Hello, Hola, Bonjour, Ciao, Shalome, Hai, Kon'nichiwa, Ya'at'eeh, I'm the Blanco Indian -- 1/4 Native American, with German-Irish blood.  My channel is dedicated to the goal of dispelling the fuzziness some people may have about God & faith in general - instigated by the propaganda these ideological New Atheists peddle.  Also talk about the Bible and the history behind it (which neither the fundamentalists or bible-bashers seem to get right), science, movies, vid games, & culture in general.  Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlancoIndian

Purple Pill Philosophy

Pop scholar Michael Heiser gives the context behind an infamous episode in the Old Testament that is a favorite to bible bashers all around. Where the bald prophet Elisha summons female brown bears to maul a bunch of assholes (whether they were kids or teenagers that posed a physical threat are up for debate). 
 
The text doesn't outright say they were killed, just that they were torn up a bit. And how much damage can Syrian brown bears do compared to American grizzly bears people usually have in mind? Tektontv has a vid on this subject also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgkMJhcTE1c 
 
I myself don't believe God really acted on this so much as Elisha abusing the sprinkles of God's power bestowed upon him upon his succession during the ascension of Elijah. Bible-bashers aren't known for thinking deeply about this stuff, but ask yourself; if Elisha did twice the deeds and miracles Elijah performed, then why did he have to die rather than ascend to heaven like his predecessor Elijah did? 
 
2 Kings (which was originally unified with 1 Kings) chronicles the reign of the kings of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah following the split after the death of Solomon. 2 Kings picks up where 1 Kings (from the 10th century BC to the 9th century BC) left off, obviously, and continues on to the Exile, which spans a couple centuries). Following the Contest of Elijah, where Yahveh was shown to be superior to the virtually powerless Ba'al (by then, a composite deity amalgamated from the other Baals such as Baal Hadad, Baal Hammon, Baal Peor, Baal Zaphon, Baal Melqart, etc.), the disillusioned devotees of Baal [in an act of cognitive dissonance] saw fit to merge Yahveh with Baal -- with Yahveh, in the minds of certain Israelites, "absorbing" Baal's attributes and personality. That would explain much of Yahveh's cruelty in the Old Testament (though these events took place much before they were written down, in which we get the somewhat distorted depiction of God as the great God of thunder & storm, and the divine warrior). 
 
On a related note of this overblown episode in particular (the bears incident is mostly what bible-bashers can think of when I ask them what else they can tell me about Elisha and why he's relevant), let's be honest; those of us who were bullied in elementary or middle school have fantasized about exacting justice to this effect once in a while. Now that we think about it after we matured, it's not even worth it but we can understand what Elisha felt. Especially since it's implied that this was a whole gang of pagan youths that did seem to pose a threat. The concept of childhood didn't even exist back then so there's also that. If they actually were killed and not just mauled by these rather small bears, I wouldn't condone it. However if they were just clawed up a bit as the text seems to imply, it would serve the bullies right (I have zero tolerance for bullying and have taken upon myself following middle school to bully other bullies. I still do online).

Pop scholar Michael Heiser gives the context behind an infamous episode in the Old Testament that is a favorite to bible bashers all around.  Where the bald prophet Elisha summons female brown bears to maul a bunch of assholes (whether they were kids or teenagers that posed a physical threat are up for debate).  

The text doesn't outright say they were killed, just that they were torn up a bit.  And how much damage can Syrian brown bears do compared to American grizzly bears people usually have in mind?  Tektontv has a vid on this subject also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgkMJhcTE1c

I myself don't believe God really acted on this so much as Elisha abusing the sprinkles of God's power bestowed upon him upon his succession during the ascension of Elijah.  Bible-bashers aren't known for thinking deeply about this stuff, but ask yourself; if Elisha did twice the deeds and miracles Elijah performed, then why did he have to die rather than ascend to heaven like his predecessor Elijah 

2 Kings 2:23 25

Tektontv ( subscribe and hit the bell: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpllN9azBqdDQZUKTkG_SwA ) gives the context behind one of the most infamous caricatured bible verses that is used as an argument by bible-bashers who don't really put much thought into this stuff. 
 
It's one of those common fundie-Atheist arguments that you can look into for like a minute and go "Wtf kind of 'gotcha' is this?". A skeptic friend of mine (not a fundie-Atheist) was curious as to the context of this verse but this is also generally for those who make this stupid argument as...well, a 'gotcha'. Not only do most translations have the "he could not stop them" as "they (as in the tribe of Judah) could not stop them", but I have to ask in what context would it make sense for the biblical authors to portray their God as showing such shameful weakness? Not to mention you'd be hard-pressed to find a single bible scholar who buys the interpretation that a bunch of iron chariots would be too much for any deity...no matter how minor. 
 
The very idea that the same God that created the universe, that defeated the chaos dragon Leviathan, and parted the Sea of Reeds (following the single-handed defeat of the Egyptian gods which caused the plagues...whether historical or not), would be thwarted by Man's tools is beyond asinine. Also since not much later in the text, the Israelites do overcome Iron chariots. The only rational explanation is that the Israelites had not yet developed iron technology at that time (given the background, that is the case). The warriors of the tribe of Judah would be no exception. Had they been faithful to Yahveh, they would have won without the need for iron, which other Israelites achieved later. Because they lacked faith and/or sinned, Judah was left to their own strength and their iron-clad enemies kicked their asses. Whereas the faithful succeeded in overcoming iron chariots in Judges 4:13-16. 
 
The Book of Judges is set between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, and was partially a counter-narrative to the Book of Joshua. As the Book of Joshua was a compression of loosely connected events (the ransacking of Canaanite cities by the Habiru, the collapse of the Bronze Age, etc.) into a single epic story in which Canaan was conquered on one swift invasion, the Book of Judges chronicles the conquest of Canaan as a long, gradual process of on-and-off times of war and peace within a 300-year span from the time they entered the Holy Land up until the time of Samuel, Saul, and David (from the time of David onward, Israelite and Jewish history is fairly good, whereas previous history is rather distorted, fragmented, and compressed, as was the case with the Book of Joshua and the Tower of Babel narrative). 
 
Since Canaan was under Egyptian jurisdiction throughout most of the New Kingdom period in Egyptian history, the period of the Judges would have been an expansion of what really happened between the collapse of the Bronze Age (when Egypt lost its grip on the Holy Land and when the great civilizations temporarily fell, also when Troy and Ugarit were destroyed -- celebrity archaeologist Eric Cline goes over the backdrop of the Bronze Age collapse in his lecture in Bethesda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpJwuRyopg8 ), and the call of Samuel. 
 
If I didn't have so much time on my hands with work and my book, I'd be tempted to do a comic book illustrating bible-bashers' caricatures of the bible, exactly how they present them, just to show how mind-numbingly silly they're biblical eisegesis are. One of the funniest (yet tragic) misrepresentations is the "forcing a girl to marry her rapist" apologetic...which was already covered in a another vid on this channel. I mean DarkMatter2525 aka FecalMatter2525 does them with his shitty cartoons (which are known to destroy brain cells) but he actually takes these caricatures seriously and often adds his own opinions on them near the end. And when you attempt to correct him on anything, he literally acts like a typical village-Atheist who cannot - will not - be reasoned with. Ah well. Those who come in good faith are often the ones who know better.

Tektontv ( subscribe and hit the bell: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpllN9azBqdDQZUKTkG_SwA ) gives the context behind one of the most infamous caricatured bible verses that is used as an argument by bible-bashers who don't really put much thought into this stuff.

It's one of those common fundie-Atheist arguments that you can look into for like a minute and go "Wtf kind of 'gotcha' is this?".  A skeptic friend of mine (not a fundie-Atheist) was curious as to the context of this verse but this is also generally for those who make this stupid argument as...well, a 'gotcha'.  Not only do most translations have the "he could not stop them" as "they (as in the tribe of Judah) could not stop them", but I have to ask in what context would it make sense for the biblical authors to portray their God as showing such shameful weakness?  Not to mention you'd be hard-pressed to find a single bible scholar who buys the interpretation that a bunch of iron chariots would be too much for any deity

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2 Kings 2:23 25

Judges 1:19 (Iron Mirror)

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2 Kings 2:23 25

Judges 1:19 (Iron Mirror)

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