classics as David defeating Goliath, Saul descending into madness, and David's unashamed dance before the ark of the covenant.
But what do we do with the rest of 1 & 2 Samuel-those stories that don't make it onto our Sunday School favorites list? The stories of Michal. Jonathan. Abigail. Bathsheba. Amnon. Tamar. Rizpah. The stories we are so often encouraged to ignore.
And what do we make of the man at the center of them? The one after God's own heart.
These are precisely the stories and questions Dr. Aaron Higashi explores in this accessible, funny, and heartfelt commentary. Through rigorous biblical scholarship, thoughtful application, and ingenious footnotes, Higashi centers the stories we so often overlook and critically assesses the ongoing legacies of the stories we choose to celebrate.
Integrating humor and insight, this book is for anyone who has cringed while David's character is celebrated from the pulpit. Who has questioned the example of a king who failed so miserably as a father. And has wondered at the heart of a God reflected in a man such as this.
1 & 2 Samuel is home to some of the most beloved stories in the Bible. It is here we find such Sunday School classics as David defeating Goliath, Saul descending into madness, and David's unashamed dance before the ark of the covenant.
But what do we do with the rest of 1 & 2 Samuel-those stories that don't make it onto our Sunday School favorites list? The stories of Michal. Jonathan. Abigail. Bathsheba. Amnon. Tamar. Rizpah. The stories we are so often encouraged to ignore.
And what do we make of the man at the center of them? The one after God's own heart.
These are precisely the stories and questions Dr. Aaron Higashi explores in this accessible, funny, and heartfelt commentary. Through rigorous biblical scholarship, thoughtful application, and ingenious footnotes, Higashi centers the stories we so often overlook and critically assesses the ongoing legacies of the stories we choose to celebrate.
Integrating humor and insight, this book is for anyone who has cringed while David's character is celebrated from the pulpit. Who has questioned the example of a king who failed so miserably as a father. And has wondered at the heart of a God reflected in a man such as this.
138 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 23, 2024
18 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 6, 2024
The moment this book got announced, I knew I was going to love it.
I've read all of the Bible For Normal People commentaries, and they're all worthwhile, but the books of 1 & 2 Samuel are such a perfect test case for B4NP's guiding principles. "What is the Bible," they like to say, "and what do we do with it?" How can we engage with these texts respectfully but responsibly? How do we grapple with what the text actually says, not what we maybe wish that it said, or vaguely remember being taught that it said in Sunday school?
Applying those questions to a book as absolutely buck wild as Samuel was always gonna be a good time.
Our religious and pop culture picture of King David is so shallow and sanitized that it usually amounts to little more than 'killed a giant, wrote some songs, made a few little slip ups here and there but basically a great dude!' so it's exhilarating and challenging to treat David (and the other principal characters of Samuel) as what Aaron Higashi calls a 'hostile witness'. This book is not afraid to interrogate what this character actually said and did, and the portrait those actions paint of him if we take off the Sunday school glasses and engage with the story as it's actually written. Higashi makes a strong case that David is the richest, most fully realized character in all of the Hebrew Bible, a fully three dimensional portrait amid the tersely sketched characters of other books. But the portrait we get is complicated: ambitious, treacherous, sometimes predatory, and not at all afraid to switch sides in a war or shake down a local farmer for protection money.
I had already encountered this sort of raw reappraisal of King David in Joel Baden's The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (a great companion to this book, and in fact Baden gives the first blurb on the back cover) so it didn't turn my world upside down reading it here, but if you haven't seen David treated this way, you're in for a wild ride. It's exhilarating and shocking and a little alarming the first time you see these texts read this way, but once you see it, it's very difficult to un-see it, and if anything I wonder how I missed all this before.
All of the kings and generals of 1 and 2 Samuel get a similarly realistic appraisal here, and in fact one of Higashi's key themes is that these are ambivalent texts: on the topics of kingship, of God, and many others. "The stories told in these books," Higashi writes, "are stories where God is difficult to find, where God's will is not clearly revealed, and where people don't know what to do, politically or theologically." In some ways, I think, this makes these books more relatable than the books where people are having routine face-to-face conversations with God or getting clear marching orders and directions. 1 & 2 Samuel feel a little more like the world we currently live in, where flawed men jockey for power, innocent people (often women or the marginalized) are hurt in the process, and we wonder whether something that happened was God's will or not.
We're accustomed to looking to the Bible for exemplars of how to live, neat moral lessons readily packaged for us to emulate. But as it indicates in the subtitle of this book, 1 and 2 Samuel are not really interested in giving us that. Sometimes the best lessons we can learn from a book of the Bible, Higashi insists, are as cautionary tales and invitations to do better than these characters did.
Everything I just wrote makes this book sound kind of intense and serious, and so I have to assure you that it is also a laugh riot. Higashi takes the scholarship on these texts seriously and the main body of this book is written in a relatively matter of fact tone, but curse words and millennial slang creep in here and there, and the way he uses footnotes mostly to make snarky asides about the stories is a delight. This is the first Bible For Normal People commentary that really feels like it was written by someone my age, and I hope they let Higashi write a whole bunch more of these. I read this in about two days, absolutely hooked the whole time, and I already look forward to reading it again in the future.
I've read all of the Bible For Normal People commentaries, and they're all worthwhile, but the books of 1 & 2 Samuel are such a perfect test case for B4NP's guiding principles. "What is the Bible," they like to say, "and what do we do with it?" How can we engage with these texts respectfully but responsibly? How do we grapple with what the text actually says, not what we maybe wish that it said, or vaguely remember being taught that it said in Sunday school?
Applying those questions to a book as absolutely buck wild as Samuel was always gonna be a good time.
Our religious and pop culture picture of King David is so shallow and sanitized that it usually amounts to little more than 'killed a giant, wrote some songs, made a few little slip ups here and there but basically a great dude!' so it's exhilarating and challenging to treat David (and the other principal characters of Samuel) as what Aaron Higashi calls a 'hostile witness'. This book is not afraid to interrogate what this character actually said and did, and the portrait those actions paint of him if we take off the Sunday school glasses and engage with the story as it's actually written. Higashi makes a strong case that David is the richest, most fully realized character in all of the Hebrew Bible, a fully three dimensional portrait amid the tersely sketched characters of other books. But the portrait we get is complicated: ambitious, treacherous, sometimes predatory, and not at all afraid to switch sides in a war or shake down a local farmer for protection money.
I had already encountered this sort of raw reappraisal of King David in Joel Baden's The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (a great companion to this book, and in fact Baden gives the first blurb on the back cover) so it didn't turn my world upside down reading it here, but if you haven't seen David treated this way, you're in for a wild ride. It's exhilarating and shocking and a little alarming the first time you see these texts read this way, but once you see it, it's very difficult to un-see it, and if anything I wonder how I missed all this before.
All of the kings and generals of 1 and 2 Samuel get a similarly realistic appraisal here, and in fact one of Higashi's key themes is that these are ambivalent texts: on the topics of kingship, of God, and many others. "The stories told in these books," Higashi writes, "are stories where God is difficult to find, where God's will is not clearly revealed, and where people don't know what to do, politically or theologically." In some ways, I think, this makes these books more relatable than the books where people are having routine face-to-face conversations with God or getting clear marching orders and directions. 1 & 2 Samuel feel a little more like the world we currently live in, where flawed men jockey for power, innocent people (often women or the marginalized) are hurt in the process, and we wonder whether something that happened was God's will or not.
We're accustomed to looking to the Bible for exemplars of how to live, neat moral lessons readily packaged for us to emulate. But as it indicates in the subtitle of this book, 1 and 2 Samuel are not really interested in giving us that. Sometimes the best lessons we can learn from a book of the Bible, Higashi insists, are as cautionary tales and invitations to do better than these characters did.
Everything I just wrote makes this book sound kind of intense and serious, and so I have to assure you that it is also a laugh riot. Higashi takes the scholarship on these texts seriously and the main body of this book is written in a relatively matter of fact tone, but curse words and millennial slang creep in here and there, and the way he uses footnotes mostly to make snarky asides about the stories is a delight. This is the first Bible For Normal People commentary that really feels like it was written by someone my age, and I hope they let Higashi write a whole bunch more of these. I read this in about two days, absolutely hooked the whole time, and I already look forward to reading it again in the future.
December 5, 2024
Easy to read short commentary on a strange set of books set long ago. So much violence and sin. Poor fathering is highlighted as well as the mistreatment of women.
February 21, 2025
A very fun book for sure, with a lot of insight into the books that is backed up by Higashi’s own expertise. I love his sense of humor AND I especially love his ethos. He doesn’t play around with the difficult concepts in these books, and he clarifies why.
I tell my improv students to give gravity where it is due amidst all the levity and Higashi knocks that out of the park
….in regards to the topics themselves
I do think as a whole, as fun as this book was to me, it shifted the window of the Normal People audience. In Genesis4NP and Exodus4NP, it was clear that “normal people” were curious and perhaps not even skeptical Christians. I HATE THAT I’M ABOUT TO SAY THIS but Higashi’s humor and attitude assumes a different sort of attitude in its audience, one less deferential and more comedic. I am constantly haunted by the vestiges of conservatism in the voices of my loving grandparents, and even though I myself share Higashi’s values and love of humor in teaching, I feel like they would read this book and feel less like Normal People.
Bathsheba’s rape is not an example of this. He tackles this well, as something that MUST be confronted. Gravity where it’s due.
But the sheer amount of one-off joke footnotes undercuts when those footnotes are meaningful, as those who aren’t as on board with this sort of humor learn to ignore them. One of them, arguably the funniest one, left even me asking where his editor was :( I do think even some Christians who should be in that Normal People window will feel a little embarrassed by the lack of deference.
Oof, again, hard for me to say. It was a fun book FOR ME
okay last note - Higashi’s summaries are marvelous and the breadth of his knowledge is evident
His reflections on biblical fatherhood and application of the lessons of Samuel are also great
Combined with his humor, what could have been a light-hearted and meaningful summary became almost a sermon. Not in that it was preachy, but in that (as he says at the end) it is constructive theology, not how the ancient folks understood it
This was the winning part of the formula for me about G4NP and E4NP, the understanding of what the book in the spotlight was written FOR. These rhetorical goals are touched on, but the themes explored are Higashi’s. This is what makes it feel like a (fun and informative and meaningful) sermon.
I’m just wary of sermons, even (and sometimes especially) if the speaker is smart and charismatic.
But again FUN READ, just should be called “1 and 2 Samuel for Fun and Chill People”
I tell my improv students to give gravity where it is due amidst all the levity and Higashi knocks that out of the park
….in regards to the topics themselves
I do think as a whole, as fun as this book was to me, it shifted the window of the Normal People audience. In Genesis4NP and Exodus4NP, it was clear that “normal people” were curious and perhaps not even skeptical Christians. I HATE THAT I’M ABOUT TO SAY THIS but Higashi’s humor and attitude assumes a different sort of attitude in its audience, one less deferential and more comedic. I am constantly haunted by the vestiges of conservatism in the voices of my loving grandparents, and even though I myself share Higashi’s values and love of humor in teaching, I feel like they would read this book and feel less like Normal People.
Bathsheba’s rape is not an example of this. He tackles this well, as something that MUST be confronted. Gravity where it’s due.
But the sheer amount of one-off joke footnotes undercuts when those footnotes are meaningful, as those who aren’t as on board with this sort of humor learn to ignore them. One of them, arguably the funniest one, left even me asking where his editor was :( I do think even some Christians who should be in that Normal People window will feel a little embarrassed by the lack of deference.
Oof, again, hard for me to say. It was a fun book FOR ME
okay last note - Higashi’s summaries are marvelous and the breadth of his knowledge is evident
His reflections on biblical fatherhood and application of the lessons of Samuel are also great
Combined with his humor, what could have been a light-hearted and meaningful summary became almost a sermon. Not in that it was preachy, but in that (as he says at the end) it is constructive theology, not how the ancient folks understood it
This was the winning part of the formula for me about G4NP and E4NP, the understanding of what the book in the spotlight was written FOR. These rhetorical goals are touched on, but the themes explored are Higashi’s. This is what makes it feel like a (fun and informative and meaningful) sermon.
I’m just wary of sermons, even (and sometimes especially) if the speaker is smart and charismatic.
But again FUN READ, just should be called “1 and 2 Samuel for Fun and Chill People”
October 27, 2024
This was a really interesting journey to read. From the Bible for Normal People team, I knew it would be a fresh perspective on familiar stories (mostly focusing on David in the Bible).
Aaron's style in writing was certainly fresh! Lots of humour and entertaining footnotes. I began loving this book.
He wanted to explore the theme of Fatherhood, looking at good and bad examples in the characters presented in these stories. This was very refreshing and interesting. But fasten your seat belts... He also didn't hold back from critiquing God as a father in these stories. He also explores how women are frequently the victims throughout these stories.
At some points, Aaron was a bit too casual/simplistic/loose for my liking, and my review dropped to a 3 star at that point. For example, he lightly told stories of God decapitating idols as fact, or of Biblical writers thinking David was hot. When you stopped to read the stories, you saw a more nuanced story that needed a bit more explanation and allowing room for other perspectives (as when he casually said Bathaheba was raped). It just felt a shade too casual for me.
But I persevered and was glad I did, as there were some great ending reflections and left us with questions to ponder and a warm invitation to continue to explore these stories in community.
Overall, a really good, thought-provoking book that explores various characters, but mostly David, as deeply flawed individuals navigating a complex world.
Aaron's style in writing was certainly fresh! Lots of humour and entertaining footnotes. I began loving this book.
He wanted to explore the theme of Fatherhood, looking at good and bad examples in the characters presented in these stories. This was very refreshing and interesting. But fasten your seat belts... He also didn't hold back from critiquing God as a father in these stories. He also explores how women are frequently the victims throughout these stories.
At some points, Aaron was a bit too casual/simplistic/loose for my liking, and my review dropped to a 3 star at that point. For example, he lightly told stories of God decapitating idols as fact, or of Biblical writers thinking David was hot. When you stopped to read the stories, you saw a more nuanced story that needed a bit more explanation and allowing room for other perspectives (as when he casually said Bathaheba was raped). It just felt a shade too casual for me.
But I persevered and was glad I did, as there were some great ending reflections and left us with questions to ponder and a warm invitation to continue to explore these stories in community.
Overall, a really good, thought-provoking book that explores various characters, but mostly David, as deeply flawed individuals navigating a complex world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2025
Accessible, leftist adjacent and decently paced but brace yourself for asides to the effect of “As the Father of children” every 30 pages
I found this very engaging and has made my recollection of Samuel, Saul and David’s reigns much better versed. Which is saying something because between different oral histories being packed into the same paragraph and constant politician strife, there a ton of content to cover
I think he could have don’t a better job talking about David and Jonathon being gay and all the anointing oil ceremonies between adult men naming each other prophets, but this isn’t a queer author or lense so that something I need to bring as a queer reader over expecting it to be well established by the commentary author
I found this very engaging and has made my recollection of Samuel, Saul and David’s reigns much better versed. Which is saying something because between different oral histories being packed into the same paragraph and constant politician strife, there a ton of content to cover
I think he could have don’t a better job talking about David and Jonathon being gay and all the anointing oil ceremonies between adult men naming each other prophets, but this isn’t a queer author or lense so that something I need to bring as a queer reader over expecting it to be well established by the commentary author
February 6, 2026
Moral posturing, mocking of the text, ironic detachment, the author desperately wants you to know this text is warped and he's one of the good biblical scholars who will give you the 2024 morality run down of a 2500 year old text.
The whole thing comes off as unserious and dismissive. Very disappointing because I love the idea of these books: brief/simple commentaries on chapters of the Bible that can be very hard to digest as a total novice.
The first two books in the series were borderline with this kind of writing, but explained some pretty big ideas plainly, and didn't come off as patronising.
Also half the footnotes in this were cheesey little millennial one liners that bothered me way more than they should have.
The whole thing comes off as unserious and dismissive. Very disappointing because I love the idea of these books: brief/simple commentaries on chapters of the Bible that can be very hard to digest as a total novice.
The first two books in the series were borderline with this kind of writing, but explained some pretty big ideas plainly, and didn't come off as patronising.
Also half the footnotes in this were cheesey little millennial one liners that bothered me way more than they should have.
August 30, 2024
Mainline evangelicals will hate this book because it does the opposite of what has been historically with the characters of this book. Higashi looks at these two books (really one) from the perspective of a father and a feminist. He does keep it light-hearted through some very heavy topics and he uses his footnotes in an entertaining way.
You almost have to hear him speak before you read this book otherwise you are likely to misread the tone. Def recommend.
You almost have to hear him speak before you read this book otherwise you are likely to misread the tone. Def recommend.
October 14, 2025
A commentary that unveils the darkest parts of this tragic turn of events. Delving into themes of fatherhood (& toxic masculinty) and ambivalence, Aaron Higashi interrogates all characters in this story, including God (as portrayed by the writers). Really appreciate the takeaways he offered at the end.
August 2, 2024
Excellent overview!
I have listened to the author on various podcasts and I am so glad I was able to read his latest book! Love the scholarship, explanations, depth, and his sense of humor!
If you love theology and the Bible, I highly recommend this book!
I have listened to the author on various podcasts and I am so glad I was able to read his latest book! Love the scholarship, explanations, depth, and his sense of humor!
If you love theology and the Bible, I highly recommend this book!
January 16, 2025
Learned a lot from this commentary!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews