I was also confused about the bears specifically being she-bears. Are she-bears more fierce? Or is it more of an insult to be killed by she-bears than he-bears?

As amusing and even informative as it is to read the Bible simply as text, as a story, that doesn't provide an accurate understanding of it. It can't be understood outside of its cultural parameters.

I'm not sure what you're referring to with this, but David Plotz ("Blogging the Bible") is trying to understand it within its original cultural parameters, as well as trying to figure out how it applies to himself as a modern Jew.

Elisha, I believe. The kids mocked him for being bald. And, really, life would have brought an ironic punishment to most of the male kids eventually, at least. Bears seem like overkill.

I would LOVE to hear Stephen Colbert's take on that particular story from the Bible.

I'm speaking in general, and was responding to the comment above mine, by Rick. I'm not specifically referring to Blogging the Bible; I haven't read it. But since he was referring to that, I can see where it would've looked like I was too. Sorry.

edited because I'm typing this at work, and I can barely see what I'm typing. My spelling doesn't usually suck.

As amusing and even informative as it is to read the Bible simply as text, as a story, that doesn't provide an accurate understanding of it. It can't be understood outside of its cultural parameters. Which is true of any literary work, even, I argue, a divinely inspired one.

But in saying this you set yourself apart from those who read the Bible as the literal word of God. If we view the Bible as the struggle of a people to grasp and understand the idea of God, then of course it becomes a rich and spiritually exciting journey. It that case it makes sense that the early views of God borrow from relationships of power and obedience in the secular world, and that it was only later that a coherent view of God as something other than an abusive patriarch or a powerful warlord. It's a remarkable story of spiritual awakening.

But if we adopt for the moment the widespread view that the Pentateuch is the eternal and unchanging word of God, then it seems fair to read the text as text. It's hard to understand why any decent person would want to worship and obey the God who is revealed there.

But if it's read as truth, as something a god did? Seriously? That's a little psychopathic.

2 Kings 2:24 -- 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 youths.

So, just because Elisha cursed them in the name of the Lord, does that mean that God, rather than Elisha, sent the bears? What does cursing (or doing anything) in the name of the Lord imply?

Is it that God blessed Elisha as one of the prophets, and as a result of that blessing, Elisha could do stuff that other people couldn't? And Elisha lost his temper, and due to a combination of free will, losing his temper, and the blessing God bestowed upon him, he was able to smite the kids via bear death?

Or when Elisha cursed the kids who mocked him, was Elisha essentially saying "O Lord, smite these bad boys!"? To which God then complied?

It seems to me that the second option -- Elisha asking God to smite the boys, and God smiting -- makes God into a trained monkey. Or an ATM. It doesn't work for me. I think the first option -- God's special blessing b/c Elisha was a prophet + Elisha getting pissed off + free will -- is more likely. Yes, God had a hand in it, through blessing Elisha as a prohpet in the first place. But I find it a stretch to say that *God* sent the bears to maul the mockers.

But in saying this you set yourself apart from those who read the Bible as the literal word of God.

Well, yeah. Because I don't read it literally, myself. I grew up in a culture where the Bible was taken literally, and it was the literal reading of it that. frankly, finally made me lose the faith. Now, having a learned a lot more about other religions and other culturs, and history, etc., I can read the Bible with a different perspective. But I remember how it felt to read it literally, and how I responded to that.

Steph, I can understand your reading of it. But that wasn't how it was presented to me in Bible class as a kid, by the literal-readers. It was presented as a show of God's power and why we should fear and obey him, and respect his prophets. I've never before heard anyone say that it wasn't God who did it.

edited, because, dang it, I CAN spell.

Rick, I'm curious. What is it *textually* in the OT that makes you see God, as described, as a psychopathic warlord?

Do you not find the many examples given by people here to be convincing? The endless times in which children are killed to punish their relatives for a failure to obey? The people who are killed simply because they didn't understand a ritual or were clumsy in performing it. Or because someone in the same town offended the warlord? The massacre of outsiders to extend the territory of the tribe? The Egyptians tortured and killed because of the actions of their dictatorial leaders. What is it that convinces you this God is not a psychopathic warlord?

But in saying this you set yourself apart from those who read the Bible as the literal word of God.

This doesn't make sense. Rick, what you're saying is that *either* one can read the Bible as the literal word of God, or one can read it in a cultural/historical (and, I might add, semantic) context.

Why can't a person read the Bible as the literal word of God while placing it in the relevant context?