Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: chl@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: 1 Kings 13 Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 89 09:20:22 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Reply-To: chl@m1.cs.man.ac.uk. (Charles Lindsey) Organization: Dept. Of Comp Sci, Univ. of Manchester, UK. Lines: 60 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I am looking for help/suggestions as to the meaning of 1 Kings 13, whose message, if any, seems difficult to discern. Here, to remind you, is the story. Jereboam, the first king of Israel, has erected an illegal altar at Bethel, complete with idols and other abominations. An unnamed prophet (let us call him Foo) comes to Bethel and prophecies against the altar. When Jereboam tries to have him arrested, his arm is paralysed, and the altar is struck in two. Jereboam asks Foo to pray to the Lord for his arm to be restored, which he does, and it is. Jereboam, being much relieved, invites Foo back to the palace to eat, but Foo says No, he has been commanded by the Lord not to eat or drink there, and to return home by a different way. So Foo departs. Now there is an old prophet living in Bethel (also unnamed - let us call him Bar) who, hearing of this, gets his sons to saddle his donkey and goes after Foo in order to invite him home for a meal (genuine visiting prophets of the Lord are few and far between in Bethel). But Foo says No, he has been commanded by the Lord not to eat or drink there, and to return home by a different way. But now Bar says to Foo that, he too being a prophet, he has seen a vision of an Angel saying that Foo may indeed eat with him (but Bar is lying - he has had no vision). So Foo is reassured and returns with Bar. But as soon as Foo is home eating with Bar, Bar denounces him, saying that he has broken the command of the Lord not to eat in that place, and he will surely die. And indeed, when Foo departs he is indeed attacked on the way by a lion and killed (we are to understand that the lion is certainly the agent of the Lord in this, for the totally confused lion is left standing by Foo's body, making no attempt to eat either him or his donkey). On hearing all this, Bar is distraught, saddles his donkey again, and goes to collect Foo's body, to which he gives a decent burial, saying to his sons that he himself wishes to be buried beside Foo when his time comes. Moreover, he announces that Foo's prophecy against the altar will indeed come to pass (as indeed it does towards the end of 2 Kings). Now for the questions. 1) Are we to take this story as it stands, or is it reasonable to postulate that it got garbled sometime before the writer of Kings set it down? 2) If the story is taken as it stands, who was the true prophet? Foo? Bar? Both? Neither? 3) I think Foo could justifiably claim that he had been "set up" (if he had still been alive, that is). But if so who set him up? Bar? Or God? The latter does not accord with my current beliefs about the way God interacts with his people, although in the context of Old Testament thinking it can just about be imagined. 4) Quite apart from what may actually have happened, what did the writer of Kings think he was writing about? Surely the ambiguity of the episode must have been apparent to him. Now I do not think we can expect a single "correct" answer to these problems. But there must be some range of "acceptable" scenarios that believers could reasonably hold. Perhaps others on the net can help clarify this range for me. Charles Lindsey.