Runaway Prophet

Good morning. This is The News Hour with Azariah bar Jesse, bringing you a special report from Samaria in the kingdom of Israel on Thursday, September 23rd, in the 8th year of the reign of King Ahab Ben Omri. Today we have a newsmaker interview from Beersheba in Judah, where our special correspondent Micah ben Asher has finally tracked down the notorious trouble-maker and insurrectionist Elijah the Tishbite. But first a background report from Mt. Carmel, the site of last month’s rioting which left nearly 1,000 dead following the surprise victory of Elijah’s god over the priests of Ba’al. Shimon the Jezreelite has that story.

Thank you, Azariah. Nothing is left here on the slopes of Mt. Carmel but the remains of the two altars from last month’s contest. The ashes on YHWH’s altar have been completely washed away by the rains we have been having, although the twelve split and blackened stones remain in place. The carcass of the unburnt bull on Ba’al’s altar was removed within hours by the few adherents of Ba’al and Asherah willing to be publicly identified after his priests’ astonishing defeat at the hands of Elijah. Down below, in the Kishon Valley, soldiers of Queen Jezebel’s personal guard are still on high alert after cleaning up the slaughter of a thousand priests and priestesses. There is no sign left of the crowds who assembled to watch the contest and later carried out the killings on Elijah’s orders. Opinion is divided about whether they were fleeing the Queen’s anger or have just gone home to take advantage of the rains by getting in a fall crop. Elijah’s sensational victory and the subsequent massacre is already taking on the proportions of myth. No residents of the nearby villages would admit to having been present, and although there was a brief upswing in traditional religious observance immediately following the event, that too has seemed to die down as people return to their normal lives. After three years of drought, only a full-scale invasion would take precedence over the prospective end to the famine.

The soldiers confirm, however, that the Queen is still furious, completely set on silencing Elijah once and for all. They have orders to arrest him at once and bring him into Samaria for trial and probable execution for causing a public disturbance, instigating a massacre, and blasphemy. No one here has seen Elijah since before the rains began, though.

Thank you, Shimon. And now to Micah ben Asher in Beersheba. Tell me, Micah, how did you get on Elijah’s trail?

Well, as you know, Azariah, Beersheba is about as far away from Samaria as you can get without leaving the area altogether and going to Egypt or Babylon, and something told me Elijah would most likely go to earth among his co-religionists in Judah. And there had been sightings; he’s a pretty distinctive looking man, after all, and he was traveling too fast to be really discreet. I picked his trail up a few days ago so just north of Beersheba and tracked him down to a cave in the mountains even further south. Azariah, Elijah is a frightened man. You would never believe that this was the same person who stood up to Jezebel, threatened Ahab, and calmly faced down nearly a thousand opponents just forty days ago.

Elijah would never have talked to me if he had known I was a correspondent for the Samaritan News Network. So I had to resort to subterfuge to get close to him. The way I did it was: I got the Levites - you know, they’re a special class of assistant priests the Judeans have - to let me join them. Some travelers from Arabia had told them they had passed Elijah on the way, so they had a pretty good idea of where he must be heading and were planning to take him some food. I told them I was a special envoy from King Jehoshophat in Jerusalem, sent down to get a report for the temple there. And, of course, they were all over themselves to cooperate. But Elijah still wouldn’t talk unless I promised on binding oath not to reveal his hiding place. The following interview was taped earlier this morning.

Elijah, your triumph over the followers of false gods of Israel is on everyone’s lips in Judah. But for our viewers who may not have gotten the full story, let’s recap it briefly. What we have heard is that you challenged the servants of Ba’al and Asherah to prove their gods were powerful and real - right out in public, in the daylight, where they couldn’t pull any fast ones. Is it true that they danced around the bull on their altar all morning, pleading and calling upon their gods to respond? Hmmm. I see. And that in the afternoon they redoubled their efforts, even going so far as to take knives and slash themselves so that their own blood would become part of the sacrifice, in hopes that that would force their gods to take some sort of action? We’ve heard that by late afternoon they were all limping, and that some had even collapsed from pain, exhaustion, and loss of blood. Is that the way it really happened? ...Simply amazing. And then it was your turn.