For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Did God give Gehazi (Elisha’s servant) leprosy?
Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:
Yes
“Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.” So he went out from his presence afflicted with leprosy, as white as snow.” (2 Kings 5:27)
No
“Now the king was speaking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, ‘Please report to me all the great things that Elisha has done.’” (2 Kings 8:4)
(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)
Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:
- When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction. A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time. To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
- One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible. See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions. Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do. But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
- The skeptic tries to pit 2 Kings 5:27 as affirming the claim “God gave Gehazi (Elisha’s servant) leprosy” against 2 Kings 8:4 as affirming “God did not give Gehazi (Elisha’s servant) leprosy.”
- In handling the passages the skeptics cited it is important to know the context of what’s going on with the verses.
- Gehazi is mentioned in both verses; Gehazi was a servant of the prophet Elisa.
- 2 Kings 5 record the narrative of how a Gentile soldier name Namaan was healed by God through the prophet Elisha.
- 2 Kings 8 record the king of the Philistines talking to Gehazi and also the Shunammite woman who returned.
- Steve Wells the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible spins the question and the answer to make it sound like God is mean to give Gehazi leprosy. Knowing the context what is happening is important. God through Elisa heals Namaan but then Gehazi instead of take advantage of the situation to ask Namaan for money when Namaan was leaving and Elisha wasn’t there. This gives Namaan a wrong view of God. So God punishes Gehazi for that. Atheists and skeptics often don’t like Prosperity Gospel preachers who uses the Bible for their own wealth. We see here that God takes care of the problem in-house by punishing Gehazi. Why would the skeptic care about God taking care in-house with this problem?
- In dealing with this alleged Bible contradiction it is important to ask if the skeptics properly cited the passage to establish their claims.
- The skeptic correctly interpreted Kings 5:27 as affirming the claim “God gave Gehazi (Elisha’s servant) leprosy.”
- In the context Elisha is speaking. As a prophet of God Elisha said in the first half of this verse “Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.”
- The narrator after presenting Elisha’s quote then narrates “So he went out from his presence afflicted with leprosy, as white as snow.“
- The skeptic did not correctly interpreted 2 Kings 8:4 as affirming “God did not give Gehazi (Elisha’s servant) leprosy.”
- Note the verse nowhere says Gehazi is without leprosy.
- In a rare move the Skeptic Annotated Bible provide commentary to argue from 2 Kings 8:4 to make his point: “Yet later Gehazi is talking to the king praising Elisha. (If Naaman had leprosy he wouldn’t be allowed in the king’s presence, and he wouldn’t be praising the one who gave him the disease.).” But there’s problem with this reasoning from the text.
- Problem 1: Just because someone is talking to a king does not mean that person does not have leprosy.
- Three chapters earlier when Namaan had leprosy 2 Kings 5:4 states “And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “The girl who is from the land of Israel spoke such and such.” Note Namaan’s master is the king (see the language of master used to identify the king in 2 Kings 5:1) and Namaan “went in and told his master,” with “went in” being understood as being in the presence of the king (though I imagine there was distance).
- Problem 2: Given what I said about 2 Kings 5:4 the skeptic strangely asserted “If Naaman had leprosy he wouldn’t be allowed in the king’s presence.” But 2 Kings 5:4 stated Namaan went to the king. Also Namaan did have leprosy, that is what the narrator states in 2 Kings 5:1, 3, 6, 7, 11, 27. In fact the reason why Namaan went to the king was to ask to go to Israel to be healed by God through the prophet Elisa.
- Problem 3: I don’t know at this point if the skeptic accidently confuses the name of Namaan and Gehazi. The reason why I said this is because just because Namaan didn’t have leprosy doesn’t mean that Gehazi didn’t have leprosy. If the skeptic really did mean to bring in Namaan didn’t have leprosy (whch isn’t what the narrative state) and even if it is granted to the skeptic that is true, that’s irrelevant to whether Gehazi has leprosy.
- Problem 4: Just because someone has leprosy doesn’t mean they can’t communicate with someone at all. Besides 2 Kings 5 with Namaan’s communication with the king we also see another instance of lepers communicating with those without leprosy in 2 kings 7. 2 Kings 7:3 mentioned there were 4 lepers. Verses 10-11 show their communication with those at the city gates. It is relevant to note that that 2 Kings 7 is the chapter right before 2 Kings 8:4 that is in question.
- Since I’m writing this in a time of much discussion about Covid, Pandemic and public health we can gleam insight here of what does it mean to communicate and yet maintain social distance. When we see passages about someone having a communicable disease and also at the same time they are communicating I think it is reasonable to see reasonable distance being the case.
- Thus 2 Kings 8:4 along with the skeptic’s accompanying argument does not rule out Gehazi not having leprosy.
- There is no contradiction here. Seems the skeptic needs to learn of How to Handle Bible Contradictions.
- We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity. The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible. In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview. Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”
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No one can say 2 Kings 8:4 establishes Gehazi didn’t have leprosy. The verse doesn’t even say that!
Excellent analysis. Well done. Thanks for tackling these so faithfully. Blessings.
Good point in paragraph 5. If someone doesn’t like prosperity gospel preachers making money off of the Gospel they should not object to God punishing Gehazi for doing something similar.
I use to hear skeptics bring up prosperity preachers as an objection when I use to do campus ministry evangelism. Thanks for reading and noting point 5. How has your weekdays been so far this week brother Frank?
My week has been wonderful with much to give God thanks for. I hope yours is blessed as well, Pastor Jim.
I agree I think the skeptic has these names wrong. I have done research on this passage and you did a really great job with this. Obviously the skeptic would mention that Namaan’s new faith is contrasted to Gehazi’s lack of faith and his greediness. Elisha didn’t receive/take any of Namaan’s gifts from being healed but like you mentioned when Elisha wasn’t looking Gehazi went and asked for gifts for himself, hence the leprosy. The Bible is also not written in chronological order so 2 Kings 8 could be events that occur before 2 Kings 5. I also agree with you, there were many different types of skin diseases in the ANE so what the Bible calls leprosy may not be what we call Hansen’s disease today. Meaning that Gehazi would not have had to live outside of Israel as an outcast.
Amen sister! Your comment touched on a lot more contents than I did in the post including the different diseases under category of leprosy and also there seems to be an argument made that 2 Kings 8 might not necessarily be temporarily sequential to 2 Kings 5! Did dinner turn out well last night with Nathan??? Hope today turned out to be a day with further blessing!!!! Got the text!!!
Great dinner and great day! Y’all are the first I told!!! What’s ministry like for y’all today?!
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So cool that the context leading up to 2 Kings 8:4 we see two passages that answer the skeptics about the possibility of having leprosy and communicating to someone else
Love how you also ended this with an offense
Its like this was part of God’s design to frustrate the skeptic 😉
True it almost seems as if God knew ahead of time where the skeptic annotated Bible would be going, and therefore He adds those additional details of 2 Kings 5 and 7!
Thanks for thoroughly examining this alleged contradiction. As you stated, Steve/Stephen Wells is drawing conclusions based upon non-evidence.
Thanks for reading this Tom! Indeed Wells is drawing conclusions that doesn’t logically follow nor is his evidence even strong in of itself. How is your work and your shift today????
RE: shift
Thanks! Ran the order report first thing this morning and it looked like a light weekend. Yay! Ran it again a couple of hours ago and the planners threw in a lot of additional orders, tripling the work load. Grrr!
How’s your Friday going?
Good work with the logic and how the skeptics don’t follow
Yeah, when I first read the verses in your article, I noted that nowhere did the verse say he didn’t have leprosy when he spoke to the king. I guess our skeptic’s whole belief system is centered on contradiction, eh?
Yeah it’s crazy how the skeptic based this all on something that isn’t there at all. Kind of crazy isn’t it? How is the weather these days in South Carolina, are there a lot of Autumn leaves???
It’s getting a little cooler (barely touching freezing at night). Some parts of SC have leaves starting to change, but here not yet. It’ll probably be soon though.
Great analysis as usual, Jimmy, and greatly appreciated. Perhaps we can also make room for the possibility that by God’s mercy, Elisha’s prayers, and Gehazi’s repentance, he was cured as Mark Belz has suggested.
pax,
dora
That is within the range of possibility…God is gracious to forgive even as He warns and discipline! I’m so glad many times that God said He will destroy His people, He did not but instead showed mercy. How was your Friday sister Dora??
Thanks for asking, brother. Difficult in some ways, perfect in others – Same old, same old. 😉But never old: Our Lord is near.
Reblogged this on memoirandremains.
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That’s a questionable interpretation of 2 Kings 8:4 as your article pointed out
Good exercise in Bible interpretation and logic
It is evident the skeptics are desperate if they think this is a contradiction!
I’m sure the skeptic needs a class on logic!
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