Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

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_EAllusion
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _EAllusion »

Even if we grant Hoops extra-Biblical, try to make it as sensical as possible, version of events where Elisha is confronted by a rowdy crowd of men that are dangerous to him, God still sent bears to maul members of that crowd. God, being God, could've done countless other things that would be less restrictive and harmful. The benefit of it being mauled by bears is that it is easy to think of less horrific things that would fix the problem. Sure, like mentioned above he could render them physically incapable of doing whatever it is that was so bad. Or he could give them all explosive diarrhea. There are even more humane ways to kill them if need be. It doesn't matter. Heck, God could pull a move like hardening pharaoh's heart where he just causes them to hold different views. And if your problem with that is the that it damages free will, so does being mauled by bears.

If Vladimir Putin was having 13 year olds mauled by bears if they made fun of him for being bald, I think Hoops would have no trouble viewing him as a psychotic dictator. If it turned out that he was just having dissidents who threaten him mauled by bears, Hoops probably still would view him that way. And Putin doesn't have the toolbox available to him God does.

The problem is that Hoops is willing to greenlight anything his religion already has, which has the unfortunately side-effect of making Hoops an apologist for abject evil. Nothing is too wrong for Hoops to get behind it if it is written on his golden calf. The path to dangerous religious behavior is lined with this sort of thinking.
_Blixa
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _Blixa »

Hoops wrote:

Because that would indicate Your God was unnecessarily cruel and sadistic, you don't believe that do you?

If that's your position then you will have to define cruelty and sadism in the context of the story and tell us what is necessary cruelty and sadism. Then deleneate between the two. Then you'll have to explain why your position is better than mine. And a lot more. Are you prepared to do so?


Hey Hoops. Do you remember we once talked in chat about how I don't often respond to your threads/posts? I remembered that today and so I took a look through this thread and truly I can't tell what exactly you are arguing here.

I can see a few things: You are responding to posters who characteristically mock everything religious in order to provide a defense or point out the weaknesses in their wholesale dismissals.

You have also offered the beginnings of a textual gloss on the biblical passage in question: although the story is commonly translated as one in which a prophet calls a bunch of bears out of the woods to mutilate children who teased him about his baldness, you've shown that there are some translational differences which would alter the age/occupation of the "children." You've also pointed to the surrounding context of the verse: that Elisha had just performed miracles in a pagan city, etc.

But here the whole thing bogs down in some hair-splitting discussion of "mauling," the possibility or lack thereof of God's intervention, a time frame for said intervention, the difference between "cruelty" and "sadism," and so forth. At this point the thread seems kind of a fruitless back and forth for all those involved.

Which brings me to my questions.

I can understand the impulse to respond to dumbass dismissals of everything religious. There are some posters on the board who routinely make astonishingly asinine "atheist" arguments (as well as posters who routinely make specious, incomprehensible and equally dumbass defenses of religion). But this level of discussion is not only hard to intervene in, it's nearly impossibly to change the discourse into something like a useful exchange.

I might be wrong, but it seems like these are the kind of threads you most often participate in. Since they are precisely the kind of threads I ignore, I guess I'm wondering what you get out of them as a believer.

I was also interested to see you pick up the issue of scriptural translation in your response. This can often lead to fascinating historical discussion. As I've said before on the board, reading a study Bible (thanks again to Aristotle Smith and Ms. Jack for their kind encouragement of my baby steps in religious study) can be extraordinarily enlightening. But you don't really pursue this line of argument very far, and I wonder why that is? In other words, you could frame a discussion of Elisha historically and excavate the kinds of assumptions about the divine implicit in the text and explain them in terms of both cultural and scriptural traditions. But since this approach would get very far from scriptural inerrancy and literalism, I'm left asking if this is precisely why you don't follow it through.

What do you see is gained from your defense of the scripture in question, Hoops? I'm asking this seriously as a means to get a handle on where you're coming from.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
_sock puppet
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _sock puppet »

And he 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.


That Elisha, he must have been a hot head for this to have been mockery other than just the mention of his bald head. Elisha was already going up (mentioned twice in the verse that was what Elisha was doing), when the little children came out of the city and egged him on to do just that which Elisha was already doing: going up! There is no suggestion that the little children were trying to impede Elisha from going up, in fact that's what they chanted: "Go up". There is no suggestion that they detained him or threatened Elisha's safety. Merely that that encouraged him to do just what he was already in the process of doing (going up), and referring to him as a bald head.

Now, being bald is certainly not a compliment. It can easily be derisive. It can be considered mocking Elisha, just as the KJV calls it.

But where is the proportionality in setting 2 she bears on them and tearing 42 of the little children?

As for "little children", check here for little and here for children.

So from a new born to young man, a diminutive adjective is added. And all the verse said these males (on the younger, littler scale of new born baby to young man) did was tell Elisha to do (go up) what he was already doing and calling him "bald head". No impediment, no threat to Elisha is even hinted at.
_huckelberry
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _huckelberry »

Drifting wrote: whatever keeps you praying to the God that sends bears to eat people when they mock baldness.


I was first much confused by this thread. To imagine that in this folk tale the bear is attacking people because they called Elisha bald is the dumbest most myopic interpretation possible. I wondered what? or how did all these people get hit with the stupid stick? Then I realized that the people posting are not dumb they are just searching out the interpretation which makes the Bible look as dumb as possible.

I haven't figured out an excuse for EAllusions hopelessly wooden reading of, By the waters of Babylon.
_sock puppet
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _sock puppet »

huckelberry wrote:
Drifting wrote: whatever keeps you praying to the God that sends bears to eat people when they mock baldness.


I was first much confused by this thread. To imagine that in this folk tale the bear is attacking people because they called Elisha bald is the dumbest most myopic interpretation possible. I wondered what? or how did all these people get hit with the stupid stick? Then I realized that the people posting are not dumb they are just searching out the interpretation which makes the Bible look as dumb as possible.

I haven't figured out an excuse for EAllusions hopelessly wooden reading of, By the waters of Babylon.

It is rather audacious to take the Bible at what it says. Agreed. But taking it at what is reported in the pages of the Bible is "the dumbest most myopic interpretation possible"? It is more enlightened to assume facts not mentioned, such as a threat to Elisha's safety when the Bible merely reports the little children were telling him to do exactly what he was already in the process of doing of his own volition: going up? And referring to his bald head?

The horror. The horror.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

You know... I'd like Mr. Hoops to address the point that his god sent a big, aggressive, furry animal to kill and maul people to death.

That's kinda screwed up.
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_just me
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _just me »

Drifting wrote:No, I'm not.
But because I fear that would be against what your God would allow and He might send squirrels to gnaw on my secrets.


Best.Line.Ever.
~Those who benefit from the status quo always attribute inequities to the choices of the underdog.~Ann Crittenden
~The Goddess is not separate from the world-She is the world and all things in it.~
_huckelberry
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _huckelberry »

bit of context,
ch 6 v 31 May God do thus and so to me the king exclaimed if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat stays on him today. Mean while Elisha was sitting in his hous in conference with the elders, the king had sent a man ahead before he himself should come to him Elisha had said to the elders " Do you know that this son of a murderer is sending someone to cut off my head?

In terms of storytelling within a context of high mutual threat it is not always necessary to explain the specifics of an implied threat.
_EAllusion
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _EAllusion »

Huh? Psalm 137 is straight revenge fantasy at the end. It's a pretty way of saying, "I hope those mfers pay."

It also doesn't matter if Elisha was facing impossible odds against a horde of 9 foot tall savages bent on killing him. The mauling by bears incident still would be highly immoral.
_sock puppet
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Re: Elisha, bears and 42 children dead

Post by _sock puppet »

huckelberry wrote:bit of context,
ch 6 v 31 May God do thus and so to me the king exclaimed if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat stays on him today. Mean while Elisha was sitting in his hous in conference with the elders, the king had sent a man ahead before he himself should come to him Elisha had said to the elders " Do you know that this son of a murderer is sending someone to cut off my head?

In terms of storytelling within a context of high mutual threat it is not always necessary to explain the specifics of an implied threat.

That all took place four chapters later in 2 Kings. In the meantime, after the bears and the little children incident, Elisha went to mount Carmel and then returned to Samaria. Elisha helped the kings of Israel, Judah and Edom, telling to make the valley full of ditches for drink and livestock, and the Lord will deliver the Moabites to these three kings. Water looked like blood, the Moabites thought there had been infighting between the three kings, descended to take the spoils but were smoted.

Then Elisha told a widow to sell oil, to raise money to pay creditors to keep her sons out of bondage.

Then he promised a woman, despite her husband being old, that she would bear a son. She did. He grew up. While harvesting, complained of his head, he was carried back home by a lad and died. The woman rode an ass up to mount Carmel to entreat Elisha for help. Elisha sent Gehazi to lay Elisha's staff on the face of the son.

Then Elisha administered to the son, and he sneezed 7 times and opened his eyes.

Then in Gilgal, Elisha fed pottage in gourds to the sons of the prophets, but it was considered foul but they ate fruits, barley and corn brought by a man from Baalshalisha.

Then Naaman, a mighty man with leprosy, went from Syria to Israel to be cured by Elisha. Elisha sent message that Naaman should wash himself 7 times in the Jordan river and he would be cured. Naaman resisted, but did so when his servants explained to him that Elisha was a man of the Lord. Elisha refused payment initially, but sent Gehazi to collect from Naaman. Gehazi did, but lied to Elisha about being paid, and so Elisha cursed Gehazi with Naaman's leprosy.

Then Elisha went with the sons of the prophets to Jordan where they began building a place to live. A borrowed axe fell in the water, but Elisha made it "swim" so it could be retrieved.

Then the king of Syria warred against Israel. The king of Syria sent men to Dothan, to kidnap Elisha. But at Elisha's request, God smote those men with blindness, and then tricked them into following him to Samaria where their sight returned, they were fed, and left, never to return. Then, Benhadad, the Syrian king, gathered up more men and laid siege against Samaria, during a famine, until an ass's head sold for 80 pieces of silver, and the 4th part of a cab of dove's dung for 5 pieces.

A woman proposed to the king of Israel that they boil his son and eat him one day (which they did), and they would eat her son the next, but she hid her son.

It was in this context then that
2 Kings 6 wrote:31Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day.

32But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master's feet behind him?


So how did this way after-the-fact context help explain Elisha's or god's conduct way back before all that I have recited, when the she bears tore 42 little children?
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