Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

I always thought it wasn't very prophet-like (or greater-good-serving) to call she-bears to eat the people who called you a bald head (Elisha).

Digit wrote:I always thought it wasn't very prophet-like (or greater-good-serving) to call she-bears to eat the people who called you a bald head (Elisha).

If you really want to know what this scripture means, I'd be happy to elaborate.

Dragon Lady wrote:

Digit wrote:I always thought it wasn't very prophet-like (or greater-good-serving) to call she-bears to eat the people who called you a bald head (Elisha).

If you really want to know what this scripture means, I'd be happy to elaborate.

Sure, in as boiled-down plain English as possible. Is your interpretation by chance essentially any of the ones given here?

Digit wrote:

Dragon Lady wrote:

Digit wrote:I always thought it wasn't very prophet-like (or greater-good-serving) to call she-bears to eat the people who called you a bald head (Elisha).

If you really want to know what this scripture means, I'd be happy to elaborate.

Sure, in as boiled-down plain English as possible. Is your interpretation by chance essentially any of the ones given here?

Nope. None of those.

Boiled down english:
When Elijah was translated, his mantle (made of animal skins) fell upon Elisha. What's does his mantle represent? His priesthood; his calling as a prophet. When his mantle fell upon Elisha, it was basically transferring Elijah's priesthood and calling of prophet upon Elisha.

What about the youth? Well, what was one of the miracles Elisha did? He healed the water. The water in the city had become poisonous and undrinkable. So the people had to go to another source of water. Who gets the job of hauling the water? The youth. Who gets paid for hauling water? The youth. Who lost their job when Elisha healed the water in the city? The youth. Who didn't like Elisha very much? The youth. So what did they do? They taunted him. "Oh ye bald head!" or rather, "Oh ye the one without the hair!" Not without hair on his head. Rather, they were saying that they didn't believe that he rightfully had Elijah's mantle. They were mocking his priesthood and his calling from God.

It wasn't a mockery of his male-pattern baldness that caused Elisha to set she-bears on them, but rather it was the mockery of the priesthood and of God.

So the proper response to someone who doubts a prophet's calling is to have them killed?

SMP wrote:So the proper response to someone who doubts a prophet's calling is to have them killed?

Mods, could we maybe have this moved to a new thread? I'd hate to side-track us.

Dragon Lady wrote:

SMP wrote:So the proper response to someone who doubts a prophet's calling is to have them killed?

Mods, could we maybe have this moved to a new thread? I'd hate to side-track us.

Yay, I'm smart enough!

Hooray! Thanks, C4!

SMP, it wasn't doubting. It was knowingly mocking. There is a difference. They were mocking because they were angry at the prophet for doing good.

But that's not your point. You still think it's wrong that a "proper response" to someone who mocks a prophet is to have them killed. And today, I'd agree. But you are placing our cultural norms and beliefs on a different culture. Today we say death as a punishment is wrong. The death sentence is taboo. In Old Testament times, death was a common punishment. It's allowed for in the Law of Moses. To touch the Arc of the Covenant meant instant death. The prophetess who nailed a man's head to the floor was hailed as a hero. The punishment for adultery was stoning. (Which, btw, just sounds like one of the most gruesome deaths ever.) It was not just a religious thing; it was a cultural thing. I've got a giant book full of ancient texts from the ancient near east which show how all of the cultures of the day (assyrians, babylonians, egyptians, etc.) all used death as a punishment for severe crimes.

And btw, blasphemy was considered a very serious crime. Religion was taken much more seriously back then than it is today. Religion was law. The Law of Moses wasn't just a religious law. It was The Law. Scholars of the LoM were lawyers. They interpreted the scriptures and defended or prosecuted.

So yes, in that age and that culture, the proper response to someone mocking a prophetic calling from God could very well be to have them killed.

If 'na'ar' is described by Strong's Concordance as: "(concretely) a boy (or girl) from the age of infancy to adolescence" and 'qatan' is defined by Strong's as "diminutive, literally (in quantity, size or number)", then is the notion I've heard from people at church that these could easily have been strapping twentysomethings unreasonable assuming the written words are accurate?

I don't have Strong, but I do have the BDB Lexicon, so I looked them up there.

BDB translates na'ar as a boy, lad, youth. In Exodus 2:6 it's translated as an infant (about 3 months old). It's also translated as just born, not weaned, a youth. Genesis 37:2 is the word used for Joseph who is 17 years old. Genesis 34:19 shows it's of marriageable age. 2 Samual 18:4, 12 (and others) show it to be a warrior. It can also be translated as a servant or a retainer. For it to be translated as a girl, it has to have a hey (hay?) at the end to make it feminine, which it does not in this story.

BDB translates qatan as small, insignificant, young, unimportant. Sometimes it means a younger brother or just youth in general. (When speaking of people. It can also mean things like a small ship or a day of small things, etc.)

So, yes I suppose it could mean strapping twentysomethings. I won't say I'm an expert on such things and thus won't say definitively what age they were. But I'd say (personal opinion) they were probably anywhere between… 15 and 25ish? Young enough not to be doing real jobs, old enough to be responsible for their actions. And being teenagers makes it more likely that they were ignorant jerks.

The fact that qatan is used doesn't necessarily mean that they are babies or toddlers. It could also mean insignificant. So maybe they were of a lesser class or the troublemakers or other youth that weren't considered "significant". And maybe they were as young as 10 or 12. I don't know.

This is where I think learning Hebrew and Jewish customs is very helpful in studying the scriptures as well as knowing that we can make our best guess, but can't be definitive in our answers just now. And being ok with it. Sometimes we just don't know. And that's ok. But that shouldn't stop us from making our best guess.

Thanks, I appreciate the time you put into researching my questions, Dragon Lady.