Elijah vs. Priests of Baal – The best solution for any religious debate is mass murder

Seriously, you had to kill all of them?

Ahab the King of Israel was a worshiper of Baal, not a worshiper of Jehovah. He and his wife, Jezebel were such devout followers of Baal that they had been working to exterminate all the prophets of Jehovah. Elijah was the most famous prophet of Jehovah at this time and he decided one day he needed to do something about the situation. He went had a chat with Ahab and proposed a friendly little prophet contest between himself and all the prophets of Baal.

Ahab was ok with this so he gathered up 450 prophets of Baal and spread the word about the contest so there would be a large audience. After everyone had gathered together Elijah explained the rules: “OK people, listen up. The prophets of Baal and I are each going to build a big pile of wood, throw a couple of oxen on it and then pray to our respective gods to answer with fire. The god that can burn the oxen on his own is the true god. The prophets of Baal have the first turn.”

The prophets of Baal got an early start with their praying but by noon, nothing had happened. Elijah decided to have a little fun with this and said, “Hey losers, what’s the matter? You know what? I bet your god is probably sleeping in. You’re just not praying loud enough to wake him up. It’s ok though. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

Finally evening rolled around with nothing happening on the Baal side and Elijah announced it was his turn. “Listen up. I’m gonna have a go at this now. We’re gonna have to make a few changes first though. I need you to dig a trench around my altar and pour barrels of water over the wood until the trench fills up. Oh, and I need to throw a bunch of rocks in there too.”

After the changes were implemented Elijah cast Flame strike (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Flame_Strike). He made a perfect roll of 15d6 resulting in 45 points of divine damage and 45 points of fire damage. The spell consumed the oxen, the wood, the water, and the stones. The audience was stunned. They immediately feel to the ground and proclaimed life-long dedication to Jehovah.

This wasn’t quite enough for Elijah who immediately shouted, “Hey, grab all those prophets of Baal. Don’t let them get away!” Then Elijah killed all 450 of them with his bare hands, one at a time. This is of course the only unbelievable part of the story. There’s no way someone could kill 450 people without stopping to take a break. I just don’t buy it. Well, unless of course that person is Samson, but that’s another story.

Ref: 1 Kings 18:1-40