Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

I'm kind of excited for my next Primary lesson. Or I was, until I started studying for it.

I get to teach about Elijah and the prophets of Baal. I get to teach about Elijah's challenge, how Baal failed to respond to his prophets (because he doesn't exist), and how God sent fire down from heaven to consume Elijah's offering, providing some fairly solid evidence of the existence and power of God.

It's an exciting story. It has a challenge and some trash-talking in it, and it ends with a large fireball burning up the offering. If only the story ended there.

As far as the manual seems to be concerned, the story does end there, or rather, it jumps forward to a time when Elijah heard the Lord through a still, small voice rather than through a number of natural disasters. The lesson manual seems to gloss over the part where, after the pyrotechnics display, Elijah had all the prophets of Baal killed.

This is, in my opinion, a controversial decision. It'd be difficult to argue that Elijah's actions were justified, and it's not very well established that the manual is justified in leaving that part of the story out of the picture.

Personally, I have half a mind to include it anyway. It's not like the kids will hear something they haven't heard already. They know about deaths sometimes being necessary and justified, like when Nephi killed Laban, and they know about otherwise good people sometimes making terrible decisions, like when King David committed adultery with a woman and had her husband killed. So, whether the false prophets' deaths were justified or not, there is some precedent for including them in the lesson.

Plus, it seems a little bit dishonest not to include that part. It seems like a pretty critical detail that was intentionally cut off to avoid making Elijah look bad. Deliberately omitting this part of the story is almost like saying that it didn't happen or that it wasn't important, but the deaths of 450 people would be a fairly significant part of any story it was part of. While the deaths themselves may have been justified, it don't think that neglecting to mention them is.

I'll have to think on this further, but right now, I'm leaning toward teaching that part of the story anyway. Elijah must have had good reasons for what he did, and it's not hard to think about what a few of them might have been. Maybe the false prophets would have killed Elijah, or maybe they would have plotted something to deceive the Israelites again. Not knowing the exact reason(s) for the killing is a bit concerning, and that's part of what makes me hesitate to share this part of the story, but it seems a bit too important to leave out.