Category Archives: Old Codex Blog Posts

Posts from my old Codex: Biblical Studies Blog

Approaching 100,000

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As I mentioned last week, in honour of reaching the 100,000 visitor mark on this blog, I am giving away a book to lucky (providential?) number 100,000. Since the magic (ordained?) number is fast approaching, I have changed the image on Site Meter so that people can’t tell how close they are. If my calculations are correct, the 100,000 visitor should visit this site on Friday. At that time I will post the time of their visit as well as other identifying marks and wait in anticipation for the visitor to contact me.

Stay tuned!


Witches in the Hebrew Bible

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[This was originally posted October 31, 2005]

This last week I was copying an article in the Festschrift for John F.A. Sawyer (Words Remembered, Texts Renewed, JSOT 195, Sheffield 1995), and came across an interesting chapter on witches in the Hebrew Bible by Graham Harvey (pp. 113-134). This piqued my interest and I thought, considering that today is Halloween, I would blog a bit on the subject of witches in the Hebrew Bible.

You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!

Witches have come a long way in popular culture. Shakespeare’s characterization of witches in Macbeth as old wrinkly hags that dance naked around a pot of boiling potion is still found in the stereotypical Halloween costumes and in the portrayal of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.

But there is also a more attractive characterization of the witch in film and television. For instance, Elizabeth Montgomery’s Samantha in Bewitched did not fit the stereotype, nor did Nicole Kidman in the recent remake. And, of course, the stereotype was dashed to pieces with the Harry Potter books. Hermione Granger does not look like a witch, she looks just like a young girl.

Of course, this raises the question of where did this stereotypical image of the witch as an old Hag with warts and frogs come from? Well, first of all, it did NOT come from the Bible.

Witches and Witchcraft in the Hebrew Bible

One of the first things that you realize when broaching the subject of witches in the Hebrew Bible, is how little we actually know!

If you look for the word “witch” in the NRSV, you would look in vain. The word “witchcraft” is only found in Lev 19:26 to translate תעוננו. The NIV is similar in that the term “witch” is not found, but you do find the term “witchcraft” five times to translate words from the root כסף (Deut 18:10; 2 Kings 9:22; 2 Chron 33:6; Mic 5:12; Nah 3:4). The picture is again somewhat different if you look at the KJV, which adds Exod 22:17 (“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”; once again from כסף) and 1 Sam 15:23 (translating קס×? “divination”) to the examples from the NIV.

One of the key passages about witchcraft in the Hebrew Bible — or at least a passage that brings together a series of terms relating to magic is Deut 18:9-14.

9 When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10 No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. 12 For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13 You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God. 14 Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the Lord your God does not permit you to do so (NRSV).

The terms employed include the following:

  • “One who practices divination” (קס×? קסמי×?). This term is used primarily for the practices of non-Israelites who tell the future or prophesy by various means. Some take this to be a more general term that describes the whole complex of magical and divinatory practices in ancient Israel.
  • “Soothsayer” (מעונן). Someone who can interpret signs or looks for omens.
  • “Augur” (מנחש×?). To seek and give omens, foretell. Could be some sort of divination related to snakes.
  • “Sorcerer” (מכש×?×£). This term is probably closest to the idea of magic and witchcraft.
  • “One who casts spells” (חבר חבר). This would be a charmer or the like.
  • “One who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead (ש×?ל ×?וב֙ וידעני ודרש×? ×?ל־המתי×?). These terms appear to be related to the practice of necromancy, i.e., divination by inquiring of the dead.

Most of these terms occur infrequently and are very difficult to unpack in a meaningful way. Even the concept of magic in the Hebrew Bible is had to define. ABD uses “the term ‘magic’ will be used here to refer to methods associated with the gaining of suprahuman knowledge and power or with influencing suprahuman powers.” The majority of places where these terms are used are clearly negative, though there are some more neutral occurrences. It appears that many of these terms are used to characterize illegitimate practices relating to telling (or perhaps changing) the future by those who do not worship Yahweh.

No matter how you understand some of these terms, what is clear is that these terms do not tell us anything about what these people looked like. So where does our image of witches come from?

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

More recognizable images of witches from English literature like MacBeth are derived from classical Roman authors and mediaeval sources.

For instance, the Roman poet Lucan (39-65 AD) describes a “witch” that fits our modern stereotypes in book six of his Pharsalia (also known as “The Civil War”):

To her no home
Beneath a sheltering roof her direful head
Thus to lay down were crime: deserted tombs
Her dwelling-place, from which, darling of hell,
610 She dragged the dead. Nor life nor gods forbad
But that she knew the secret homes of Styx
And learned to hear the whispered voice of ghosts
At dread mysterious meetings. (35) Never sun
Shed his pure light upon that haggard cheek
Pale with the pallor of the shades, nor looked
Upon those locks unkempt that crowned her brow.
In starless nights of tempest crept the Hag
Out from her tomb to seize the levin bolt;
Treading the harvest with accursed foot
620 She burned the fruitful growth, and with her breath
Poisoned the air else pure. No prayer she breathed
Nor supplication to the gods for help

Horace has a number of similar descriptions of witches in his Epodes. He describes the “hideous looks of all these hags” one of which has “interwoven her hair and uncombed head with little vipers” and who make potions out of disgusting materials. It is descriptions like these that inspired Shakespeare, not the Bible.

Of course, the best portrayal of a witch in popular culture is found in Monty Python’s The Quest for the Holy Grail! (See it here)

UPDATE (2006): You will want to check out a post by Menachem Mendel on witches (he also notes the following brief article: Witches in the Bible and Talmud). Phil Harland also relates an ancient ghost story here.

Temple Treasures in Monastery?

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The San Francisco Chronicle has an article claiming that the treasures from the (second) Jewish Temple are sitting in a Greek Orthodox monastery near Bethlehem. Right…

The article, “Ancient Jewish treasures in monastery, book says Ancient Jewish treasures in monastery, book says Gold, silver vessels reportedly in West Bank caves” (how’s that for a concise and captivating title!), is reporting claims made by Sean Kingsley in his book, God’s Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem (2006).

Here’s an excerpt of the article:

British archaeologist Sean Kingsley said he has traced the journey of the legendary vessels from the first time they disappeared from public view more than 1,500 years ago to their current location in this walled monastery east of Bethlehem in the West Bank. He said the items include “the central icons of biblical Judaism” — a seven-branched gold candelabra, the bejeweled Table of the Divine Presence and a pair of silver trumpets.

But many people, including Israeli government officials, believe the treasures are hidden somewhere in Vatican vaults. In 1996, Israeli Religious Affairs Minister Shimon Shetreet officially asked the pope to return them.

But Kingsley contends they were taken from Rome when it was sacked by the Vandals in A.D. 455. He bases his theory on new archaeological sources and contemporary accounts by ancient historians.

In his new book, “God’s Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem,” just published in Britain this month and due in U.S. bookstores in the spring, Kingsley describes the odyssey of the priceless haul from Jerusalem to Rome and back again via Carthage and Constantinople, to its final resting-place at Mar Theodosius.

“I am the first person to prove that the temple treasure is no longer in Rome,” he said.

Right… (PaleoJudaica has commented on the temple treasures a number of times)

(HT archaeologica news)


Smithsonian Bible Exhibit in the News

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The Hamilton Spectator has an interesting article from Washington Post reporter Allan Cooperman on the Bible exhibit underway at the Smithsonian. The article, “A True Testament to Change: How Much was Altered in the Bible’s Evolution?“, highlights some of the manuscripts on display in the exhibition, “In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000.”

This exhibition includes a whole host of fascinating finds, including fragments of a Dead Sea Scroll, Cheaster Beatty papyri, some leaves from Codex Sinaiticus, among other manuscripts. I am looking forward to viewing the exhibit in person when I am at SBL.

In regards to the news article, there are some choice quotes from Bart Ehrman about the implications of the transmission history of the Bible and certain views of the Scripture’s authority. Here’s an excerpt:

These are documents with the proven power to shake faith. That’s what happened to Bart Ehrman, author of the 2005 bestseller, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed The Bible And Why.

Ehrman was a born-again Christian from Kansas when he entered Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute at age 18. After three decades of comparing ancient manuscripts in their original languages to try to determine the earliest, most authentic text of the New Testament, he is now an agnostic.

“I thought God had inspired the words inerrantly. But when I examined the historical texts, I realized the words had not been preserved inerrantly, and it would have been no greater miracle to preserve them than to inspire them in the first place,” said Ehrman, now chairman of religious studies at the University of North Carolina.

I think that Ehrman raises an interesting question about the relationship of the transmission of the biblical text to some particular views of the inspiration of the original text. The article continues:

But if these fading papyrus leaves and purple parchments inscribed with silver ink can shake faith, that does not mean they must [italics added].

Brown, who pulled the exhibition together in association with Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, sits on the governing board of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. “That’s a pretty good tip-off,” she said, that she is a member in good standing of the Church of England.

“There’s nothing here that’s going to shape or challenge people’s beliefs, except on one point,” she said. “It will challenge the belief that the Bible originated in the form we have today, rather than being the result of the very complex process of a lot of people of faith using scriptures to help them live God-focused lives.”

“We didn’t start out with this,” she said, producing a red Gideon’s Bible from her Washington hotel room.

All in all it looks like a great exhibit.

UPDATE: Stephen Carlson has a list of all the manuscripts showing at the exhibit (well, almost all, he neglects to list some of the Hebrew manuscripts — but what can you expect from a NT scholar! :-)).  His list makes me even more eager for the exhibit!


Two Hobbit Films Planned… Sweet!

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This is great news… at least if you are a Tolkien fan. It appears MGM is planning to produce two (not one) films based on The Hobbit, and that their first choice for director is none other than Peter Jackson. Read the story here.

While I don’t like some of the liberties that Jackson took with LOTR (especially the Ents!), I think he would be a natural choice for the project. While they could probably make due with one film, I won’t complain.

(HT The Busybody)