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!
