Elijah and Elisha Cycles

David Puttnam (Director and Producer of The Killing Fields and Chariots of Fire) in an interview with Bill Moyer remarks, "The problem with modern cinema is that the creative community tries to anticipate what the audience wants rather than trying to give the audience what they need."

What do you associate with Elijah and Elisha? Is it stories of miracles and wonders?

My hypothesis: The Elijah cycle illustrates how human beings crave dramatic theophany. The problem with dramatic theophany is that it is like special effects: the next time has to be bigger and better.

Simon Weil in and essay, "Morality and Literature", writes, "Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm."

Is 1 Kings 19:12-13 a profound lesson about how God should not need to compete with the sexy and interesting gods of the Ancient Near East or with our own craving for spectacle and proof?

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    A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE ELIJAH AND ELISHA CYCLES

    Elijah (YHWH is my God) 1 Kings 17- 2 Kings 2

    Elisha (God has saved) 1 Kings 19:19-21; 2 Kings 2-9.

    The Elijah and Elisha cycles are often compared by scholars in order to ask historical questions about the development of 1 and 2 Kings. The language in the Elisha cycle is more archaic than that of the Elijah cycle; therefore, scholars conclude it is older. Elijah's stories are more polished and edited; therefore, scholars conclude that they were more important to the tradition.

    I invite you to do a comparative study of the two as a reader response critic. What does reading the two cycles back to back as they appear in 1-2 Kings make you think? I will give you some of my conclusions at the end and ask you to discuss them or take issue with them, but do not look at them until you have done your own study. Do the tasks in order and proceed to the next task only after finishing each task.

    Task One: On a sheet of paper list all of the stories associated with Elijah in one column and those with Elisha in another column.

    William H. Barnes Schematization

    Other Elisha Miracles:

    Task Two: Read 2 Kings 2:23 out loud. How do you respond to this story? What sort of inventive gap filling do you need to do in order to give the prophet a favorable reading? This story makes one wonder if the editor was asleep. Why would he include this story? Would early readers find this edifying? What is the moral of the story? Don't call prophets nasty names? Nasty little children get their just deserts? Is this a Bubenmärchen to frighten the young into respect for reverend elders?

    Take note of the following:

    David Marcus argues that this is a piece of "anti-prophetic satire."

    Herbert C. Brichto argues that we have mistranslated the piece. He provides the following translation:

    "From there he went on to Bethel. He was yet en route, when some mean spirited rascals came out from the city. They jeered at him, "Move on, scarface! Move on, Scarface!" He wheeled around and fixed them with a stare. He denounced them, calling YHWH to witness. Then two bears erupted from some woods, broke them up -- some fifty-odd knaves, the lot."

    This translation solves many problems, but how come all the commentaries from the early rabbinic literature to the present work with something like what we read in the NRSV?

    Thomas W. Overholt argues that the unusual elements of the Elijah and Elisha narratives -- resuscitations, healings, and power to control wild beasts -- indicates that a form of shamanism was part of the religious diversity of Israelite religion that gets preserved in the Deuteronomic history ("Elijah and Elisha in the Context of Israelite Religion," Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker. Stephen Breck Reid editor. Sheffield: JSOT, 1996. Pp. 103-4.)

    It seems to me that characters within the text are looking at prophets as though they were shamans. Ben-hadad seems to try to buy a positive prophecy (2 Kings 2) as though the word of a prophet will necessarily come true. Jeroboam also seems to think that he a trick the prophet Ahijah into giving a favorable prophecy by sending his wife in disguise (1 Kings 14). Perhaps Ahab thinks that he can coerce a more favorable prophecy from Micaiah by making the prophet's release from prison conditional upon Ahab's safe return from battle (1 Kings 22:27). The prophets may appear to be shamans to characters of whom the narrator clearly does not approve, but we, the readers, are not to look at them as shamans.

    This raises a question for me as to how to respond to prophetic acts of violence. When Elisha has two she-bears attack forty-two boys for calling him baldhead (2 Kings 2:23-25), he demonstrates his power as a prophet. When David orders the execution of Uriah, he demonstrates his power as king, but this is an abuse of power. Is it possible that Elisha abuses his power? Does this story remind us that the power of the prophet over us should rest upon the authority of God's word rather than any charismatic power the prophet himself might exercise?

    My conclusions: The doubling pulls the reader back from heroicizing the prophet's acts. We are not to wonder at the marvelous. We are not to pin our faith upon extraordinary proof of prophetic authority. I think of Jesus words, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." (John 4:48). God's voice is heard in silence. It is to be found in the ordinary events of day to day life. The prophet should ultimately be superfluous. What do you think?

    Self Fulfilling Prophecy

    Look at how Elijah/Elisha's prophecy about Haza'el comes true (2 Kings 8:7-15). Does self fulfilling prophecy has a role to play in the way God works? My hunch is that we are to recoil at this story. It may be God's intent that Haza'el be king, but Haza'el's act of murder is not sanctioned. This story reminds me of Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. In that story, Macbeth treats the witches' words as prophetic and then makes the prophecy come true by killing the king and taking his throne.

    Supplemental Resources:

    Elijah by Robert I Bradshaw

    Lyrics to Paul Simon's THE SOUND OF SILENCE

    Hello darkness, my old friend,
    I've come to talk with you again,
    Because a vision softly creeping
    Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
    And the vision that was planted in my brain
    Still remains
    within the sound of silence.

    In restless dreams I walked alone
    narrow streets of cobblestone,
    'neath the halo of a street lamp,
    I turned my collar to the cold and damp__
    When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
    That split the night
    and touched the sound
    of silence.

    Fools, said I, you do not know,
    silence like a cancer grows.
    Hear my words that I might teach you,
    Take my arms that I might reach you.
    But my words like silent raindrops fell,
    and echoed in the wells of silence.

    Hello darkness, my old friend,
    I've come to talk with you again,
    Because a vision softly creeping
    Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
    And the vision that was planted in my brain
    Still remains
    within the sound of silence.

    And in the naked light I saw
    Ten thousand people maybe more.
    People talking without speaking,
    people hearing without listening__
    People writing songs
    that voices never share
    and no one dare
    disturb the sound of silence.

    And the people bowed and prayed
    to the neon god they made.
    And the sign flashed out its warning,
    In the words that it was forming.
    And the signs said,
    "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls,
    and whispered in the sounds of silence.