Thou shall not suffer a witch to live

POSTED BY: SimonWho
UPDATED: Monday, December 5, 2022 19:41
VIEWED: 25190
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SIMONWHO

Monday, April 27, 2009 12:44 PM

Just had this documentary brought to my attention after it was nominated for a BAFTA. It's strange to think that what looks like a throwback of two centuries in "Safe" when River is to be burnt at the stake for being a witch is still going on today:

CYBERSNARK

Monday, April 27, 2009 1:17 PM

POISONER!

Thou shalt not suffer a POISONER to live!!

Stupid King James with his stupid thaumatophobia and his stupid mis-translated Bible.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

BYTEMITE

Monday, April 27, 2009 2:31 PM

The thing that makes me confused about the changes in that version... Surely witches weren't that big a problem in those day, and I've never heard of curses actually effecting their targets (though social karma can be a bitch!).

Going by some of the themes in Shakespeare plays from the time, I'd say that the motivation was entirely superstition. Probably kind of an obvious observation, but yeah.

I don't think witches even brew potions, do they? I mean, if potions were considered poisons then that might establish a basis for the reinterpretation, but I'm pretty sure the potion brewing thing is a popular misconception, carried over from those times (see Macbeth).

FREELANCERTEX

Monday, April 27, 2009 3:11 PM

See, this is why I hate religion. It makes people do fuckevil things. i know, its the people taking it to the extreme, and as the british dude (can't recall his name) said, any christian looking at this would be outraged, but still, how do you get so wrong that you can read a religious text and think something like this could EVER possibly be right?

CYBERSNARK

Monday, April 27, 2009 5:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
The thing that makes me confused about the changes in that version... Surely witches weren't that big a problem in those day, and I've never heard of curses actually effecting their targets (though social karma can be a bitch!).

Going by some of the themes in Shakespeare plays from the time, I'd say that the motivation was entirely superstition.

Like I said, James was a thaumatophobe. He was terrified of magic, and witches were just the most obvious target (committing the twin "crimes" of being Outsiders and women, meaning they could be persecuted openly in those days). The Bible translation he commissioned simply pandered to his personal hatred (as did Shakey, who was writing specifically to suck up to James and his court [who were descendents of Duncan & Macduff]).

Shakespeare was far too cool to have a problem with witches (or, if he did, to let it get in the way of a good story). Check out "The Tempest," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and even "The Winter's Tale" (it's subtle, but Paulina's almost certainly either a white witch or a full-blown necromancer) --The Wyrd Sisters were far from the only magic-uses in the canon.

Hell, if he was still alive, Shakespeare would be a Buffyfan (and a Browncoat, of course).

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

ZAROVE

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:38 PM

I hate to break it to you all but, just like the Similarities between Jesus and Horus, or the claim that the Creation account in Genesis is referring to a Plurality of gods, this is actually a hoax.

King James didn't intentionally mistranslate the Bible in order to persecute Witches, and the word used can't possibly be Poisoner.

For one thing, if this was all because James feared Magic, and he is the original reason why the word "Witch" is found in our Bibles, why is the same word used in the Coverdale Bible in the same place in 1535? This is 31 years before James Stuart was born.

Coverdale Exodus 22:18 Thou shalt not suffre a witch to lyue.

Its also in the Geneva Bible, of 1587, and the bishops Bible of 1568.

Geneva-Exo 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to liue.

Bishops- Exo 22:18 (22:17) Thou shalt not suffer a witche to lyue.

Both of those Bibles where translated before James Ascended the Throne, and the Geneva Bible in the Reign of Queen Mary, who had begun a brutal purge of Protestants, causing several to flee to Geneva, Switzerland, where it was produced. (Hence the name)

The Bishops Bible was produced in England after the Ascension of Queen Elizabeth the First.

Even the Wycliffe Bible of 1395 says Witch! It just renders the word a plural.

Wycliffe 1395-Exodus 22:18 Thou schalt not suffre witchis to lyue.

The Latin Vulgate follows suit, and in fact Wycliffe's was translated from it.

Its hard to believe James Stuart was able to corrupt those Bibles long before he was Born, or those composed shortly after his Birth, or before his reign.

So, the claim that James was fearful of Magic and thus sought to Alter the Bible to reflect his fear of Witches, and to legitimise it, just doesn't stand up.

Then theres the Question of rather its even a Mistranslation.

For that, we look to the Hebrew.

The word in the Hebrew is Kashaph, which means "Witch" or "One who practices the black arts". It doesn't mean "Poisoner", and in fact it wouldn't make sense to think it did, since the same word is used in Daniel 2:2, and if it means Poisoner, and not "Witch" (Its actually translated as "Sorcerer" in this passage of Daniel in the KJV) how then do we explain the following?

From the KJV.

1. And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.
2. Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

If you modify it to make Kashaph mean "Poisoner" you get a strange reading.

1. And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.
2. Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the poisoners, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

Why would Nebuchadnezzar summon poisoners to discern the meaning of his dreams?

I'm sorry but, the idea that the King James Bible deliberatively mistranslated the Bible in order to give a basis for the persecution of women as Witches is just daft.

In fact, even the Sexism of the day is overstated, and women did have rights in Jacobean Britain.

Don't believe everything you hear about the "Real History of Christianity", much of it is simply a repetition of old Urban legends that lack any real credibility.

Be a little more Skeptical.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:56 PM

Alchemists were considered sorcerers and witches, weren't they? And then, of course, there's the Hashashins, long considered enemies of the church and poisoners.

I'm trying to figure out where one or the other translation comes from. Doesn't much matter to me which is the right translation, because I'm not going to follow the bible anyway. Killing people by basis of their religious beliefs is rude.

If people in modern times have reinterpretted it as poisoner, or if some texts had poisoner concurrent with witch back in the medieval ages, I want to know why, as much as I'd want to know why poisoner would have been changed to witch.

Different sects/interpretations? Did Dominicans versus Franciscans have different versions?

ZAROVE

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:03 PM

Sigh...

No one killed people over their Religious beliefs. Only in the 20th century was Witchcraft thought of as a Religion, or specific to religious practices.

The Ancient world, and even most of the Modern world, didn't understand Witchcraft to be a Pre-Christian pagan religion, and in fact the Pagans themselves killed witches.

Rome, for example, had a lot of Anti-Witch laws from the two to three centuries before Christ, which rest on the assumption that Witches where Universally evil.

Despite what modern Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans prefer to believe, Witchcraft was not really a part of any Pre-Christan pagan Religion. The Pagan world largely feared Witches. Witchcraft was not considered itself a Religion, and if you read old Grimoures form the middle ages you soon realise that all the rot about the Goddess and the Horned God and such don't appear in any of them.

All of tat is a late modern interpolation to History.

Witchcraft was not a Religion.

Witches where understood as evil people (Not all of whom where women) who used Magic to inflict harm on society, or to manipulate things to gain certain ends. They where practitioners of the Black Arts. Thats why people wanted them dead, because they caused harm.

And the "Different Versions' bit is missing my point. No Version in Midaevel or early modern times ever said "Poisoner", nor did the Ancient Vulgate translation, the Septuagint, or even the original Hebrew.

No copy of the Bible said "Poisoner".
Also, this is Protestant Britain, not Catholic France or Spain.

Besides, the Catholics used either the Vulgate, or the Douay-Rheims in English, they had no conflicting Bible versions.

ZAROVE

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:09 PM

Also, to your question.

"If people in modern times have reinterpretted it as poisoner, or if some texts had poisoner concurrent with witch back in the medieval ages, I want to know why, as much as I'd want to know why poisoner would have been changed to witch.

Different sects/interpretations? Did Dominicans versus Franciscans have different versions?"

The claim originated with someone finding, and misquoting, a book by Reginald Scot, written in the 1600's which describes the Septuagint and Latin versions, and notes the root of the word is Poisoner, or Witch, if you will.

They quote only part of his work, and use this to prove that the King James Bible was mistranslated, in order to render it flawed. Many simply do it to render all Bibles flawed (Even though few Modern Bibles really are based on the KJV)

Many believe it just because in their minds it shows how corrupt and evil Christians are.

As I said earlier, Basically, its like the claim that Elohimn is plural so the Creation should read "In the beginning the gods created the Heavens and the Earth", or the idea that Jesus didn't exist and was based on earlier, Pre-Christian pagan sun gods, and his life is near identical to them, such as Mithras or Horus.

Its basically believed and passed along by those who want, for whatever reason, there to be flaws to Christianity, either overall or "Mainstream", to validate their own private beliefs.

Its no different from 9-11 Conspiracy theorists or people who think NASA faked the moon landing. Its rooted in fake evidence and badly understood history.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:26 PM

I didn't say they did, and am also familiar with the cult of Hecate. But Wiccan IS a religion NOW, hence my not killing them.

>_> Also, Muslims were killed. In the Crusades. Unless you're denying that. Be careful with blanket statements.

In any case, what are your sources? You're challenging widely accepted interpretations of history here, I'm going to need more than your word for it. I haven't read these biblical versions you speak of, and considering their age and probable value, they're probably in archives somewhere, so I doubt you've read them either.

You have not directly translated the Hebrew, only posted already translated lines where in replacing words are shown to make the line nonsense. That does not mean the line is representative of the original Hebrew.

So, again, where are your sources?

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