they were children!

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 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 boys. (2 Kings 2:23-24)

Defending inerrancy wrote :

First of all, this was no minor offense, for these young men held God’s prophet in contempt. Since the prophet was God’s mouthpiece to His people, God Himself was being most wickedly insulted in the person of His prophet.

Second, these were not small, innocent children. They were wicked young men, comparable to a modern street gang. Hence, the life of the prophet was endangered by their number, the nature of their sin, and their obvious disrespect for authority.

Wrong! They were small innocent children not young men as suggested by the author. It's obvious the author of this site does not know Hebrew, or else he/she would not make such an outrageous claim. This is why Jews feels offended that their holy scriptures are being misquoted by Christians. the justification given by the author  why the children should have been killed really goes against the nature of any God given Prophets. Prophets of God do not kill innocent children's, it's difficult to acknowledge why the author would believe that?

Coming back to 2 kings 2:23-24. something the author failed to check was the Hebrew text. The author was relying upon the English rendering of the text which caused him or her to believe they were young men. So what does the Hebrew text say? Interesting the Hebrew text when referring to the victims  distinctively calls them (Naar נַעַר).

 (Naar נַעַר) means a minor, a very young child. A child from between the age of 3 to 10. the bible makes reference to children in multiple places by calling them (Naar נַעַר). Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon Dictionary (1846) also makes it clear (Naar נַעַר) means a little boy and Naar'ah means little girl. Something similar to the English when we would refer specific people by age e.g. baby, infant, child, adolescent/ teenager, early 20, middle age, old man. We can make a distinction on roughly how old that person is, same is for the Hebrew (Naar נַעַר) specifically means child not young men as the author suggested.

From this we can conclude the God of the Bible allowed innocent 42 children (Naar נַעַר) from between the age of 3 to 10 to get moulded by 2 she bears!