Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live!

[angrysoba]

Technically, yes, that's what the ancient Red Sea Pedestrians were trying to convey:

OOps! Careful now! I've heard that this term is sometimes used as a term of abuse against Jews. Although, I think anyone who does take offence is likely to be suffering from a serious sense-of-humour breakdown.

 

[angrysoba]

Good bit of sorcery here although I imagine that God takes the credit for this:

23And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

25And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.

So far, 1 Kings and 2 Kings have been the most confusing books. I was pretty clear about what was going on until this point but now I am getting baffled. I could understand that the Israelites went around from place to place carrying the ark of the covenant into battle and smiting their foes (I have some of the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark in my head while reading it) and sparing no one alive and then Solomon built a house for it and he built another one for himself.

But then he started hanging out with strange women and the ever-insecure LORD got jealous and cast him out. But from here on it seems that Judah and Israel are spoken of as separate kingdoms. In the books of Kings various kings of these two kingdoms, as well as Hazael of the Syrians, keep popping up and smiting each other and the children of each other and sometimes even their own children it seems. And some people seem to change their name within verses and then they appear again and again. Poor old Jezebel has been fed to the dogs numerous times and their is now some bad language as the LORD keeps killing those who pisseth against the wall.

I am wondering if I can skip some parts because there's so many of the same stories popping up again and again, usually reiterating the begats and begats. I fear it will be worse in Chronicles. Is it necessary to read Chronicles or will I miss something?

And what happened to the ark? I know the Syrians came and took all the treasures from Solomon's house but there seems to be no explanation for the disappearance of the ark, or have I missed something (yes, I know the Philistines ran off with it for a while but I think David recovered it).

Sorry, I know I am going a bit off the witch topic and I'm derailing my own thread a bit...

 

[gumboot]

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

I think either God or Moses was dyslexic. The actual commandment was intended to be "Thou shalt not live with a witch's suffering".

God was a nice chap.

 

[gumboot]

Every time that the privileges of group A over group B start to erode, out come the hate speeches and eventually the terror tactics to keep them in line. And that's really what had happened there. You don't see much hatred against women in the Dark Ages, when they had no rights, couldn't inherit anything, and could be made to go up in smoke or be subject to a cruel trial by ordeal on just an unsupported accusation of infidelity. Then what happens by the late middle ages? Well, there's increasingly a return to Roman law instead of ecclesiastical courts and ancient German customs (note how the Malleus Maleficarum happens within decades of the Poor Barons' Rebellion), and even more importantly women start to have SOME rights. We see women inheriting stuff, running businesses as long as they stay unmarried, etc. And predictably out comes the hatred and out come the terror tactics against women.

I don't think you can over state the role the Crisis of the 14th Century played in the sudden spike in anti-woman religious propaganda and the subsequent witch-hunts. It's exceedingly easy for us in our modern comfortable 21st Century to sneer at the Medievals as backwards sexist fools, but during the Medieval Warm Period everyone, including women, had it pretty good (by some standards they had it better than we do today!).

By the end of the 14th Century Medieval Europe was literally a civilisation on the brink of total collapse. When societies undergo social collapse niceties like civil rights tend to get abandoned in the hand-over-fist struggle to survive.

 

[gumboot]

I can't speak for any other Bible, but once you get past the whole "some people actually believe this is all true" thing the KJV is actually a rather unique and remarkable piece of literature. A work of art, even. Because it was intended to be read aloud, a deliberate effort was made to pay particular attention to cadence and so forth, which is why reading it can be a little mesmerising.

It's a remarkable work, and a fascinating read.

ETA. It's also the original source for a vast array of classic English sayings such as "apple of his/her eye" and "a broken heart".

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I don't think you can over state the role the Crisis of the 14th Century played in the sudden spike in anti-woman religious propaganda and the subsequent witch-hunts. It's exceedingly easy for us in our modern comfortable 21st Century to sneer at the Medievals as backwards sexist fools, but during the Medieval Warm Period everyone, including women, had it pretty good (by some standards they had it better than we do today!).

By the end of the 14th Century Medieval Europe was literally a civilisation on the brink of total collapse. When societies undergo social collapse niceties like civil rights tend to get abandoned in the hand-over-fist struggle to survive.

On the other hand, by the end of the 15'th century, when the Malleus Maleficarum kick-starts the burning craze, the population had already dropped FAR below what the land could sustain. I would understand it if it happened when the famines and plagues first hit, but at the end of the next century, when they're actually rebounding, it's kinda pushing it. The population had also dropped by half, and in some places more than half, and there was no real shortage of food or anything any more.

It's easy to see intervals as compressed when looking far back in time. In fact it seems to be the normal human perspective. But we're actually talking several generations there between the supposed cause and the actual effect.

You wouldn't think it's ok to start bombing southerners now for the seccession war, do you? Well, we're talking about comparable intervals, and in an age where the average guy didn't really know jack about what happened last century.

ALSO, there is a peculiar thing in it:

1. the Malleus Maleficarum seems obsessed about witches causing strife between husband and wife, and preventing conception, or preventing sex

2. in the burning age, we actually see childbirth go through the roof. Europe not only recovers from the massive drop, but overpopulates and starts looking for expansion in America and the like, and again: it actually keeps producing enough people for that

Sure, some of the latter may be Malthusian, but I just have to wonder. Scaring the seven shades of crap out of women actually produces more babies. How does that work?

One can imagine some medieval form of contraception at work, but I don't know of any that would be reliable and cheap enough to make a difference for the 90% of the population living at bare survival level. Also, I'm not sure how scaring other women and decimating the midwives (who work with women) would help there.

Or we can also notice:

3. It also goes on about how witches keep trying to corrupt other women, how women go have their sex from Satan, and how guys are driven by such evil magics to go look for sex from mistresses instead of their wives, and such.

Hmm... Pinky, are you pondering what I am pondering?

What it actually tells me is that women had started associating with each other and encouraging each other that basically they don't have to spread the legs whenever the man wants some nookie. And obviously the terror campaign works pretty well to stop that.

Which still looks pretty damn sexist to me.

 

[bikerdruid]

I can't speak for any other Bible, but once you get past the whole "some people actually believe this is all true" thing the KJV is actually a rather unique and remarkable piece of literature. A work of art, even. Because it was intended to be read aloud, a deliberate effort was made to pay particular attention to cadence and so forth, which is why reading it can be a little mesmerising.

It's a remarkable work, and a fascinating read.

ETA. It's also the original source for a vast array of classic English sayings such as "apple of his/her eye" and "a broken heart".

as a life-long student of english literature, i agree.
the kjv is central to a study of english literature and is a beautiful work of literature, poetry and myth.
the world would be a much better place if it was left to literature and was elevated to the 'inerrant word of god'.