As a follow-up to Exegetical Sketches: Bad Boy Bible Study, I’ve selected a passage from the Chapter & Worse project at Ship of Fools and will show how BBBS can be used to address even some of the most difficult passages in the Old Testament.
By the way, I consider myself a pretty conservative interpreter of the Bible. I had a quick look at the Wycliffe statement of doctrine and I’m willing to subscribe to that list (good thing, or I’d lose my job). But there’s a difference between believing in the Bible and its power to transform, and believing the Bible as a sort of rulebook containing normative behavior and rules for all cultures and times. While I don’t break history into a series of distinct “dispensations” I do believe there is a definite cataclysm in the person of Jesus Christ. Far be it from me to put my finger on the exact moment of the coming of the new kingdom (incarnation, baptism, crucifixion, or resurrection of Christ) but that complex of events does represent existentially and theologically a huge departure from the nationalistic monotheism of the Jews as well as the polytheism, etc. of other cultures.
Elisha and the bears
"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths." (2 Kings 2:23-24, in context)
Let me outline briefly how I would use BBBS to attack this passage. My first step would be to read the passage in its context. In this case we have the death of Elijah and the beginning of Elisha’s solo ministry. 2 Kings 2:15 has a key phrase, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.” Through a series of miracles Elisha demonstrates that he has in fact received the “mantle of Elijah.” At this point I would look at some of the cultural background. Much of the information you will find at this point is pure speculation. Why was Elisha bald? What did “go up” mean? Who were these youth and what were their intentions? See the Ship of Fools discussion of this passage for a number attempts to answer these questions as well as links to other information on the web.
Bad Boy Bible Study asserts that Old Testament stories tell us more about humans than God. But that revelation comes in the context of a long trajectory of God’s dealings with humanity (The po-mo folks call that a metanarrative). 2 Kings is a long train wreck of the nation of Israel through apostasy and rejection of God’s covenant. Israel has sunk so low that the book of the Law has actually been lost (although recovered too late by Josiah). The book ends not with a bang but a whimper as Jerusalem is conquered and the tribes deported to Babylon.
What does this passage tell us about humanity?
Ethnic hatred. Religious conflict. Revenge culture. Supposing for a moment that this story is historical, I think the narrator is the key figure. First, as I mentioned before, he is establishing Elisha as the inheritor of Elijah’s power as a prophet. Second, he interprets the attack of the bears as a sign of God’s judgment. But in the wider context of the book it’s clear to us that the author is showing that there are no heroes on either side. If there were, Elisha’s efforts would result in the nation’s repentance and victory over its enemies. Such is not the case. Israel’s breaking of the covenant results in dispersion and destruction and the end of the national hopes of a king like David to rule forever in Jerusalem. According to Aristotle’s Incline this is plot point two, “The Major Setback.”
What does this passage tell us about God?
In the petty squabbles of minor kingdoms, God doesn’t take sides. The correlation of Elisha’s curse and the youth’s misfortune is purely coincidental. This is a huge point to get our heads around. He doesn’t care which football team wins. He wasn’t making a statement with 9/11 or the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. Although the narrator of this story sees a correlation between the events, God doesn’t. Again, back to the wider context of the book, God’s people have broken their covenant with him and are reaping the consequences. And for the record, there’s no evidence that these weren’t Israeli youth.
What does this passage tell us about Christ?
Just because Israel had nullified their previous covenant didn’t mean that God wasn’t capable of establishing a new one. The coming of the Messiah and the establishment of a new kingdom not of this world in which all are welcome regardless of race opens up the way for a brave new world in which endless ethnic prejudices and cycles of revenge are broken. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who persecute you. Love your enemy. The new kingdom and its covenant of faith changed the rules of the game and has been leading a pacifist revolt ever since.
If I were preaching this passage…
Here’s my three-pointer:
- Coincidence in context: We must be careful to look at seeming coincidences in the larger context of God’s interaction with humanity.
- God’s not betting on your team: his allegiance is to his own integrity and redeeming humanity.
- Christ’s kingdom breaks through racial and culture prejudices.
That’s just off the top of my head.
Tag, you’re it!
What I’d like to do now is tag some blog friends and ask them to give their take on this passage and how they would interpret it.
Here are the rules:
- You’ve been asked to teach or preach on this passage.
- What would you say?
Simple, eh?
Here are the people I’d like to tag. If you’d like to participate feel free. All reactions positive and negative to this post are warmly welcomed.
[Update: I’ve added responses to this meme below.]
Peter Kirk: Bad boys and big bad bears
Henry Neufeld: Real Guy Interpretation – A Homily
John Hobbins: The Power to Kill and Restore to Life (Part 1), The Power to Kill and Restore to Life (Part Two)
Sam Norton: Bears killing children
Doug Chaplin: Baldy, bad boys and the big bear: a strange Bible meme, Baldilocks and the she bears: is the cross non-violent?
Tim Bulkeley: Watch out or the bears will get you!
James McGrath: Bad Boy Bible Study
Douglas Mangum: Bizarre Bible Stories: 2 Kings 2:23-24, Elisha as Role Model
Matt Page: Elisha, God and the Bears
P.S. I found several examples of art depicting this verse but couldn’t find the sources for them. Any help would be appreciated. [Thanks to Peter for tracking these down.]
That’s what happens to bad boys, they get mauled by bears. Like you, maybe? Keep clear of the woods!
And what is the significance of the number 42 here? The meaning of life, the universe and everything?
I’ll think more seriously about my own take on this story.
PS Your first picture is by Gustave Doré and your second by Caspar Luiken. Follow the links for more detail. For more pictures on this story see here.
Your last image is not there, but it does seem to be the cover of a real book (with its own website), and presumably the artist of this gory piece is Kathy Demchuk. But this advertising makes the false claim (illegal here in the UK) that:
Thanks for that link to biblical-art.com, I’ll get some good use out of that site.
I look forward to your take on this.
Ever read “Elijah and Elisha” (the most incredible chapter in Francis A. Schaeffer’s book, “No Little People, No Little Places”)? Why does Elijah appear in the NT both literally and allusionally again and again? Why doesn’t Elisha appear there even once? Who’s really “bigger” in the view of the NT, and in the view of God?
Any hints?
“Elisha was in a place more like that of most of us…. As we look at it from a viewpoint of hundreds of years later, we might tend to say that Elijah’s ministry was greater. But….
For each of us as Christians, the important thing is that there are some people, whether great or small, who can be thankful that we have lived and that God has worked through us.”
–btw, the stuff “just off the top of” your “head” is pretty compelling stuff.
Hi David,
Thanks so much for this series. Since I am a bad boy myself, I’m enjoying it thoroughly.
Let’s cut to the chase. I can’t call you a baldhead, because you aren’t one, but I want to call you a name or two for sticking to the OT/NT dichotomy in the sense that you do.
Of course the Messiah’s coming is a huge cataclysm. At issue here is something else, whether, since Christ came, believers are (1) warm and fuzzy, as opposed to fierce and ornery; (2) no longer praying and working for justice and redress, incapable of hurting a flea; (3) politically correct, or not; (4) no longer subject to the contradictions we notice in OT dudes (and damsels; personally, I would want to be more gender-inclusive than you are being).
On the other hand, I doubt I see the passage under consideration very differently than you do. Elisha tarnishes himself by his response to the taunts of children. Just as Jephthah tarnishes himself by his choice to have his daughter pay the consequences of his stupid vow rather than himself.
Two further things are worth noting.
(1) I would throw the Bible in the trash if it didn’t contain episodes like the one under consideration. That’s because throughout all of history up to the present, men and women of God have shown themselves to be simul iustus et peccator, saints and sinners at the very same time. If the Bible did not include episodes like this, I would be absolutely confident that it is but hogwash and whitewash, of no use to blood-and-flesh people.
(2) The history of interpretation of these passages is also tinged with sin and sickness. I have heard people take the “texts of terror” in the Bible – there are plenty in the NT as well, for example, Ananias and Sapphira – and use them to justify their own sin and sickness.
That’s partly because the authors of the Primary History, the book of Acts, Revelation, what have you, presumed that their readers possessed common-sense and knew the difference between good and evil.
Big mistake. But still, an author has no choice but to presume that his readers are not idiots.
Otherwise, the narrative would become intolerably school-marmish, with parenthetical comments thrown in such as, “Elisha is a real idiot in this episode. What he does is inexcusable. The blood of these children cry out against him no less than the blood of Abels against the Cains of this world. Let this be a terrible object lesson to you, that God endows his own with terrible powers that are capable of misuse.”
For the rest, I will say this. If your sense of right and wrong is challenged by this OT episode, but not by the book of Revelation (which is just a picture of God’s governance of history), or by horrifying episode of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts, are you are morally trustworthy person?
Hi John,
Hope my commenting on your comment won’t stop David from his reply. I just want to say that your “two other things” are really reasons I read the bible myself. I’m with you that the bible would be absolutely trash-bin worthy w/o its trash; and (2) that the “texts of terror” run right through it to, imho even thru to Revelation, which is as you pt out no reason to justify my terrorizing anyone.
And I also want to say that there’s a “safe” function of such texts. It’s the parable function that Nathan uses on his friend David, that Rabbi Joshua (aka Jesus) uses on his students and his critics. I can read the bible because of Elisha and the bears, because I myself am going bald a bit (both literally and figuratively). I can’t help not interpreting through my own sin, but misery sure loves company. And God loves me just about as much as he loves Elisha – I’m convinced. So I can breathe a little thinking, I really hope I don’t do that again. Or if I read the account of Elisha and the bears early enough, I can say, “whew, that’s a little like me. Sure hope it won’t ever be a lot like me. By God’s grace, maybe…”
(One thing to add in parentheses: to have a subjective parabolic read of the OT, or of NT texts of terror absolutely does NOT deny the historicity of the texts. This is where fundamentalists, even Francis Schaeffer and his followers, get their knickers in knots. The historical text is “true truth” in as much as any historiography can be. There’s amazing choice by the author, assumptions about readers that you point out and the like. The literary and narrative qualities of the story telling are profound. I like the way Adele Berlin puts it: “…narrative is a form of representation. Abraham in Genesis is not a real person any more than the painting of an apple is real fruit.” Sometimes looking at a good picture of an apple makes me hungry; sometimes looking at a good picture of a rotten apple makes me a little sick.)
RE: Bad girls of the Bible… They’re next
http://www.lizcurtishiggs.com/waterbrook/BadGirls/badgirls.htm
BTW I’m really really glad you’re all commenting on this. You’re expanding my appreciation of the OT although JFH is slightly nutty for wanting to feed me to the bears for thinking that the NT is superior/replaces the OT. It’s all about shadow and reality, dude. It might be time to upgrade your operating system.
Thanks. I enjoyed your post and had fun writing my own:
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/08/bad-boy-bible-study.html
a funny Greekish aside:
Reading the LXX version of this story, I’m reminded of the poet in Aristophanes’s “Peace” (770) and of Aristotle in his “History of Animals” (632a.4).
Aristophanes, of course, is trying to be funny by making his poet say:
“Hence both grown men and youths [τοὺς παῖδας] should be on my side and I likewise invite the bald [τοῖς φαλακροῖσι] to give me their votes; for, if I triumph, everyone will say, both at table and at festivals, “Carry this to the bald man [τῷ φαλακρῷ], give these cakes to the bald one [τῷ φαλακρῷ], do not grudge the poet whose talent shines as bright as his own bare skull the share he deserves.”
Aristotle, however, who was proudly bald and was proudly male [not female], is most serious by asserting:
“Children [παῖδας], women, and eunuchs never become bald [φαλακρός].”
So here’s that bit from the LXX to compare:
“and as he was going up by the way there came up also little children [παιδάρια μικρὰ] from the city, and mocked him, and said to him, Go up, bald-head [φαλακρέ], go up.”
In Greek literature, children and baldness don’t seem to mix too well.
Interesting that μικρὰ is added in LXX I assumed we were talking about youth/thugs. Also amusing that all the art depicting this shows him as suffering from MPB rather than shaved for mourning.
I’ll have a think. One of my favourite comic writers has explored this though: http://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/works/comics/comicsissues/document.2005-10-25.5900224040.html
[...] Ker has followed up his bad boy bible reading approach with a reading of this classic story from the Elisha [...]
My contribution is at http://www.bigbible.org/blog/2009/08/watch-out-or-bears-will-get-you.htm
[...] recent post “Exegetical Sketches: Bad Boy Bible Study”. In his bible study post, David has tagged me in his ship of fools to offer some thoughts about this passage from 2 Kings 2:23-24. He made a great statement that made [...]
David, I appreciate this BBBS. It’s so interesting and sure got me thinking. Here’s my take on this passage at:
http://newepistles.com/2009/08/12/2-kings-223-24-bald-headed-elisha-and-the-vicious-bear-mauling/
[...] David Ker challenged me, along with sixteen other bloggers, to outline a sermon on 2 Kings 2:23-24, the story about Elisha and the bears who killed 42 boys: Here are the rules: [...]
[...] my last post we looked at some bad boys, 43 in all, and two bad she-bears. In this post I want to look at some [...]
Hi David,
We’ve not spoken before as far as I recall, but I came across your thread at Doug Chaplain’s blog and found myself being drawn in. Here’s my take.
Matt
Terrific, Matt. I look forward to checking it out.
Here’s my take:
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/08/the-power-to-kill-and-restore-to-life.html
[...] my initial response to David Ker’s bad boy Bible meme, I mainly asked questions, noting that my most fundamental answer was that I [...]
Great another challenge! But you’ll have to wait – going to finish my Deut essay first, due in on Wed, then I’ll get busy.
Thanks Dave
Makes for very interesting reading.
I may be being a bit thick, but I can’t find the blogger’s name here! Anyway, a couple of comments:
1. Generally I liked the exegesis but,
2. … this bit doesn’t work, and, more importantly, I think most congregations will feel it doesn’t work: “Although the narrator of this story sees a correlation between the events, God doesn’t.” It reads like ‘getting God of the hook’. But what about, “Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing with their wives, children and little ones at the entrances to their tents … and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah’s men and all their possessions”? Coincidence? Moses’ whole argument rests on it not being. I don’t think we can make God in our image, and then retrospect that onto history.
3. Rather, I think we have to grab the biblical bull by the horns and recognize that God does ’slay and make alive’ (1 Sam 2:6).
4. Rather, I think the exegetical key is Genesis 12:3, “Whoever curses you, I will curse” – that, and awareness of the context. I was in a situation not so long ago where five youths took a dislike to the front of my house. It was deeply unpleasant when I had words with them, and potentially very dangerous. Here we have not five, but, apparently, scores and, in the language of today, they are ‘cussing’ the prophet of the Lord. Think ‘hoodies’, think no police, think “Is this going to stop at name calling?” Think Israel, where God’s law should rule and the young should, “Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God” (Lev 19:32). Now think, “What is God teaching us about God and ourselves in this incident?”
5. But then you’ve got to ‘New Testamentize’ it: Lk 6:28; Rom 12:14; 1 Cor 4:12; 1 Pet 2:23. What has changed? Not God (see always Acts 5:5, 10-11)! So why the difference? And what does this say about sin and salvation?
That’s my take anyway, but bravo for raising this!
John,
I agree with a couple of your points, but I’m not sure that the exegetical key to this passage is Genesis 12:3.
You appear to take a statement about God’s election of Israel and its historical consequences (”Whoever curses you, I will curse”) and re-apply it to the level of interpersonal relations in which God’s place is taken by Elisha, and the place of the enemies of Israel, those who tried to wipe it out, is taken by the jeering children.
I have deep misgivings about your exegetical moves.
Before you “New Testamentize” the OT text, you might want to Old Testamentize it first.
The principle of enemy-love is laid out in Moses (Exodus 23:4-5) and in Solomon (Proverbs 25:21-22). Most Christians seem to believe that Jesus invented the principle. Jesus, who knew his Bible 1000 times better than his so-called followers today, had a self-understanding of who he was at great odds with the boxes contemporary Christians like to put him in. In word and deed, he fulfilled the OT, every bit of it. He did not abolish it.
Elisha does not live up to the OT principles enunciated by Moses and Solomon. Just as Peter does not live up to either OT or NT principles in the Ananias and Sapphira episode. If Peter had, he would have interceded for them, as Jesus did for the ones who put him on the cross (”Forgive them, for they know what they do”).
On a close reading of biblical narrative, even the good guys are shown to be less than perfect examples. Sometimes they mess up big time. Sometimes they abuse the gifts and authority God has given them.
John, I think the problem with simply saying “Elisha does not live up to the OT principles” of Moses and Solomon is that his curse is effective, and yet the effectiveness of his curse depends on circumstances – or to be specific, bears – (a) outside his control and (b) presumably within God’s.
This is where I had my key problem with David’s exegesis – that the acts of the bears are made ‘coincidental’ (though what if we said they were ‘providential’?). It is not just that Elisha curses, but that his curse ‘works’.
Agreed, coincidences aren’t the answer.
Parallel Passage: 2 Kings 1:9-12. Let’s face it, fire coming from heaven to toast 100 men just following orders ain’t a natural occurance. Somewhere we’ve either under-estimated the power of curses, or the wrath of God, or both. Probably both.
Awesome, John. You can call me David or Lingamish. Thanks for stopping by, you handsome fellow.
I have to reiterate that the story tells up more about the Hebrew world view than any reality about God. He didn’t send the bears. Either it was a coincidence or an embroidering of a story with a seed of truth. I’m stymied by the Peter story but I’m working on it.
[...] David Ker has challenged me, amongst others, to say precisely how we would handle 2 Kings 2:23-24. I actually didn’t notice the challenge at first, though I’ve been following the series. [...]
John,
Excellent conversation. These are questions most people are afraid to ask, because they are awkward questions, but the questions are real.
My observation: often God gives us what we ask for, even if what we ask for will harm others, ourselves, or both.
That’s how Israel got a king, a central government. Because God gave Israel what it wanted, not what they needed.
God does not treat us like puppets. He allows himself to be used and abused by us. The history of God’s people, except for the part that is God’s sheer and amazing grace, is a story of our selfish use and abuse of God’s gifts.
Sometimes I hear: well, that’s what Israel did, or that what’s the Catholics do. But we true Christians (Baptists, Pentecostals, the truly regenerate), we don’t do that.
This, of course, is sheer wishful thinking.
David,
If you write off this passage as an invention and further, an indecent invention, I would suggest that you are denying that the passage is inspired.
For consistency’s sake, there are a number of passages in the NT you will have to deny inspiration to as well. Even if you do not deny their inspiration openly, you will deny it effectively.
This is how I hear you; please say so if I have misunderstood.
You are suggesting that the 2 Kgs passage does not tell us the truth about God and about man.
God is not anything like what the passage suggests God is like. He doesn’t allow himself to be crucified by us. Furthermore, someone who is truly filled with God’s Spirit is incapable of being as flawed and imperfect as Elisha (or Peter, or the slaughtered saints under the alter crying out for redress) reveals himself to be in this passage.
Thanks, Johns.
Richardson, my point is that the curse is coincidentally effective. This morning I prayed for sunshine so that I could mow the lawn.
Hobbins, that’s the issue I’m wrestling with. Stay tuned for my next post. I’m certainly not denying inspiration. On the contrary asserting a common-sense understanding of the Bible in keeping with the authorial intention.
[...] break up. 1The real-world source of this question is not a professor at my imaginary seminary but David Ker at his Lingamish blog. I already responded in a real-world sense on my Participatory Bible Study [...]
AH, you are defenitely NOT qualified to speak on such a matter, not due to your intellect, because that has only a part to do with the word of God and its interpretation. However, just by your interpretation of the biblical passage, a true believer can tell that you are in desperate need of the true knowlege of God.
God is a soveriegn God who does EVERYTHING with a purpose in mind, He is a God of order, not of coincidence.
“There is little that is lofty or magnanimous about the faith heroes who journey across the pages of Scripture…. Or consider Elisha retaliating against the children who jeered at him, calling him a ‘baldhead’: ‘He cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys’ (2 Kings 2:24)….
Yet right in the midst of all this self-serving prayer are some of the most noble and sublime utterances of the human spirit…. Or consider the same Elisha who had cursed the children, on another day showing mercy to a barren woman of Shunem and prophesying over her: ‘At this season, in due time, you shall embrace a son’ (2 Kings 4:16)….
In Simple Prayer, the good, the bad, and the ugly are all mixed together.”
–Richard Foster, Prayer pages 9 & 10 (where he also considers the good, the bad, and the ugly of Moses and the Psalmist).
Thanks, Kurk, for a very fine Richard Foster quote.
[...] on the ancient world (including my submission, Fun with the Rabbis, and a lot of debate about Elisha and the Bears), textual criticism, biblical interpretation, a “haunted house,” and book reviews. [...]
I just came across a YouTube video that relates to this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pehhlAU00gQ&feature=player_embedded