Bible Question (short): Mar 5:15 |
Question (full): Perhaps you could be more specific? EXACTLY which quote from the following are you comparing as "Context is king" ? FREQUENTING TOMBS Mar 5:3? Cicero, Virgil, Plato, Wilkinson, Pliny, Holland, Reginald Scot, Smith? This opinion is well expressed by one of PLUTARCH'S disputants, and it was esteemed to be true by Plato and his followers. Many of the fathers of the Christian church likewise ascribed the divination of the heathens to the assistance of their DAEMONS; but we have no reason to think that any opinion of this sort had obtained in the first ages of idolatry, or had appeared so early as the time of Moses. We meet with no names of any heathen diviners, mentioned in the Sacred Writings in these early days, which imply any converse with such spirits. Our English expression, consulter with familiar spirits, seems to signify one that divined by the help of such spirit; but the Hebrew words, ob shoel, aobv, are two persons, shoel is the consulter, aobv is the diviner. Our English translators have generally MISSED the true sense of this expression. but the true translation of the Hebrew words is as follows: A man or a woman, if there shall have been with them (i. e. if they shall have consulted,) an aobv or an yiddeoni (i. e. a python, or a wizard,) shall be put to death : here the aobv is the diviner, and DOES NOT signify a familiar spirit in a person, possessing him, as our English translation seems to INTIMATE. The term is rendered by the LXX “ventriloquist," but is rather a wizard who asked counsel of his familiar, and gave the responses received from him to others the name being applied in reference to the spirit or DAEMON that animated the person, and inflated the belly so that it protuberated like the side of a bottle. Or it was applied to the magician, because he was supposed to be inflated by the spirit like the ancients [ Ar, Vesp.1017, MALUM SPIRITUNT per verend i natures excipiebat; Schol. in Ar. Plut.). The ob of the Hebrews was thus precisely the same as the pytho of the Greeks (PLUTARCH, De def. Or. 414; Cicero, De div. i, 19), and was used not only to designate the performer, but the spirit itself, which possessed him (see Levit. xx, 27; 1 Sam. xxviii, 8; also Acts xvi, 16). That the word aobv is to be taken in this sense is abundantly evident from another passage in this book of Leviticus; the words are, al tiphnu el ha aobvoth, veel ha yiddeonim : a I tebakkeshu letameah bahem, i. e. Ye shall not have regard to the pythons, or to the wizards. Ye shall not wake inquiries to the polluting of yourselves by them. Here it is very plain, that aobv DOES NOT signify a spirit in a person, but is one sort of diviner, of whom the Israelites were not to inquire; as yiddeoni, the word translated wizard, is another; and whoever compares our English version of this verse with the Hebrew words, must see that our TRANSLATORS WANDERED from the strict sense of the original text, to express their notion of familiar spirits. and that the diviners of this sort were anciently thought to answer those who consulted them, without the assistance of any DAEMON, or familiar spirit, is evident from PLUTARCH. A more specific denomination of this last term was the necromancer (literally seeker of the dead, Deut. xviii, 10; comp. 1) one who, by FREQUENTING TOMBS, by inspecting corpses, or, more frequently, by help of the ob, like the witch of Endor, PRETENDED to evoke the dead, and bring secrets from the invisible world (Gen. xli, 8 Exod. vii, 11; Lev. xix, 26 ; Deut. xviii, 10-12). By a perversion and exaggeration of the sublime faith which sees God everywhere, men have laid everything, with greater or less ingenuity, under contribution, as means of eliciting a divine answer to every question of their' insatiable curiosity: e. g. the portents of the sky and sea (Plutarch, De Superstitions, passim); the mysteries of the grave; A belief in the significance of chance words was very prevalent among the Egyptians (Clem. Alex. Strom. i, 304 ; PLUTARCH, De Is. 14), and the accidental sigh of the engineer was sufficient to prevent even Amasis from removing the monolithic shrine to Sais (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt. iv, 144). The universality of the belief among the ancients is known to every scholar (Cicero, De div. i; Herod. ii, 90; Virgil, En. vii, 116, etc.). (1 Sam. xviii, 9) as a verb, "Saul eyed David." "eyebiters" (Discovery of Witchcraft, iii, 15). "A manual Greek lexicon of the New Testament" G. ABBOTT SMITH |