Thou Shalt Not Suffer
a Witch to Live...?
©2001 - 2006 by Fiona Broome
People often ask about the famous line in the Bible, "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18)
Here are the facts:
James I was notorious for being paranoid about witches, spells, and so on. This
was, in part, due to volatile politics of the time. He had good reason to be nervous.
Witch... or Poisoner?
"His" Bible (the King James Bible) was translated to keep Jamie-boy
happy, so they translated the word chasaph--which is Hebrew for poisoner--
to mean "witch" instead.
The real Biblical passage was about the disturbing crime of poisoning
in the Jewish community. When that line was originally written,
poisonings were a growing concern. And, in that "eye for an eye" era, the logical
sentence for a poisoner was death.
Reginald Scot dissents
Here's an early document, written around 1580 at the time of King James I,
protesting the translation of chasaph as "witch."
(And when
good King James discovered what Reginald Scot had said in this book, James first
wrote his own book, Daemonologie, a rebuttal to Scot's.
Then James ordered his men to find every copy of Scot's book and burn them.
It was too late. The Scot book was
already in its third printing, widely distributed, and nine more chapters had been added.)
From The Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot.
BOOKE VI
Chapter I - The exposition of this Hebrue word Chasaph, wherein is
answered the objection conteined in Exodus 22. to wit: Thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live, and of Simon Magus. Acts. 8.
(page 64) Chaspah, being a Hebrue word, is Latined Veneficium, and
is in English, poisoning, or witchcraft; if you will so have it. The Hebrue
sentence written in Exodus, 22. is by the 70. interpretors translated thus
into Greeke, [note: I'll fill this in when I have a Greek font and more
time], which in Latine is,
Veneficos (sive) veneficas non retinebitis in vita,
in English, You shall not suffer anie poisoners, or (as it is translated)
witches to live. The which sentence Josephus an Hebrue borne, and a man of
great estimation, learning and fame, interpreteth in this wise; Let none of
the children of Israel have any poison that is deadlie, or preparted to anie
hurtfull use. If anie be apprehended with such stuffe, let him be put to
dfeath, and suffer that which he meant to doo to them, for whom he prepared
it. The Rabbins exposition agree heerewithall. Lex Cornelia differeth not from
this sense, to wit, that he must suffer to death, which either maketh, selleth,
or hath anie poison, to the intent to kill anie man.
This word is found in these places following: Exodus. 22, Deut. 18, 10. 2
Sam. 9, 22. Dan. 2,2. 2 Chr. 33, 6. Eay. 47, 9, 12. Malach, 3,5. Jerem. 27, 9,
Mich. 5, 2. Nah. 3,4. bis. Howbeit, in all our English translations, Chaspah
is translated, witchraft.
[This was copied from the Dover reprint edition of
Reginald Scot's DISCOVERIE OF WITCHCRAFT. For a more complete copy of this
text, see this
page.]
The story doesn't conclude there.
Luther's Bible compounds the problem
The word "witch" appeared in Christian scriptures as maleficos,
which is gender-neutral, until the mid-1500's. Then things took a nasty turn. In
the "Luther Bible," the German line is "Die Zuberinnen soltu
nicht leben lassen," which makes the word "witch" feminine.
By 1566, in La Saincte Bible of Lyon, France, the word is even more
clearly female, despite a footnote that the law applied equally to men.
In other words, if people hadn't been so afraid of King James and mindful of his
vivid imagination regarding Witches, that Bible passage might have been correctly translated. In
that case, we might never have to deal with such preposterous prejudice in the Bible.
REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ellerbe, Helen. The Dark Side of Christian History . 1995, San
Raphael, CA: Morningstar Books. Paperback. ISBN 0-9644873-4-9.
Pagels, Elaine. The Origin of Satan . 1995, New York: Vintage Books.
Paperback. ISBN 0-679-73118-0.
"The Book of Q" in any text. My favorite is: "The Lost Gospel : The Book of Q and Christian Origins ," by Burton L. Mack.
The "Book of Q" is the text of Christ's messages, as accurately as we can determine. If you're interested in "just the facts," and if you want to get to bedrock on Christianity,
a copy of the Book of Q will save you a lot of research!
Spong, Rev. John Shelby. Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with
Jewish Eyes. 1996, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Or any book
by him. (His essays are here.)
Some of these books aren't about Witchcraft, per se, but if you're going
to start digging into fact and fiction in the King James
Bible, these books (and others by the same authors) are
illuminating.
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