Clutch

Anyhow, back to the live action.

Anyone have an actual answer to the question of where these various ascenders -- Jesus included -- were going? As a case of myth-making by people ignorant of (and probably not much concerned with) astronomy, it makes perfect sense. As a reliable account of the son of God spacebound!, it's so inane that one finds it embarrassing to see people who actually believe it, or at least purport to.

Spaz

The Raelians will explain it to you .

GakuseiDon

In 2 Kings 2:11: Elijah is taken by a whirlwind, never to be seen again, presumably dead.

Keep in mind, they were mocking him! IMHO they were mocking Elisha on the death of his friend. If "go up" just means "keep walking along the road", and assuming Elisha didn't walk funny, then what are they actually mocking?

Jack the Bodiless

In modern parlance, then: you would machine-gun a group of kids who said "drop dead, loser"?

This is OK?

Secular Pinoy

I see, it isn't considered mocking when some kids say, "go away, baldhead," as per the NRSV translation. Try saying that to a bald man, and ask him if he considers it as mocking.

GakuseiDon

Exactly! Now you understand my point. Just saying "go away" isn't mocking. It had to be something else.

If you think it is mocking, *how* is it being mocking just saying "go away"? (Insulting, certainly. But the Bible says "mocking").

GakuseiDon

Spin, spin, spin. "Horribly disfigure"? "Serious injuries"? Not in the text. Why can't I just say that the wounds were trivial, and God healed them straight away? That's not in the text either.

But lets just assume that "the bears devoured all 42 children". Let's not worry about what the text actually says.

Look, I agree that a mauling by a bear is a punishment that is way out of proportion to the crime of mockery by a child. It would be nice to see some kind of analysis on this, rather than assuming any analysis is "making excuses".

Calzaer

I dunno, maybe calling him BALDHEAD would be "mocking"?



What IS in the text, that you keep ignoring:

They said "Go up", not "we're gonna kill you sucka". The term "go up" was used throughout the chapter to mean "walk along the road". Suddenly, it changes completely... but only for this single instance, and we have no way to tell when it means "Watch me cut this fool" and "keep walking along the road". Only your (dubious) word.

They were also specifically LITTLE children, a point you haven't addressed since it was raised. A kindergarten class throwing death threats at a grown man, serious enough for him to invoke deadly force? Right. Keep spinning, I'm having fun watching you get dizzy.

You say "go up" was the mocking part, and ignore the fact they were calling him names. "Baldhead" is not and has never been a term of respect among the Jews.

So, in short, the text ACTUALLY implies:
Little children, just outside the city, saying "Keep walking, baldy! Go away, baldy!"

YOU say, by twisting the words so far they don't actually mean anything anymore:
Teenagers, loitering on the road, saying "Hey, Mr. Respectable Bald Man, I'm gonna send you to heaven."

Quite simply, your version of evens must be referring to a completely different text. In this one, the children were LITTLE, telling him to go away (based on the context of the rest of the chapter, and assuming, per "God is not the author of confusion", that the context doesn't change in mid-verse and only True Believers(tm) can see it), and he got pissed and send bear to maul (modern version of "tare") 42 them, without saying how many of those 42 were actually participating in the mocking. Mauling is usually fatal, and always exceptionally painful, particularly for the time.

Your version, on the other hand, assumes the children were big enough to be a threat to a grown man (not "little"), were making obtuse, context-defying death threats, the "mocking" part was the death threats (and "baldhead" is a neutral, non-mocking term), and had some unrecoreded intention of attacking and killing the prophet. The prophet then called, in desparation, upon god (not "cursed" them), and god saved him by sending bears to GENTLY, KINDLY maul (a new definition for the word "tare", but with "go up" suddenly going from "direction of walking" to "death threat" I suppose this kind of abrupt context denial seems somehow rational to you) 42 of them.

Doctor X

There is some progress.

The above pretty much did it--an atrocious punishment for some mockery. Unjustifiable. Evil.

--J.D.

Secular Pinoy

Ahem, he must not have noticed sarcasm in my first sentence, and the rebuttal in my second sentence. "Go away / go up" is never meant to be a death threat, and the mocking is centered on a person's being bald. Sorry, Gakusei, your apologetics have still failed to rationalize this one away.

Edited to add: LOL, Calzaer, that was pure gold! :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy