EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF NATURE/NURTURE WITHIN THE LITERARY VISION OF ANCIENT NEAR EAST: FOCUS ON KING DAVID’S FAMILY

Abstract

The nature/nurture controversy started from human inquiry to determine what affects human behaviour. Two questions are raised to this effect; is it genes or the conditions cum environment where they are raised in? However, debate on nature nurture have often taken one side of extreme proportions but recent discussions especially by psychological researchers carried out on correlational twins, family, and adoptive studies have proven that both nature and environmental factors affects human behaviour on equal bases. Also, scholars have engaged on similar inquiry to find out why the children of King David followed in their father’s evil behaviour; is it genes or the conditions where they were raised? or the fulfillment of Nathan’s prophecy. Another angle to this debate is whether if the redactors envisaged that sin perpetrated be parents could transfer to the offspring. Therefore, the target of this paper is to interrogate the theory of nature/nurture to find out why the children of King David mimicked their father’s evil behaviour quiescently using nature/nurture theory and the theory of child development. The paper employed phenomenological research design and descriptive method in its data analysis. The research discovered that King David evil behaviour, the condition that his children were raised in, parental weakness and the theological import of view of David’s narrative encapsulated in Nathan’s Prophecy all account for the delinquent behaviour of the children of King David.