Editor’s note:  This is a follow-up to a recent question.  The comment is a bit rambling and hard to follow, but this person does raise some important issues, so we have posted it.  As a little background, this person believes that the bears in 2 Kings killed 42 little children.

Comment:

I’m just an ordinary person; I don’t have a Hebrew dictionary on hand. I occasionally read the Bible for various reasons. The Bible is supposed to be comprehensible to the common man. The standard King James version wasn’t compiled by unlearned men, nor were they few in number; over forty scholars worked on the translation for seven years in the early Seventeenth century. This was as I’m sure you know, a time of public executions and barbaric practices. It seems to me that if the words ‘little children’ could have been interpreted as ‘young ruffians’ or the like, then they would have taken that opportunity I’m sure, since as you make out, the punishment they came to meet would have been deemed more deserving. But ‘little children’ is what they wrote. You say that you know better than these professional translators. Are you a trained translator? If the extent of your knowledge is how to use a dictionary, then you may be making many false assumptions; try constructing Chinese sentences of correct grammar and meaning using only a dictionary.
However, my point is that even if they were men bearing weapons; they called Elisha ‘baldy’ ‘go up thou bald head’ and for this they were brutally assaulted by wild animals. They used words, not weapons. Typical of a ‘jealous God’ is that his rage as on numerous other occasions, is homicidal. The god of the Old Testament is always calling for people to be killed; this is just another and less understandable pretence. By the way, what happened to ‘thou shalt not kill’ ?
The god of the Old Testament is a savage, tribal god, albeit a construction by an emerging people. He often resorts to justifying what would be known as ‘ethnic cleansing’ ~ certainly war crimes in the putting to the sword whole populations of all ages and/or the enslavement of these; therefore, what matter is it to savagely attack in vengeance a group making such an ‘intolerable’ verbal slight ? This is a god who can tolerate no criticism, no disobedience, no imperfections, yet all men exhibit these traits, all are sinners (according to the Bible); therefore all should be killed or subject to his wrath.
I think the time has come for the Old Testament to be separated from the New. If God is eternal and unchanging ~ why the new tactic? Why was the ministry of Jesus so different? Why didn’t Jesus or John the Baptist or others afterwards curse their accusers and attackers in the name of the lord and bring down vengeance and misery upon them?
Was god trying something different? A new policy? The old one wasn’t working ~ no; you can’t have people love you just because the only alternative is that you will kill them.

Response: 

Who said the Bible is supposed to be comprehensible? Where did you find that rule? We need to be careful about our rules. I believe that a large majority of all the passages of scripture are fairly easily understood and comprehended. Yet, there are more difficult passages. Even Peter said of Paul (1 Peter 5) that what he said was, at times, difficult to understand. I agree that Paul is, occasionally, difficult to understand. More often he is very easy to understand and clear.

The KJV is nearly the worst translation available to us today for a couple of reasons. First, I agree with you that the translators were smart and, on the whole, sincere in their motivations. However, their access to Hebrew manuscripts was extremely limited. Also, the scholarly knowledge of ancient Hebrew was extremely weak in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. They worked principally from Greek translations (mainly the Septuagint) and also from the Latin Vulgate.   Second, they use archaic language. Archaic for us, that is. The KJV is simply, plain and simple, WRONG in this passage. Please, let us not waste any more time on this issue. There is no point in discussing this. No responsible scholar or non-scholar willing to study this out would agree with your little children interpretation.

I do not believe that "young ruffians" is justified by the original. A better translation is "young men" or "youths." My INTERPRETATION is young ruffians, but this should not be the translation. I do not know better than the professional translators. All modern translators agree with me (that these were not little children). I do know better than the translators of 1609, however, not because I am smarter than them, but because the knowlege of Hebrew has greatly advanced in the past 400 years. If the KJV translators were working today, there is zero chance they would have translated the word as little children.

Words are as hurtful and potentially sinful as any physical action, as you know. "Psychological" abuse is just as harmful and just as illegal as physical abuse. I believe the evil of this gang was not simply that they said baldy. It was the utter disrespect and insolence which underlay what they said. For an African American to call a fellow African American n________ is not offensive. However, for a white redneck to call out an African American in a public setting a n____________ is to commit an offense sufficient for him to be put in jail. I believe that what happened with Elisha was just this sort of thing. In fact, according to Jewish law it was an offense which required a legal response. How do I know? Look at what happened. God is not a capricios or petty God. These rebels were disciplined by God for their fearless rebellion against his prophet. If I called an African American in a public setting a n__________ people would laugh in my face if I were to call this a "verbal slight." This was no mere verbal slight. Your "they used words, not weapons" is a very weak argument!!! Your "verbal slight" is proved an incorrect understanding of the text by what followed.

What happened to thou shalt not kill? It is still wrong to murder. No one murdered anyone in this situation. God has a right to judge, but man does not. God has a right to judge me. He made me. He has a right to judge these young men who disrespected, not merely Elisha, but God. He is not savage and not tribal, although you may see it that way. That is your prerogative.

You are right that we are all sinners. God offered his Son as a sacrifice to "atone" for these rebellions and sins. I admit that I am a sinner and that I am not a good person, but that I need the love of God and the sacrifice of his Son to repair my relationship with him.
The message of the OT and the NT are identical. The New Testament is not a new tactic. In fact, the New Testament is the logical completion of the Old Testament. If you do not agree, may I humbly request that you consider reading a book which I wrote on the topic? It is From Shadow to Reality. It is available at www.ipibooks.com

God can tolerate criticism. He is patient and loving. What he will not tolerate is open rebellion against him. He loves us and wants a relationship with him, but if we refuse that relationship and rebel against him, we lose that relationship. This is the choice a loving God has given us. He does not force us to love him.

Jesus did not curse anyone. Like God, he is loving and patient. However, there was one group he was very strong with, which is the hypicritical pharisees. He did not curse them, but he called them hypocrites and
"whitewashed tombs." This may have been as strong a rebuke as Elisha gave to the youths. Such behavior should not be tolerated in a religious setting.
We should fear God as a criminal should "fear" the law. However, God wants us to love him.

John Oakes