What is a witch, exactly?

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That is, according to Exodus 22:18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. But, what is a witch, exactly? Is it an old woman with attitude? An herbalist? An abortionist? Someone who practises modern day Wicca? If anyone knows what a “witch” is according to the Bible, please tell.
 
Cpl_Ferro said:
That is, according to Exodus 22:18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. But, what is a witch, exactly? Is it an old woman with attitude? An herbalist? An abortionist? Someone who practises modern day Wicca? If anyone knows what a “witch” is according to the Bible, please tell.
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Well to my knowledge the only time the actions of witch are described is for the witch of Endor (sp?). She was a necromancer. Historically though what a which was could depend on the region and time. Its been applied to poisoners, or those who deal with spirits or lore for personal gain or without the leave of the community.

I don’t know if Wicca would really apply. They call themselves witches but really Wicca is an modern religion constructed by an amalgam several myth structures, with modern day flare and sensibility. I don’t think I’d go any further than saying their neo-pagans.
 
what if a dead one visits you in a dream and fortells the future to you? what about necromancy is forbidden and why? is it the willful seeking to know the future through the spirits of the dead? what of the unwillful knowledge of future events through the unwillful contact of the dead with us?
 
rtconstant said:
I don’t know if Wicca would really apply. They call themselves witches but really Wicca is an modern religion constructed by an amalgam several myth structures, with modern day flare and sensibility. I don’t think I’d go any further than saying their neo-pagans.
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yes, my understanding of modern day “Wicca” is that its not too similar to biblical witchcraft or even the witchcraft of, say, 500 years ago.
 
fadingfaith said:
what if a dead one visits you in a dream and fortells the future to you? what about necromancy is forbidden and why? is it the willful seeking to know the future through the spirits of the dead? what of the unwillful knowledge of future events through the unwillful contact of the dead with us?
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and how does this mesh with the catholic understanding of the communion of saints? who is “dead” that cannot be communicated with? i thought the dead were “more alive than we are”?
 
fadingfaith said:
what if a dead one visits you in a dream and fortells the future to you? what about necromancy is forbidden and why? is it the willful seeking to know the future through the spirits of the dead? what of the unwillful knowledge of future events through the unwillful contact of the dead with us?
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The very definition of necromancy is the attempt to conjure up or initiate contact with the dead to learn secret or future knowledge. If God allows the dead to contact someone to deliver a message, there’s not too much you can do about it except to use due dilligence in making sure its not from the devil…
 
When the definition of “witch” is nailed down in this thread, will you have to go out and kill them when you find them, as clearly, it is commanded by god to do?
 
Cpl_Ferro said:
That is, according to Exodus 22:18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. But, what is a witch, exactly? Is it an old woman with attitude? An herbalist? An abortionist? Someone who practises modern day Wicca? If anyone knows what a “witch” is according to the Bible, please tell.
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From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The belief in witchcraft and its practice seem to have existed among all primitive peoples. Both in ancient Egypt and in Babylonia it played a conspicuous part, as existing records plainly show. It will be sufficient to quote a short section from the recently recovered Code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.). It is there prescribed,
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If a man has laid a charge of witchcraft and has not justified it, he upon whom the witchcraft is laid shall go to the holy river; he shall plunge into the holy river and if the holy river overcome him, he who accused him shall take to himself his house.
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In the Holy Scripture references to witchcraft are frequent, and the strong condemnations of such practices which we read there do not seem to be based so much upon the supposition of fraud as upon the “abomination” of the magic in itself. (See Deuteronomy 18:11-12; Exodus 22:18, “wizards thou shalt not suffer to live” — A.V. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”.) The whole narrative of Saul’s visit to the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28) implies the reality of the witch’s evocation of the shade of Samuel; and from Leviticus 20:27: “A man or woman in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying let them die: they shall stone them: Their blood be upon them”, we should naturally infer that the divining spirit was not a mere imposture. The prohibitions of sorcery in the New Testament leave the same impression (Galatians 5:20, compared with Apocalypse 21:8; 22:15; and Acts 8:9; 13:6). Supposing that the belief in witchcraft were an idle superstition, it would be strange that the suggestion should nowhere be made that the evil of these practices only lay in the pretending to the possession of powers which did not really exist.
newadvent.org/cathen/15674a.htm
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These days, we can be smug in the fact that we have the tools of modern science, medicine, psychology, jurisprudence and law enforcement (not to mention 2000 years of Christian hindsight) to better distinguish other explanations from actual demonic activity (and, yes, there is such a thing). These days, we would have a wider range of options for dealing with things like this, but our forbearers (including those of biblical times) had no such advantage and they did the best with what they had. To compare biblical imperatives from that time to ours is, shall we say, juvenile.

Consider this: if you really had reason to believe in witches that went about publicly doing the types of evil things that witches (in the truly evil sense) are known to do, would it not be the responsible thing to do everything you could to protect your community?
 
What is a witch, exactly?

It depends on who you are talking to and when.

In Jewish times it was associaed with one who could give “the evil eye” - both male and female.

But In the first few centuries of the Protestant Rebellion, among Protestants it was a euphemism for a fertile Catholic woman or any woman who could not be trusted and might be inclined to breed “Catholic” babies. Hence the Protestant’s tradition of declaring those who would not embrace their religious views as witches and burning them at the stake (50,000+ in Lutheran Germany alone) or repeatedly re-baptising them in the style of full immersion chained into a dunking-chair and re-dunking till they drowned or were reborn. Those who did not escape the fires and those who drowning proved their tormentor’s judgement infallable that they were in fact satanic witches. 😛 :tongue_n_cheek:

Now days it’s a term one woman usually calls another who has been discovered in an adulterous affair with their husband or boyfriend who could not possibly be of interest to him unless she had bewitched him or cast some spell that she was herself unable to successfully cast through her own charms. 😛

– just kidding
James
 
Bear_Claw said:
When the definition of “witch” is nailed down in this thread, will you have to go out and kill them when you find them, as clearly, it is commanded by god to do?
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If it is God’s current plan that all witches should be killed, then please explain the existence of witches today?

Matt 12:24:
And Jesus answering, saith to them: Do ye not therefore err, because you know not the scriptures, nor the power of God?

Witches and atheists, today, live under the same grace that God provides to all sinners (yes, that includes Catholics also).

Maybe, the proper question to be posed is why hasn’t God eliminated all those who sin against Him. I’ll now refer back to the verse I previously quoted.
 
I’ve got a friend whose a witch or used to call himself one. He practices Wicca and is a homosexual and ex-Catholic. I don’t know a lot about his religion although he’s got evil eye charms and I think he dances naked on the solstice but I’ve never delved too deeply. He’s a friend of a friend really. We went camping with him and we went to a stone circle in Derbyshire and they hang offerings on the tree close by. There wasn’t any naked dancing and my other friends weren’t pagans.
 
First of all, it’s clear that the OT doesn’t mean “foreign pagan priestess” when it says “witch”. Israel was surrounded by pagan cultures, and Israelite men did run into non-Jewish pagan priestesses every once in a while, without having more problem with them than they had with all other pagans. When Tamar set out to trick her father-in-law Judah into giving her her rights, she apparently disguised herself as a pagan priestess/sacred prostitute. Judah didn’t exactly kill the allegedly pagan foreign chick. 😉

Now we get into Hebrew, which I don’t understand, so this is all hearsay from me.

As for the “Witch of Endor”, there’s actually nothing in the Hebrew calling her a witch. She’s apparently identified as a “woman ghost-controller” ('esheth ba 'alath 'obh, with 'obh meaning ghost). She was in the business of compelling ghosts to do her will. (Interestingly, even though she’s a lawbreaker and Saul is her enemy, she still feeds him. Middle Eastern hospitality and Jewish mother syndrome!)

The people who weren’t supposed to be allowed to live were those who practiced “kishsheph”, sorcery. These people were apparently “mekhashsheph” or “mekhashshephah”.

As for the Greek stuff in the NT, that’s mostly talking about “pharmakeia” – sorcery, but especially giving drugs and potions – which apparently was the word used in the OT Septuagint to translate “kishsheph” words.

bible-history.com/isbe/W/WITCH%3B+WITCHCRAFT/
seems to be a very complete article.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion in the past of this, and some people feel that kishsheph was mostly all about poisoning. (Which was how it worked in ancient Rome.) Others think that kishsheph was about cursing people, in a non-religious way; but it seems like Hebrews did plenty of cursing people without calling in professionals. So it probably was about doing pagan magic with pagan gods, while still claiming to be part of Israel. Sort of being a subversive, given that Israel’s whole claim to be a people was their covenant relationship to God.

There’s also a whole list of magical professions you weren’t supposed to have “among you”, in Deuteronomy. It’s coupled with people who sacrifice their kids to Moloch, which ties in to not being able to be a pagan and an Israelite at the same time.

Anyway, the point was not to go around killing people who did magic, but rather to not let people live as part of Israel who were doing heathenish things like worshipping false gods or doing magic. Anybody who wanted to pursue careers in the exciting field of sorcery could do so, as long as he or she went to pursue said opportunities in a pagan community and wasn’t claiming to be an Israelite anymore. Breaking God’s laws so blatantly in Israel’s camp could bring down God’s wrath on everybody else, too.
 
Re: the above –

1 Samuel 15:23 compares rebellion to witchcraft, and stubbornness to idolatry and teraphim.

So sure, the witchcraft thing is freaky-deaky rebellion against God, but there were plenty of people rebelling against God in a perfectly straightforward way. God apparently isn’t any fonder of having them living as part of Israel…

Oh, and I found a different translation on a Jewish site. It called Endor chick a “ba’alat ov”, which makes sense. Ba’al equals lord, master, and -at was a feminine ending, I know. So I’d say the previous article I linked to had a few too many spaces to make sense. 🙂

This site also transliterated the other name as “mekhashef”.

There was also a lot of stuff about the Deuteronomy guys. Augur = qosem qesamim, a person who looks for omens. Soothsayer - me’onem, a person who looks to the clouds for omens. Diviner = menechash, an experienced observer of signs and omens. Spellcaster = chover chever, someone who joins together words to make spells. Person who consults familiar spirits = sho’el ov, which is someone who calls up ghosts to ask them questions.

There’s another Jewish site I didn’t lose the address to, which talks about some interesting issues with the Exodus command:
biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/mishpat/baril.html

Hope this helps.
 
Santa Claus is a type of witch/wizard. He’s based partly on a Norse Pagan God called Woden/Odin origin of Wednesday and is a god of the wood. He created man out of ash and elm and is god of the wild hunt. He led a wild hunt through the sky on Halloween and the winter solstice on an eight legged horse called Sleipnir which is supposed to be the origin of the eight reindeer. He’s also called Sky Father or All Fathers as he was the creator god in Norse paganism. My children get gold coins on the feast of St. Nicholas 8th December and get a present on the twelve days of Christmas from the Wise Men.

This contains some information but is a long article:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

and
mysteriousbritain.co.uk/pantheons/odin-the-all-knowing.html
wodensfolk.org.uk/
wicca.utvinternet.com/woden.htm
 
Why is this passage inspired even? Instructing people to kill other people simply because they believe differently is troublesome to me.:mad:
 
Love that last response because I was thinking the exact same thing!👍

The other thing that this reminds me of is a section from the show “The West Wing” where the president is having a discussion with someone about this section in the Old Testament and how a lot of it is inconsistent with how we live now:
I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here’s one that’s really important 'cause we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?
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Jacqui
 
StrawberryJam said:
Why is this passage inspired even? Instructing people to kill other people simply because they believe differently is troublesome to me.:mad:
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Its not a matter of behaving differently. Witches are given their “power” so to say by the devil himself. Therefore they are the ministers of evil. They conjure up evil spirits upon people to curse them or worse. Nothing that a true witch does is good. I’m not too fimiliar with Wicca but from my understanding its just a fairy tale religion based on myths but not true witchcraft however i’m not sure.

To find out more about witches from Catholic doctorine i’d read a book called “An Exorcist Tells his Story.” written by the head Exorcist in Rome, Fr. Amorth. Hes fought their evil influences for many years and would probably know the most about them from a safe source. I would not ask a witch what they do 😛
 
IME, a witch is a kid in his early 20s who combines an incapacity to distinguish between genuine historical scholarship and nonsense with a childish glee at adopting a belief system chosen for the discomfort that it will cause to parents.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
Best website around for this topic is WWW.CHRISTIANANSWERSFORTHENEWAGE.ORG This woman was a Wiccan/Witch and tells you why she isn’t anymore! Be sure to read her personal story…it is SO powerful !!!

Also…a great website about this stuff is WWW.CROSSVEIL.ORG holy smokes! This site is wonderful and again…this lady was into the occult before…but not anymore and she tells you why!

Enjoy these sites!
 
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