I was the vocalist of a death metal band for a short while. It was a lot of fun as I got to write the lyrics for the songs. One song I wrote was about this episode. I forget what it was called but it included in the line "necromantical Canaanite screams"
Reread 1 Samuel 28 and found this discussion helpful at a couple of points. I’m reading the ESV. 1.) v.6 Saul does, as is discussed, exhaust the legitimate means of divine communication with Yahweh. And when those fail, he seeks out “a woman who is a medium.” (v. 7) This avoids the term witch with its modern connotations. 2.) v.8 and Saul’s disguise-she definitely does not consider it to be part of the ceremony/ritual but as a means of entrapment. It is only *after* Saul takes an oath in the name of Yahweh that the medium is willing to perform her necromancy. (v.10) 3.) The ESV correctly translates eloheim in v.13 “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” Thank you for pointing this detail out. I have missed it in all of my previous readings of this book. 4.) She does express shock at seeing Samuel. It is from seeing the “eloheim of Samuel” that she knows that the hooded, cloaked man is King Saul. Again, she’s afraid that Saul will put her to death, reinforcing that the disguise is not ritualistic. 5.) Thank you for the analogy of a disrespectful and disobedient son demanding an answer with a final and resounding, “NO!” 6.) vv.20ff Saul’s fasting does not seem to be ritualistic, but fear based. His refusal to eat in v.23 is an expression of his fear of death, not a preparation for a ceremony. Final notes-Deuteronomy 18:9-22 is about who legitimately speaks on Yahweh’s behalf. IOW, how can God’s people know God’s will? Peppered throughout the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, & Kings in the Hebrew Bible), we have both positive and negative narrative examples of this. 1 Samuel 28 is the nadir of seeking God’s will through false means
New to the channel and instant subscriber. This was a new story for me. At first I thought “of course they outlawed this practiced because women were in control of it”. I think of oracles and the “wyrd sisters” of MacBeth as revealers of destiny, the crone in the woods and modern-day herbalists as healers, shamans mediums, and the witch of Endor as mediums, and necromancers as those who make the dead live again … ya know like Jesus and Lazarus.
I have always wondered if this is not necessarily an early narrative that has been later edited to remove indications that the Witch of Endor is actually a priestess of Asherah, Adonai’s wife. Also, just as a side note-does this narrative (and its bookend narratives) imply (or hide) the idea that David was a Philistine client-king?
I could be entirely wrong on this, I’ve not read enough into it, but the idea of sheol as the afterlife always seemed to me to be a metaphor, they’re simply speaking of the grave as the final destination or death, not that they thought it was an actual location where existence continued. And that death wasn’t exactly annihilation, nor was it an eternal life, but an eternal sleep, and people like mediums or deities/their priests had the power to awaken them temporarily. I think maybe “the underworld” started as a metaphor that eventually grew into a more literal concept of an afterlife, then they didn’t really like the idea of everyone having the same eternal fate regardless of their behavior, so they had to make multiple postmortem destinations.
It seems to me also that this was the case as far as it originally was a metaphor for death as when you are asleep you look you are dead but you can also say when you see someone dead in a coffin that it just seems the person is sleeping of course before decomposition etc which is why I think mummification was a thing because they thought you were just resting and eventually at some point would need to return to your body.
@@MOTIVATIONBYDAR it was NEVER the case until the idea of unconsciousness at death was invented by the Sadducees & a few minority weird philosophers that differed from the wider Greco-Roman philosophical consensus. That is precisely why the Sadducees rejected most biblical books that referenced Sheol (in ways they could not harmonise with their theory of unconsciousness after death)
Best necromancer in the Bible hands down has got to be Paul .he never met alive Jesus but because he had such a detailed idea of how salvation apparently works that it's pretty clear that him and ghost Jesus must have had very long and detailed theological conversations..
The witch of Endor is acting like an intermediary between the earthly realm and the meta-Divine realm. like Saul is trying to go around his God to achieve what he wants by reaching into her contacting with the meta-Divine room basically the place where all these gods reside
At about 31:00 the guest says that Abraham did not think, or know he was going to live eternally. However, Hebrews 11:8-16 seems to contradict that notion. It is evident that Abraham was looking forward to God fulfilling His promises, not in this life but the one to come.
I have a question that isn’t related to this video, I was wondering if I could get your opinion about prophecy and “fulfilled” prophecies? When I talk to Christians, a lot of times they bring up fulfilled prophecies from the Bible, and I want to get people’s opinions on if they believe there are prophecies that came true or not and why they believe that. I did a little research on prophecies and found that many religions claim to have fulfilled prophecies from their scriptures. So another question I have is, how are all of these prophecies coming true from different religions? Are they all coincidences? I also acknowledge that many prophecies are pretty vague, and could have also been likely to happen or easy to predict based on the history of how things were back then. I would really appreciate it if you could let me know what you think about this, thanks!
Perhaps the bible isn't saying that necromancy works, as through a medium like the woman from Endor, but rather it was God Himself who periodically raised the dead Samuel as the "Elohim" to deliver the final judgement to Saul. After all Samuel was a Prophet, which in its biblical context was merely the voice of God spoken through His agent. In other words, it appeared as the apparition of Samuel, but only as a means to speak God's final words to Saul.
If Samuel is officially an 'elohim,' and priests are 'like mediums,' then why cannot YHWH also just be a dead person or dead ancestor that is worshipped?
I was the vocalist of a death metal band for a short while. It was a lot of fun as I got to write the lyrics for the songs. One song I wrote was about this episode. I forget what it was called but it included in the line "necromantical Canaanite screams"
I just stumbled across this channel 2 days ago, what I really want to say I really love & enjoy the work that you all do ❤😇👍👍👍👍👍
Thank you so much!
I'm only a third of the way in, but the undergrad, grad, and prof dynamic is really nice! It
Reread 1 Samuel 28 and found this discussion helpful at a couple of points. I’m reading the ESV.
1.) v.6 Saul does, as is discussed, exhaust the legitimate means of divine communication with Yahweh. And when those fail, he seeks out “a woman who is a medium.” (v. 7) This avoids the term witch with its modern connotations.
2.) v.8 and Saul’s disguise-she definitely does not consider it to be part of the ceremony/ritual but as a means of entrapment. It is only *after* Saul takes an oath in the name of Yahweh that the medium is willing to perform her necromancy. (v.10)
3.) The ESV correctly translates eloheim in v.13 “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” Thank you for pointing this detail out. I have missed it in all of my previous readings of this book.
4.) She does express shock at seeing Samuel. It is from seeing the “eloheim of Samuel” that she knows that the hooded, cloaked man is King Saul. Again, she’s afraid that Saul will put her to death, reinforcing that the disguise is not ritualistic.
5.) Thank you for the analogy of a disrespectful and disobedient son demanding an answer with a final and resounding, “NO!”
6.) vv.20ff Saul’s fasting does not seem to be ritualistic, but fear based. His refusal to eat in v.23 is an expression of his fear of death, not a preparation for a ceremony.
Final notes-Deuteronomy 18:9-22 is about who legitimately speaks on Yahweh’s behalf. IOW, how can God’s people know God’s will? Peppered throughout the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, & Kings in the Hebrew Bible), we have both positive and negative narrative examples of this.
1 Samuel 28 is the nadir of seeking God’s will through false means
New to the channel and instant subscriber. This was a new story for me. At first I thought “of course they outlawed this practiced because women were in control of it”. I think of oracles and the “wyrd sisters” of MacBeth as revealers of destiny, the crone in the woods and modern-day herbalists as healers, shamans mediums, and the witch of Endor as mediums, and necromancers as those who make the dead live again … ya know like Jesus and Lazarus.
I have always wondered if this is not necessarily an early narrative that has been later edited to remove indications that the Witch of Endor is actually a priestess of Asherah, Adonai’s wife.
Also, just as a side note-does this narrative (and its bookend narratives) imply (or hide) the idea that David was a Philistine client-king?
I could be entirely wrong on this, I’ve not read enough into it, but the idea of sheol as the afterlife always seemed to me to be a metaphor, they’re simply speaking of the grave as the final destination or death, not that they thought it was an actual location where existence continued. And that death wasn’t exactly annihilation, nor was it an eternal life, but an eternal sleep, and people like mediums or deities/their priests had the power to awaken them temporarily. I think maybe “the underworld” started as a metaphor that eventually grew into a more literal concept of an afterlife, then they didn’t really like the idea of everyone having the same eternal fate regardless of their behavior, so they had to make multiple postmortem destinations.
Nope, nope & nope-you're projecting a specifically post-Enlightenment scepticism of the supernatural onto pre-historic humans
Not really
It seems to me also that this was the case as far as it originally was a metaphor for death as when you are asleep you look you are dead but you can also say when you see someone dead in a coffin that it just seems the person is sleeping of course before decomposition etc which is why I think mummification was a thing because they thought you were just resting and eventually at some point would need to return to your body.
@@MOTIVATIONBYDAR it was NEVER the case until the idea of unconsciousness at death was invented by the Sadducees & a few minority weird philosophers that differed from the wider Greco-Roman philosophical consensus. That is precisely why the Sadducees rejected most biblical books that referenced Sheol (in ways they could not harmonise with their theory of unconsciousness after death)
Best necromancer in the Bible hands down has got to be Paul .he never met alive Jesus but because he had such a detailed idea of how salvation apparently works that it's pretty clear that him and ghost Jesus must have had very long and detailed theological conversations..
I had a conversation with Ghost Jesus myself.
I was using my Ci-ji board
@shadegreen5351 I actually got high with ghost Jesus a few times he's actually a pretty laid back guy with daddy issues
The witch of Endor is acting like an intermediary between the earthly realm and the meta-Divine realm. like Saul is trying to go around his God to achieve what he wants by reaching into her contacting with the meta-Divine room basically the place where all these gods reside
At about 31:00 the guest says that Abraham did not think, or know he was going to live eternally. However, Hebrews 11:8-16 seems to contradict that notion. It is evident that Abraham was looking forward to God fulfilling His promises, not in this life but the one to come.
I have a question that isn’t related to this video, I was wondering if I could get your opinion about prophecy and “fulfilled” prophecies? When I talk to Christians, a lot of times they bring up fulfilled prophecies from the Bible, and I want to get people’s opinions on if they believe there are prophecies that came true or not and why they believe that. I did a little research on prophecies and found that many religions claim to have fulfilled prophecies from their scriptures. So another question I have is, how are all of these prophecies coming true from different religions? Are they all coincidences? I also acknowledge that many prophecies are pretty vague, and could have also been likely to happen or easy to predict based on the history of how things were back then. I would really appreciate it if you could let me know what you think about this, thanks!
It actually says "אלהים ראיתי עולים" gods I saw ascending. The verb is also plural
31:46 He is only mostly dead 🌲🌲 Humperdinck, Humperdinck, Humperdinck
Perhaps the bible isn't saying that necromancy works, as through a medium like the woman from Endor, but rather it was God Himself who periodically raised the dead Samuel as the "Elohim" to deliver the final judgement to Saul. After all Samuel was a Prophet, which in its biblical context was merely the voice of God spoken through His agent. In other words, it appeared as the apparition of Samuel, but only as a means to speak God's final words to Saul.
If Samuel is officially an 'elohim,' and priests are 'like mediums,' then why cannot YHWH also just be a dead person or dead ancestor that is worshipped?
If I was preaching 1 Samuel 28, I would title it “Seeking the Will of God: Even if a Man Rose From the Grave, Would You Believe?”
So, there's no ewoks in this?
🤣🤣🤣
Be aware please notice
Putting a name in comments is a scammer planning on future misdead.
Mary Kate!!!!
I see you
Skamah N daw rhoomh.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 & Pslams 146:4 are confusing.