You know, you can make scripture say anything you like if you don’t agree with the author. …
You either agree with what the author has said or you make it say whatever you like.
That Jehovah would in no way approve of or cooperate with Saul’s action is shown by his later statement through Isaiah:
"And in case they should say to you people: ‘Apply to the spiritistic mediums or to those having a spirit of prediction …’ is it not to its God that any people should apply? Should there be application to dead persons in behalf of living persons?..”— (Isa 8:19, 20.)
Therefore, when the account reads: “When the woman saw ‘Samuel’” it obviously recounts the event
as viewed by the medium, (who was deceived by the spirit that impersonated Samuel.) (1Sa 28:12).
But I’m not the only one who comes to this conclusion.
Here is a quote from a Bible scholar who says most early theologians agree with my logic!
(I have underlined some bits- scan these at least)
The Commentary on the Old Testament, by C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch (1973, Vol. II, First Samuel, p. 265), (quote)…“Nevertheless the fathers, reformers, and earlier Christian theologians, with very few exceptions, assumed that there was not a real appearance of Samuel, but only an imaginary one. … an apparent image of Samuel was presented to the eye of Saul through demoniacal arts. Luther and Calvin adopted the same view, and the earlier Protestant theologians followed them in regarding the apparition as nothing but a diabolical spectre, a phantasm, or diabolical spectre in the form of Samuel, and Samuel’s announcement as nothing but a diabolical revelation made by divine permission, in which truth is mixed with falsehood.” (end of quote)
In a footnote this Commentary says: (quote) “Thus Luther says . . . ‘The raising of Samuel by a soothsayer or witch, in 1 Sam. xxviii. 11, 12, was certainly merely a spectre of the devil; not only because the Scriptures state that it was effected by a woman who was full of devils (for who could believe that the souls of believers, who are in the hand of God, . . . were under the power of the devil, and of simple men?), but also because it was evidently in opposition to the command of God that Saul and the woman inquired of the dead…’
Calvin also regards the apparition as only a spectre . . . : ‘It is certain,’ he says, ‘that it was not really Samuel, for God would never have allowed His prophets to be subjected to such diabolical conjuring. For here is a sorceress calling up the dead from the grave. Does any one imagine that God wished His prophet to be exposed to such ignominy; as if the devil had power over the bodies and souls of the saints which are in His keeping? The souls of the saints are said to rest . . . in God, waiting for their happy resurrection. Besides, are we to believe that Samuel took his cloak with him into the grave? For all these reasons, it appears evident that the apparition was nothing more than a spectre, and that the senses of the woman herself were so deceived, that she thought she saw Samuel, whereas it really was not he.’ (end of quote)
Make your own decision friend.
But add to the opinion of the church fathers and reformers what the Bible says about the dead in the scriptures I have quoted in my earlier posts. Post 45 had lots. (I won’t post further on this passage)
(Though I am sure you mean King Saul)
