For OT references to beings of a different order than human ...
Why was there a prohibition against communing with "familiar spirits"?
And it seems pretty harsh for Saul to have lost his life over talking to either his own or the old hag's intestinal parasites!
Hi Cecil,
The idea that it was Saul's parasites is your suggestion (in jest, I assume), not mine.
By the way, before I proceed further, I just want to say that I appreciate the tone of your message. I know it can be difficult to deal with people that we may feel are teaching false doctrines. The fact that you can answer rationally and honestly without anger or railings is a credit to your character. As for myself, I don't expect you to believe any of this at any point, unless God reveals it to you or opens your heart to it. My hope in this discussion is that I might at least be able to encourage others to look past traditions to consider if these things may be true, as the Bereans did. As for myself, I desire to learn what problems there might be with my belief, in order that I can either further strengthen it or let it go. (At this point, evidence seems to just be getting stronger to me...the research you guys have prompted me to do has revealed other evidence I had never considered previously.)
As for what happened to Saul and the witch of Endor, I honestly don't know. However, I don't have an issue with the idea of HUMAN ghosts or spirits or resurrected humans from Heaven, except that I believe that they would be EXTREMELY uncommon. They'd be far more uncommon than the ideas of ghosts that we see in modern America (and probably worldwide).
The reason I say this is that there are a very small number of occurrences in Scripture where "messengers" do things that are miraculous or show up in dreams. On the other hand, God gave the power to do miracles to a number of Earthly messengers as well, such as Elijah, Elisha, Peter, Paul, and many others. Just because we don't know their names doesn't mean they are angels rather than human messengers. (Well, actually in a very small number of cases we know what they call themselves, but those names invariably invoke God in some fashion, suggesting that some are appearances of God.) There's no reason to think that the righteous in Heaven are restricted to there alone. God at least sends them in visions, as proven in Revelation 22:9 (where the "angel" is revealed to be a human prophet).
Familiar spirits aren't necessarily REAL any more than "gods" are real just because the Old Testament mentions them. I agree that it would have been best if they had been called "familiar false spirits" and "false gods" in every case, but for whatever reason, the authors of the Old Testament didn't do that.
The word "spirit" alone doesn't indicate a spirit creature, but just means "breath" (Heb. ruach) and implies "life" in many cases.
The phrase "evil spirit(s)" occurs seven times in the Old Testament, but to imagine they are demons is a bit problematic because they most often come from the Lord. That would then suggest that God is responsible for consorting with wicked beings, which is a suggestion I wholly reject. Instead, just like God "hardened Pharaoh's heart", I'd suggest that these are God causing people to make choices which are bad for them in order to accomplish His purposes. Rather than sending a demonic being, He sends a "bad wind/life" into them.
In any case, even if we were to grant these as demons, we would have SEVEN mentions in 4000 YEARS as opposed to ONE HUNDRED AND TWO in LESS THAN 70 YEARS. That's a greater than 800 TIMES increase, if "evil spirits from God" are even demons at all. That doesn't seem reasonable, but seems clearly linked to the practices of the Jews after Babylon.
Nope, I'm inclined to figure that just because this group of people didn't have good words to describe the phenomenon of human interaction with unfriendly beings of another order does not PROVE that said unfriendly beings didn't/don't exist.
The converse is also true: If this group of people didn't have good words to describe things like mental diseases or internal phenomena of which they had no experience or knowledge, then it doesn't prove that the words they used were for some kind of beings that actually exist. I always try to look at the situation from both directions. What did the ancients know about diseases of the brain? Pretty much nothing at all. The only one described in the New Testament that we can identify was "lunatic". None of the hundreds of other mental illnesses are mentioned, even though the cases of "demons" are in description remarkably like brain diseases today. For instance, a kid whose "devil" often throws him into the fire or water suggests something like epilepsy. That doesn't have to be the problem, but it's very similar.
I personally don't spend much time discussing quadratic equations. Wouldn't know one if I stumbled over it and fell on my face. Doesn't mean they don't exist, nor that they don't affect my life. I'm just ignorant about them.
True, but if someone told you that he had recently come from surgery where they had removed his quadratic equation, you'd know immediately that something was wrong in that statement. It wouldn't make sense in context. You'd either assume he was crazy, putting you on, or ignorant.
If ancient people, who had no conception of brain illness--remember, they drilled holes in skulls for headaches because they thought they were evil spirits, since way before the time of Christ--used the term "demon" to describe it in their ignorance, then we don't have to assume that real demons exist.
But when it comes to general silliness, it seems right up there for me to claim that they don't exist because I've made it to 49 years of age without getting a deep and intimate acquaintance with the bewildering things.
I cannot comment on your life, because I don't know where you have been or what you have done. However, I'm not very far behind you in age, and I've been in various ministries all my life. I've seen literally THOUSANDS of claimed sicknesses healed, slaying in the Spirit, cases of demon possession, etc., yet I've never seen a single one that really had anything to do with any of those things in reality.
Granted, that is subjective experience, like yours, but mine is incredibly extensive, in four countries (three south of the border), in many different states, in many different churches and ministries. I've seen Mayan witch doctors and have experienced witches and satanists and atheists and Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and Bahai and Buddhists and several cults and have personally met and interacted with famous and not so famous ministers and "Christian" personalities (Mike Warnke, Carmen, Rebecca Brown of the famous book "He Came to Set The Captives Free", Dr. James McKeever, etc.), and so much, much more. I've also experienced many, many true miracles, but none that involve anything that could definitely be called a "demon". I have been around these things literally since birth.
I cannot believe in something which isn't true. If I cannot find some kind of good evidence for it beyond the traditions of churches, then I'm going to reject it. The subject I am discussing is overwhelmingly tradition. If one were to read the Scriptures in their original languages with knowledge of the words and of history, but WITHOUT their traditional presuppositions and teachings, I seriously doubt that they would believe the same on these issues as the common modern beliefs of angels, demons, Satan, and ghosts. Try reading Scripture that way sometime (it's difficult) as an experiment. You might discover something amazing!
John for Christ
) is that i keep remembering the jewish leaders of Yeshua's day. they understood the old testament prophecies better than we ever will and could prove with scripture up, down, and sideways that Yeshua was not the messiah. it didn't do them much good. i am convinced that had i been one of them i would have been voting to crucify also.