God and killer bears

J

JustARide

America: 51% fucking idiots
Registered Senior Member
I'm curious as to why I've never heard a preacher mention 2 Kings 2:23-24, which reads:

"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. 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."

So, God sent two bears to kill 42 children for an off comment about Elisha's hair. I can't imagine why this wasn't mentioned when I was in Sunday School (?) Is there ANYBODY who can offer anything more than a LAUGHABLY ludicrous explanation of this?

Just curious.

Josh

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"It's just a ride." - Bill Hicks
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That passage was one of God's freudian slips and Christian preachers are severely averse to talking about truth.

Kat
 
This has to do with the long-lost eleventh commandment:
Thou shalt not make fun of bald people.
 
An old John Wayne movie comes to mind, as a father he says, “Well if your mother didn’t teach you to respect your elders, I’ll damn sure teach you to respect your betters.” And proceeded to punch one of his sons light out. Respect is another word for worship.

Respect is something earned, so look at what is created. What can you do? All I can offer is a profound Thank You. (from a baldy)
 
JustARide said:
I'm curious as to why I've never heard a preacher mention 2 Kings 2:23-24, which reads:

"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. 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."

So, God sent two bears to kill 42 children for an off comment about Elisha's hair. I can't imagine why this wasn't mentioned when I was in Sunday School (?) Is there ANYBODY who can offer anything more than a LAUGHABLY ludicrous explanation of this?

Just curious.

Josh

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"It's just a ride." - Bill Hicks
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Click to expand...

A Major prophet such as this one in the old testament were considered to be "men of God", or "Seers" with the power of God at the comand of their words.
The two prophets that are to come to Israel in the book of Rev. for example are said to be able to send plauges and curses to the earth as often as they wish.
This is the power God put in the hands of these men, and yet they themselves were still mortal men with frailties like the rest of us.
Under the anointing for their particular ministries they were as God to the people, but later when the anointing left them they were often weak and fearfull as a normal man.
John the Baptist, after seeing all the signs and wonders of Jesus ministry, and hearing the voice from heaven saying ; "this is my beloved Son", when in prison later alone with the disciples asked "Is He (Jesus) the one, or should we look for another. Elijah ran for His life from the wrath of Jezzebel.
The children angered Him with their taunting ( Go up bald head...) and with one wave of His hand he sent them all to their deaths.
Such was the power of God these prophets had.
 
So that punishment doesn't strike you as, I don't know, a TAD severe? Plenty of men committed far more atrocious deeds in the Old Testament and were, in fact, rewarded for their exploits. These poor kids, on the other hand, just happened to catch Elisha on a bad (non) hair day and they get mauled?

God sends down ultimatums ("Thou Shalt Not Kill") and then turns around and murders 42 kids (were all 42 yelling at Elisha? - that would have been quite a chorus... I'm willing to bet at least a couple were just tagging along) and this does not amount to a clear case of full-throttle hypocrisy?

Word of God? Doubtful. A third-rate episode of Beastmaster? Maybe.

But I must admit... the power to summon killer bears would have come in handy in middle school.

Josh

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"It's Just a Ride." - Bill Hicks
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I'm willing to bet at least a couple were just tagging along
Click to expand...
Thus the old expression, "Guilty by association".

Perhaps that was the lesson to be learned from that passage.
Maybe God was trying to show people what hanging with the wrong crowd could do to you.

Perhaps he was trying to illustrate the results of not standing up for what you believe in and coming to the defense of someone unfairly under attack.

Maybe he was demonstrating what could happen if you fuck with someone more powerful than you.

Or, he could have been trying to say that you should choose your battles well, and making fun of someone's hair could get you killed.

Maybe it was a comment on poking fun of someone's shortcomings that they have no control over, such as a handicap or male pattern baldness.

Or maybe God just doesn't like smart-mouthed bratty kids. I can't really blame him.
 
I thought this was pretty interesting, although I havn't personally done this background work...I copied it from another website.


Why did Elisha send bears to eat the children who were teasing him?
Here's the relevant passage: "He (Elisha) went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys." (2 Kings 2:23-24)
There's a lot of misconceptions about what happens here, some through an understandable misconception of the situation or the wording, and some through purposeful twisting of the events here.

First of all, the bears did not 'eat' the people in question (as critics usually say), but 'tore' them. It may sound minor, but eating them is fatal, and tearing them is not necessarily fatal. It's possible that none of them died.

Also, Elisha didn't send the bears out. He merely cursed those telling him to go up. God apparently decided to send the bears out.

Also, those who were mauled weren't children. Though the KJV translates their identities as 'small boys'. The Hebrew phrase here 'neurim qetannim', can refer to men from twelve to thirty years old. The soldiers in 1 Kings 20:14-15 are 'neurim qetannim'. Some people assume that Elisha was much older than them, since they called him 'baldhead', but he was actually in his mid-twenties himself, making him a 'neurim qetannim' as well.

On top of that, these men weren't merely 'teasing' Elisha. We know that there were at least 42 of them, probably several hundred (since it's unlikely that only two wild bears could catch the majority of the people in any group). Several hundred people chanting against a single man is not 'teasing', but a clear threat. And their telling him to 'go up' doesn't mean 'get out of here' as the critics seem to be suggesting, but means to die. They knew he was a prophet of God, and are telling him to die and go up to God. If you had several hundred people telling you to die, would you consider that teasing? No, Elisha was clearly in mortal danger, and God sent the bears out to save him
 
1) Elisha's tutor Elijah had just "gone up" to heaven. The people who followed him could have been referring to this. A person only goes to heaven if he's dead (as TheVisitor's post suggests), or if God himself takes him, which would have made their taunt even more serious in the light of Elijah's ascension.

2) Elisha was a prophet - he would have worn a headpiece as a sign of his office. He was also "carrying Elijah's spirit", so he was "twice" prophet - as acknowledged by Jericho's prophets and God (v.10 and 15). Calling him bald was not only showing disrespect, it was making a mockery of God himself.

3) Elisha had just given Jericho back its prosperity by purifying their water supply. It was people from Jericho who came to mock him. Another instance when people refused to acknowledge God in the face of what He had done for them, is when the Farisees accused Jesus of being in league with the devil after he healed the blind man. Jesus called it the unforgiveable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Those people who were mauled, dead or alive, were probably saved from being condemned to a fate worse than death by being punished on the spot. If you don't believe in God it would seem inexcusible that anybody would do this, but then again, you would probably have been in the crowd yourself, blaspheming, not expecting any punishment at all.
 
The icing on the cake now.
Thou shalt not kill. Read it again in view of the next page or two where we are commanded to take the lives of wicked ones over a dozen times. “You will not take life with out just cause.” Is the obvious best way of understanding that passage.

If people were to actually READ the book, and not just what others have to say about it we might have a few really meaningful conversations about it.
 
craterchains (Norval said:
“You will not take life with out just cause.”
Click to expand...
What is "just" anyway? The loosers are always on the wrong side of the "just," until the next fight among the winners.
 
Jenyar said:
Those people who were mauled, dead or alive, were probably saved from being condemned to a fate worse than death by being punished on the spot.
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Upon arguments such as this rested the Holy Inquisition.

~Raithere
 
All right, let's examine this hypothetically...

For the sake of argument, let's say, as the passage above explains, that Elisha (and God) were in fact being mocked by 42 men in their 20's and 30's, and that bears merely "tore" them up. That scenario still doesn't strike you as absolutely ridiculous? This two verse episode does not smack of legend to you?

The event is tacked on like an afterthought to the chapter ("Oh, and by the way, God sent some bears to slash their way through a group of naughty boys/men."), and no, it does not bear (no pun intended) any resemblance to the turn-the-other-cheek philosophy of Jesus.

And don't tell me I'm talking about apples and oranges, comparing Jesus' words about God and God's actions in the Old Testament, either... I'm talking about simple consistency. If a judge (i.e., God/Jesus) tells people that revenge is wrong, and then proceeds to take revenge time after time (I'm sure I need not list the myriad examples here for you), exactly how does this not equal anything but hypocrisy on a grand scale?

And let's also say that God approves of violence whenever "justified," as some of you have suggested. Who makes that determination?

God orders a hefty number of killings in the Old Testament (including men, women, children, and animals), and he sends, many times, his earthly counterparts to do the dirty work. These were men who killed in the name of God. And if you think that violence was justified (because you believe in divine killing orders), then you cannot tell me for certain that Osama bin Laden is not justified in slaughtering "infidels." Osama advances an identical argument for the violence he commits - God wills it.

So what's the difference? Simple. We're on the receiving end. Therefore, it is evil.

For example, I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer as to why innocent Amalekite children deserved to die by the sword. And yes, I'm aware of the history of the Amalekites, but I would say, no matter the circumstances, purposefully killing children in war is unacceptable. Time period has no relevance. As Howard Zinn says, "No matter how just a war seems or how convincing the argument to go to war, when it is finished, both sides have been engaged in evil." The God of the Old Testament, by any reasonable standard, is a war criminal.

So the Amalekites were evil? Maybe. Were the children inherently evil by association? Animals too? This same argument, at one time, led to the killing of children so that they might automatically enter heaven. Killing, as an act of mercy. Funny how religion often manages not to merely point us in the wrong direction, but to completely reverse the polarity of one's moral/ethical code.

As Churchill said, winners write history. And killer bears, it seems, are the icing on the cake.

Josh

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"It's just a ride." - Bill Hicks
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Um, O... K...

Josh

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"It's just a ride." - Bill Hicks
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God orders a hefty number of killings in the Old Testament (including men, women, children, and animals), and he sends, many times, his earthly counterparts to do the dirty work. These were men who killed in the name of God. And if you think that violence was justified (because you believe in divine killing orders), then you cannot tell me for certain that Osama bin Laden is not justified in slaughtering "infidels." Osama advances an identical argument for the violence he commits - God wills it.

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Ok, youve hit a real point to be made here.
I don't really like bringing this out because I'm an American, and I love my country...but - she's going down fast.
We once were considered a "christian" nation to the rest of the world.
In that respect we are like Israel in the Old Testament, and He made an example of them for all to see who follow.

God has a standard, or reputation He expects to be upheld by those who take His name, and undertake "representing Him".
"Don't take God's name in vain"...doesn't nessessarily mean to curse verbal obsenities.
The nation the "forgets" God that nation shall God destroy.
The United States - after being in the position of representing God to the world for hundreds of years has, at least in part, the power and position that it has today in the world, because of the blessings and protection God has bestowed upon Her.
Follow me now...
Would God be setting a good example to let a nation who has had such blessings...... becoming the leader of the world, then turn completely from Him and say there is no God, science and reason are the answer to all our problems, and all the former concerns about God were just "childlike imagination and fables"...?
This wouldn't quite set the example I believe God intended, so He would be forced to take it all away from them.
I'm not talking about a nation that never claimed the God of the Bible as their God.
In this context I am only referring to nations that were considered to be represented by and represent the God of the Bible.

He has said ; "The nation that forgets God, that nation shall God destroy."
He did it to Israel.....and the way the United States has become, if God doesn't destroy Her soon, He will be obligated to raise Sodom and Gomorah up and apoligize to them.
Because we have become worse than they were, with all the things that have been done here by God in this great nation....and to turn away.
There is nothing left Her but judgement.
Now even though God may have decided to execute His judgement against a people or nation, there is still a mater of timing.
He would not let the Israelites take part of the "promised land" held by the Ammorites, for forty years because the "iniquity of the Ammorites" was not yet full.
Jesus said of Caperium, if the things that have been done here had been done in Sodom, it would have stood to this day.....
The Queen of Sheba shall rise in judgment against thee, because she left all to find Solomon and inqiure of God, and a greater than Solomon is here.

Now in this context - the armies of Islam do believe in some messure that their God is also the same God of the bible.
It is not un-like God to raise up a nation and give them the power to execute His judgement, even if it is a heathen nation such as Babylon, or Syria were in those days, and use them to destroy the very ones He had earlier sent His blessings.
Because they turned away.

It is better to have never known God, than to have known Him, and turn away.
All the late night comics and stand up acts in hollywood, are like a little boy trying to whistle his way through a graveyard ...and if what I've said is so....it's coming.
If not Osama Bin Laden, then some other guy...Maybe the Russians, we're over there messing with that oil, and they want it too. Maybe they will both hit us at the same time, while we're still picking up the pieces from the greatest earthquake the world's ever known...sinking part of California.
God sends spiritual death, and spiritual blindness first...to a people who've rejected Him.
Then He sends in some nation like He did Titus and the Romans to clean up the mess.
Why do you think Jesus said; "If the blind led the blind, won't they all fall in the ditch...
or "Let the dead bury thier dead".......
They had already been struck with spiritual blindness and death, and didn't even know it.
Maybe all this is still a long way off,....maybe if we all do the best we can, God will honor it a little while longer. I hope so.

TheVisitor
 
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Raithere said:
Upon arguments such as this rested the Holy Inquisition.

~Raithere
Click to expand...
I'm aware of that. But the Holy Inquisition weren't content to let God do the judging. They were more interested in behaving like animals - like bears in this case.
 
If not Osama Bin Laden, then some other guy...but it's coming.
God sends spiritual death, and spiritual blindness to a people who've rejected Him.​

Interesting. So you essentially agree with Osama bin Laden, or at least approve of his tactics (provided he is actually speaking with the Lord). You're in good crazy company, TheVisitor, as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have indicated their (read: God's) displeasure with our evil ways as well.

I really hope that worldview works out and you live a happy, fulfilling life; just be aware that it is people like you who prolong the suffering of humanity.

All the late night comics and stand up acts in hollywood, are like a little boy trying to whistle his way through a graveyard ...and if what I've said is so....it's coming.​

Must we bring poor comics into the fold? I dare say George Carlin and Bill Hicks are/were far more visionary than yourself.

Josh

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"It's just a ride." - Bill Hicks
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