Fall of a warrior

It’s tempting to view the sex scandal surrounding army general David Petraeus through a religious lens.

Even before Petraeus’s fall from grace, some Pentagon colleagues compared him to the biblical King David—another proud and powerful warrior. The comparison seemed even more apt after the former four-star general’s resignation as director of the CIA on November 9 for having an extramarital affair. “More than one officer cited the biblical adultery of King David and Bathsheba,” wrote the New York Times. The Bible says that David acted righteously and kept God’s commandments—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband.

“Will history remember David Petraeus with the same caveat?” asked Jim Denison, a Southern Baptist scholar in Dallas.