Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [77]
The most poignant part of this story is the way in which Saul must convince the woman to perform the ritual, which he has specifically forbidden and which she herself does not want to perform. Saul is so desperate to find out why the Lord is silent that he dares to use forbidden supernatural help. The entrepreneur he needs is described as a “medium,” which he instructs his servants to seek out: “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium,” literally a “mistress of ghosts.” He wants to “inquire” of her, a word with prophetic and divinatory implications. Additionally, he uses the phrase “Consult a spirit for me,” (literally, “enchant” a ghost for me).
In the eyes of the narrator, for Saul to have called upon the necromancer, traditionally the “witch of Endor” in English, is the last, most sinful act of a very desperate man. The woman’s powers are real, not imaginary, for she accomplishes the task for Saul. The woman, seemingly in an act of kindness, slaughters a calf for the abandoned king Saul, who has not eaten all day, a detail which suggests the ritual preparations for a necromantic séance, something akin to the marzeaḥ or marziḥ (the Canaanite commemorative feast), where the presence of the ancestor was greeted with a feast.4 So far as the Bible is concerned, then, the dead can be recalled, and there is a technology available for doing so; but it is sinful to do so, because they are “divine beings” and hence consulting them breaches the canons of Yahwism (1 Sam 28:13). As the book of Deuteronomy itself clarifies:
When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the LORD; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You must remain completely loyal to the LORD your God. Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the LORD your God does not permit you to do so. (Deut 18:9-14)
The word “witch,” (mekaŝŝēpā) used in English to describe the enchantress in Exodus 22:17, is the same word used to describe the “enchanter” (Mekaŝŝēp) in Deuteronomy (see also Lev 19:31, 20:6, 27), except that the gender in Deuteronomy is masculine (the common gender in Hebrew) instead of feminine. Both are strictly forbidden under pain of death. The female version comes from the earliest law code in Israelite history (JE law code = Exod 20:2-23:19), the general term is from the Deuteronomic law code (D law code = Deut 6-24), promulgated in the reform of Josiah in 621 BCE.
Necromancy Forbidden Is Necromancy Affirmed
ON THE OTHER hand, there is evidence of a strong Deuteronomistic editing in the material with careful attention given to the sin involved. When Josiah cleanses the witches from Judah, he also throws out the mediums and necromancers, using the very vocabulary used in the story in Samuel (2 Kgs 23:24).
It is suspicious that the idolatrous practices, forbidden so often, are mentioned in Deuteronomy as practices of the early Israelites. One might argue that they were introduced during the Assyrian period for there is good evidence that Assyrian cults were introduced into Judah by Kings Amon and Manasseh.5 However, Saul’s encounter with the necromancer is a popular, native, rural practice, not a cult introduced by royal patronage. There are times and places in Israelite life where