Like all tragedies, there’s comedy there somewhere. Sometimes you have to be it.

Terry Davis, a cult of one, believed God spoke to him through his computer's RNG. So... yeah.

It's called context. The beginning of the chapter is Elijah (Elisha's master) being removed from Earth and going up (using the exact same Hebrew word) to Heaven. Considering that the thugs are clearly not pious people, "remove yourself from the world, like your master did" has only one viable interpretation.

As for my choice of the word "thugs" ("mob" would be another good word), that is necessary to preserve the connotation. Remember, there were 42 of them punished, possibly more escaped - this is a threatening crowd size (remember the duck/horse meme?). Their claimed youth does imply "not an established veteran of the major annual wars", but that's not the same as "not acquainted with violence".

Never underestimate the power of words. Kids have unalived themselves over it.

I think the true meaning has been lost to time. The Hebrew text has been translated and rewritten so many times it’s a children’s book. The original texts of the Dead Sea scrolls are bits and pieces of that long lost story. All we have left are the transliterations of transliterations.

I definitely can't get behind that definition. The one I've used for a good while is: The unnecessary done on purpose.

Take Barbara Hepworth's "Two Figures" a sculpture which is just sat there on the campus where I studied for many years (and where I also happen to work today). What's going on there? I'm not sure.

Sculpture of ideals I get. Liberty, stood on her island, Justice (with or without her blindfold, but always carrying not only the scales but also a sword†). I used to spend a lot of time in the hall where "The Meeting Place" is. They're not specific people, they're an idea, they're the spirit of the purpose of this place (a railway station, in fact a major international terminus). That's immediately understood, yeah.

But I did not receive an immediate understanding of "Two figures". It's an interesting piece. I still occasionally stop and look at it as I walk across the campus, but I couldn't summarise it in a sentence even now.

† when you look at that cartoon of the GOP operatives with their hands over Justice's mouth, keep in mind that out of shot she has a sword. Nobody gets out of here alive.

The story is pretty clearly meant to indicate that the Babylonians were worshiping an animal though. The theology of the book of Daniel emphasises that the Gods of the Babylonians don't exist, this story happens around the same time Daniel proves the priests had a secret passage they were using to get the food offered to Bel and eat it at night while pretending that Bel was eating it. Or when Daniel talks to King Belshazzar and says "You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose power is your very breath and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored". This is not to argue for the historical accuracy of the stories, just that the point is that Daniel is acting as a debunker of the Babylonian beliefs in these stories while asserting the supremacy of the Israelite beliefs.