(July 9, 2013 at 6:06 am)Consilius Wrote: No one said Elisha was a prophet except his actions. What he did made him a prophet, and not the Bible verse that said so.
A parody is a joke. An insult is an offense.
Also take note of the identities of the two parties. One of them works in the name of God. The other in the name of pagan gods. The offending party knows the identity of the defending party as a representative of a contradictory belief to its own, and had recently proved his belief to be true. The offending party, unprovoked, insults the defending party. Israelite pagans deliberately chose pagan gods over Yahweh because they didn't like him. The theocracy of Israel made this a political struggle as it was an ideological one. There are no grounds for harmless jokes between these two strangers. The offending party got at the defending party because of what the defending party stood for was contradictory to what the offending party stood for.
Also note that Elisha wasn't simply another Jew, he was a prophet. He pretty much had God walking alongside him on the road, because Elisha was God's diplomat. To insult a diplomat is an offense against the country the diplomat is coming from. The president of the country in this case was all-powerful and flawless, with absolute control over their very existence. The greater his power and the things they owed him, the more respect he demanded.
Are we done reading between the lines? Subtext is made up as easily as the penning of Jesus' resurrection. Bottom line: I don't buy it, the Bible is bogus, God is an asshole.
