A Review of the Age of Reason (Part 9): The Bible (3)
"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24).
Having reached the midpoint of Thomas Paine/p>
Having reached the midpoint of Thomas Paine\'s book, The Age of Reason, the reader discovers that very little new material remains. The author simply repeats himself ad infinitum. He continues to rail against priests, calling them corrupt and cruel, which may be true, but how many times does it need to be said? He never passes by an opportunity to find "brutality" in the Scriptures, such as protesting (138) Menahem\'s treatment of pregnant women (2 Kings 15:16). Had he read two more verses, he might have noticed that the text says that this king "did evil in the sight of the Lord."
He briefly mentions Elisha\'s cursing of the 42 children and their being killed by two she-bears (142). Since others who reject the Bible have frequently mentioned this event, it is worth taking a look at. Many critics of the Bible read only superficially; that is to say, they read a verse or a passage and then draw some outrageous conclusion concerning it without a careful examination of it or thinking it through. First, the King James speaks of "little children," but the Hebrew word [5288] covers young children through adolescence; "young man" can be used properly of this word and the other Hebrew word used [3206]. Obviously, the New King James which translates both words as "youths" was not around in Paine\'s day, but Hebrew lexicons were. Either he did not bother to check any of them, or he did but decided that it did not help his case any.
Second, these young men were guilty of disrespect and blasphemy. When they urged Elisha to "go up," they were telling him to ascend into heaven, as Elijah had done, which may mean that they did not believe what had been reported about Elijah\'s ascension, that they wanted to be rid of Elisha as a prophet (whose word called attention to their evil deeds), or both. Calling attention to his baldness was a further sign of disrespect for Elisha and therefore God, Who had chosen him as his prophet. These rebellious young men were punished for their thorough irreverence.
"A Better Idea"
None of these facts or details was noticed by Paine, who misrepresents the episode as God picking on innocent children. In the fall of 1968, Ford Motor Company conducted an ad campaign with the theme, "Ford has a better idea." Paine had long departed this world when those commercials attempted to persuade the American public to buy Ford vehicles. But such is his attitude toward God and the Bible. He approaches both from the perspective of, "If I were God, I would have done this or not done that." His ideology is, "If I had inspired the Bible, it would be a far better book."
He continues to provide examples which show that it is possible that editorial comments were written by later writers, such as Joshua 15:63, where it is stated that "the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day" (129). If Joshua did not write these words, they might have been added later by Samuel, who was both a prophet and an inspired writer. The same could be said of King Og\'s bed (Deut. 3:11) (123). We do not know everything there is about authorship or edits of some of the books of the Old Testament, but we do know that the words were inspired by the Holy Spirit in either case (2 Peter 1:20-21).
The critic is still leveling this charge when he begins to find fault with the books of the New Testament. He singles out until this day from Matthew 28:15 as a further example of later writers or editors, but this time his zeal for criticisms outstripped his common sense. He asserts that the fact that the Jews were still saying that the disciples stole the body of the Lord (which they did for a bribe) indicates a much later date for the book to have been written (208-209), but this claim lacks validity. Matthew wrote 30 years after the resurrection o alive a fabricated story.