[HPforGrownups] Re: Classical & Biblical Quotations

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 172881

Ken Hutchinson wrote:
> The error is one that is critical to me as I try to explain to
> conservative Christian friends why I don't think Harry Potter doesn't
> violate the Biblical proscription against magic. Magic as used in the
> Bible is always an attempt to thwart God's will and so it is rightly
> condemned. 

Bart:
There is no Biblical prohibition of magic, per se. There are Biblical 
prohibitions of certain kinds of magic, almost always mistranslated (due 
to the fact that scholars would rather be thought to be sloppy 
translators than to be thought to take magic seriously).

While there are a number of ignorant (and yes, I do mean ignorant) 
fundamentalist Christians who consider Harry Potter evil because of the 
practice of magic, the more educated fundamentalist and evangelical 
Christians have a more subtle problem; the idea that one can save one's 
own soul through simple repentance, rather than through acceptance of 
Jesus as their personal savior.

Bart