The Good Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is an enigma. American literature and biblical scholars have been debating the motivations of this character since Nathaniel Hawthorne first published The Scarlet Letter in 1850. Why does he have a single adulterous encounter with Hester Prynne? Why does he refuse to confess his part in the adulterous relationship for so many years? How can he go on being a minister with unconfessed sin ravaging his soul? Ultimately, we can trim some of these issues down to the question of his maleness. Hawthorne obviously intended for the reader to labor over Dimmesdale’s complexities. What would normally drive a human male does not seem to apply to Arthur Dimmesdale. Is it because he is a Puritan? Nah, that answer is too easy and trite. So how does one define the human male sexuality of this character? A close reading of the novel will yield scant and enigmatic clues. In this essay, however, I will address the question of Arthur Dimmesdale’s sexuality by focusing on possible interpretations of Hawthorne’s inclusion of one remarkably significant and oft overlooked window into Dimmesdale’s heart: a tapestry hanging in Dimmesdale’s study depicting the adulterous affair between the biblical King David and the beautiful Bathsheba. A comparative examination of Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne with King David and Bathsheba yields some very compelling answers as to the sexuality and passions of American Literature’s most famous errant minister.