SHARING BIBLE VERSES

[Joe Sperling]

Dave---

No big deal---but actually it was Elisha, not Elijah who cursed the children:

And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 2 Kings 2:23-24

I have to be honest these verses have bothered me for a long time.  It is rather drastic, but the children were literally mocking Elisha, while also mocking God---"go up thou bald head!!" is in reference to Elijah being carried up into heaven.  We're the children mocking the prophet for his baldness, but also mocking the truth of Elijah's ascension into heaven?  It's a bit like the people saying to Jesus "He saved others, why doesn't he save himself??? Come down from the cross if you're so powerful!!"    These children were saying "If you're such a powerful prophet go up into heaven then just like Elijah did!! Ha!! Ha!!"(you can imagine the mocking tone).   So as terrible as the bear attack is, it is a type of the wrath of God upon willful mockers.  We are not told if God condoned this curse or not though.


But as I mentioned once before, if there had been a "Hair Club for Men" in Elisha's day, maybe those kids would have lived out there days instead of becoming food for the bears. 

[outdeep]

Typo.  I was thinking Elisha but typed Elijah (this was just after the passing of the mantle).  I guess I just chock it up as the same thing as wishing to smash Babylonian children upon the rocks.  Good think Dobson came along to straighten all this out.

[Explorer]

I have heard preaching that the word "children" in this passage could actually be translated "young men". In other words, they may not have been kids who just needed a good whack on their back side, but grown men who knew better. That seems to make a little more sense.

[outdeep]

Yeah, they were back and forth on that one in the commentaries. All depends on what assumptions you make.

[Joe Sperling]

One thing that has really intrigued me about that verse is what slow runners those
children/young men were.  There were only two bears and they maimed or killed 42 of them.
That's quite a few people for two bears to maul.

The old proverb does apply though:  "insult not a bare-headed man, lest bears be headed for you"
(Hezekiah  11:13)

[Margaret]

I haven't read the commentaries and I don't know what Dobson says that straightens this out, so maybe I'm off the wall here, but is there a chance Elisha was wrong to curse them? As I understand it, cursing someone in the name of the Lord means turning them over to satan, which of course, satan is happy to act on. Maybe it just shows that a prophet isn't immune from a sin of temper which he will regret for the rest of his life.

[Joe Sperling]

Margaret---

I think you may be right about it being wrong for Elisha to curse them.  Atheists and Bible
de-bunkers, or those who label God as "cruel" have a field day with this scripture though. Even
if you tell them Elisha was wrong to curse them, they ask then how could God, due to Elisha's fit
of temper allow bears to maim or kill 42 children as a result, and then still use Elisha as his
prophet?  It really is a difficult passage to try to explain--even though God may not have willed
any of it to happen.

[outdeep]

The comment about Dobson was an attempt at a joke (as if he would give the parents Dare to Discipline instead of sending a bear after their kids).

I come from that perspective.  When I read How To read the Bible for All Its Worth, I learned that narrative just tells us what happened.  It really doesn't always comment on whether what happened was good or bad, right or wrong.  You could even make the argument I suppose that the Psalm about "dashing their children upon the stones" was an expression of the Psalmist's anger which God may not necessarily support in that situation.

So did Elisha curse the children according to the will of God or did he respond in a fit of anger showing us that even God's servants have flaws and character defects.  We can only speculate.  Not enough information.

[juststarted]

I think you may be right about it being wrong for Elisha to curse them.  Atheists and Bible
de-bunkers, or those who label God as "cruel" have a field day with this scripture though. Even
if you tell them Elisha was wrong to curse them, they ask then how could God, due to Elisha's fit
of temper allow bears to maim or kill 42 children as a result, and then still use Elisha as his
prophet?  It really is a difficult passage to try to explain--even though God may not have willed
any of it to happen.
Why would you tell them Elisha was wrong when you don't know that for sure. God's word stands true and we don't need to justify things even when we aren't sure. Remember when the Lord said to Peter, "get thee behind me satan", it was because Peter was spouting out worldly logic. I think you telling Atheists that it possibly was not God's will, when the Scriptures don't say that, is using worldly logic.

[outdeep]

What I hear you saying is that it is spiritual logic to say it was God's will and worldly logic it wasn't.

What I am saying is that there is no indication in the text one way or the other.  It is a narrative giving no commentary whether it was a good or bad thing.  It just tells us what happened.

In the Assembly, we always felt compelled to spin all the good-guys actions as good and all the bad-guys action as bad.  So we say Elisha's cursing children is good and Jonathan's departing from David and fighting with Saul as bad.  But in these cases, is there really anything that says one way or the other?

[juststarted]

That's right, so why tell people the Elisha was wrong, when we don't know.

[outdeep]

That's right, so why tell people Elisha was right when we don't know.

[juststarted]

We don't do either. I was reponding to Joe saying he tells atheists Elisha was wrong.

[Joe Sperling]

Just started--

    I don't make it a habit of telling atheists Elisha was wrong. In a conversation with an
atheist, or a person saying the Bible is contradictory, one makes an effort to answer their
questions at times.  This verse about the bears is one they use frequently to call God "cruel".

God needs no defending, but it is only natural to take a stab at it, and give the interpretations that
the scholars have given concerning the verse.

These include:  1)God is showing that the Prophet represents him, and the young men were "mocking" God when they were mocking Elisha, so Elisha's judgment upon them was warranted because God's honor and glory had been questioned. 2) The young men were scorning Elisha in unbelief, saying "go up thou bald head!", as they knew the "story" of Elijah ascending into heaven, but did not believe it.  Elisha's judgment was due to their unbelief.  3) Elisha himself cursed them because of being incensed at their disrespect for God---but God himself did not give the order to curse the children. Thus, as Margaret said, Elisha's anger got the better of him, and he had to live with it the rest of his life.

But to an atheist, all of these arguments will be turned around.  I was simply saying that if you were to use the last explanation concerning Elisha's anger showing that even the greatest of prophets is prone to weakness, they will say "Why would God allow bears to kill children, and continue to let Elisha represent him as a prophet?"

Many Bible verses can be discussed with Atheists, and explained to them better. I was saying that this verse is very hard to defend in any way, and most of the time all you can say is "I really don't know the interpretation for that, or why bears killed 42 children" to which they reply "well if there is a God he knows--and he must be awfully cruel to let something like that happen".    It's an argument that cannot be won.  That's all I was saying.   

[outdeep]

juststarted (post before Joe's)

Great.  Now that you accepted that, the next step is to see that in discussion it is valid to say to an atheist (as Margaret suggested) "it is possible that Elisha is wrong".  It is not worldly logic as you suggest.  It is the natural outflow of discussing a passage where we don't know whether the character did the right thing or the wrong thing.

(I would add, it has been decades since I "argued" with an atheist.  These are more my thoughts to settle this passage in my own mind).