Leviticus 20:27 ....Why does it say to stone a medium or spiritist?

by opusdei1972 10 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  opusdei1972

  “ ‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’ ” (Leviticus 20:27)

  The Old Testament does not give a reason on why israelites had to stone these people. Of course, Witnesses would say :" they were in contact with demons who were appearing as they were spirits of dead men". But, as far as I know, the Law does not explain it. Furthermore, if you read the story in 1 Samuel 28, you will note that the writer indeed believed that the spirit of Samuel, came from Sheol to talk to Saul (as Josephus admitted).

  May be this law was given during the reign of Josiah,..... at the end of the seventh century?
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  millie210

  I think they would have been encouraged to stone anyone who offered an alternate form of direction or leadership.

  The goal was to coalesce the people into a united nation
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  Band on the Run

  How do you discern a medium or a spirit compared to holy communication from God. We had voice hearers here. The law does not state what factors are important. Get with the political direction or be stoned.
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  opusdei1972

  About the story of 1 Samuel 28, a member of this forum noticed the following:

  The WT makes much of the fact that Saul and his sons weren't killed the next day as stated by Samuel through the witch.

  So Leloaia gave the following comment:

  ....It is ironic how the Society denies that there are contradictions in the Bible, and yet is eager to make this into a contradiction in order to deny the basic sense of the story. Yet it is clear that we do not have a strict chronological progression but a redaction of narrative units that are not linearly sequential. The story in ch. 28 belongs with the story in ch. 31 (both taking Saul's point of view), whereas the Ziklag story in ch. 29-30 (which takes David's point of view) is not directly related to the Saul story in terms of narrative order. So in 28:4, the Philistines are encamped at Shunem and Saul is encamped at Gilboa with the two armies in close proximity (28:5), and Saul's forces are still at Gilboa in 31:1. But in the David-centered story in ch. 29, we learn that the Philistine army is not at Shunem but at Aphek and thus starts at a time prior to the story in ch. 28, at the time when the Philistines were still on the coast at Aphek gathering forces for the battle of Gilboa. This is prior to the encamping of the Philistines at Shunem. Some Philistines questioned David's allegience to their mission and so David and his men were not mustered to the battle at Gilboa but were sent to Philistine land far away in Ziklag, and it took several days for David to reach Ziklag and the David-centered story tells what happened there (ch. 30). It took three days for David to journey from Aphek to Ziklag, but it is not stated how long it took for the Philistine army to move from Aphek to Shunem near Jezreel. All we know is that David left for Ziklag on the same day that the Philistines left Aphek for the valley of Jezreel (29:11). And then sometime later, when the Philistines were already encamped at Shunem, Saul went to En-Dor and was told that he would die the next day. So what is related in ch. 29-30 overlaps with that of ch. 28, 31, with one story telling what happens from Saul's point of view and the other relating what happens from David's point of view. There is no indication that Saul was not killed the next day as prophesied by Samuel, and the story emphasizes that Saul and his sons and his men died together on "that same day" (31:6), which reflects what is predicted in 28:19.

  Indeed, the OT is a mess.
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  Apognophos

  Interesting, I hadn't seen that comment of Leolaia's. To me, there's little point in the Society denying that a demon could see the future (since they believe it was a demon, not Samuel), considering the account in the NT of the girl with a demon that predicted the future.
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  BackseatDevil

  While under “enemy” rule (be it Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, or Persia) the same events would come to pass on repeat. Assimilation into each nation's rule would take place as the Israelites were pretty much a perpetually conquered people. In this, SOMETIMES idols, gods, and other forms of worship would make their way into the Hebrew life. It was actually pretty normal and it went something like this:

  “Oh, you want us to acknowledge _____? Fine, whatever... I've go things to do.”

  And the Israelite went about their business because after a while they were used to it. With it came greetings and salutations (apparently) as noted by a letter written written from Jerusalem to the Jewish colony in Egypt called Elephantine, the Jewish priests wrote blessings to the Assyrian god as that was their ruler and... by law they probably had to do that.

  Realize that none of the time they were captured provinces (at the time of the bible's writing) were they made to abolish their native form of worship. On the contrary it was customary at the time during peaceful conquests for the conquering nation to pay some acknowledgment to the god of their new captive area. Jewish people still worshiped their god YHWH, but they also believed OTHER gods and spirits existed. So they had a belief in many gods and spirits... but only worshiped one god (YHWH). They also believed that angels had certain domain over certain natural things (like land and air) and they could inhabit things like statues and people. This concept would be a problem later when (maybe) Paul wrote in Colossian 2:18 not to worship angels.

  So there was an influence of worship from other nations and their gods and spirits... and there was a possibility of individual Jews to take concepts of angels too far. If you had a different version of the bible, it would imply more of a spirit IN her or her being “familiar” with the spirit. This is more along the lines of the concept being discussed and this is where stoning would occur. It's not necessarily a spirit medium – it's just “spirit medium” is the easiest way to translate that.

  It's basically saying if you fraternize with other spirits and one gets into you... you die. And fraternizing with other spirits was not only pretty easy, belief in the dangers of other gods was a very real fear.

  Although there is no real evidence that the Israelites followed this law to it's strictest sense at the time... LOL.
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  Scully

  It makes me wonder if there were people who had the ability to figure out the future, and do so with a measure of accuracy. In this case, it would be the god of Israel wiping out his competition.

  Isn't it interesting how the law stated that a false prophet would be known by the fact that the words they spoke as originating with Jehovah would not come to pass, and that false prophets thus identified were condemned to die.

  Does it not occur to the old frauds in Brooklyn that by this biblical standard, their days are numbered?
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  stuckinarut2

  How is stoning ever evidence of a loving god??

  If someone 'is judged to be worthy of death'...just kill them! Why make it an agonising drawn out affair?

  Havent we been told repeatedly that a "loving god would never torture someone in a firey hell blah blah", oh, but he did allow his 'chosen people' to commit appaling crimes like stoning?

  So wierd!
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  BackseatDevil

  How is stoning ever evidence of a loving god??

  Well, it's not. But people back then didn't want a loving god... they wanted a POWERFUL god. All the nations that were occupying their territory all had gods of war and glory that were OBVIOUSLY working for them (or else the nation wouldn't have been conquered). So a powerful god who demanded reverence would have been more comforting for the Israelites so that they could have a quiet, subtle "our god is going to kick your god's ass one day..." loyalty. And this included stoning people who get in contact with other spirits (or maybe had epilepsy... who knows).

  A LOVING god wasn't invented until recently when people started getting all soft and mushy about religion and faith. Then suddenly GOD IS LOVE... and I'm sure some Jews somewhere are thinking "well what good is THAT going to get you?" LOL.
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  Crazyguy

  There seems to be evidence that the priests after returning to Jerusalem from Babylon were trying to make monotheism the worship of the day and in order to do this they needed to bad mouth every form of worship every other god but thiers and anything else that would detract the rank and file jews from coming to them for priestly issues.