Witches, Warlocks, Wizards, and JKR

[puduhepa98 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 168742

>Pippin:
>"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" --whatever that  meant
>in biblical times, it was certainly used later as a rationale  for
>persecuting witches. 

>Bart
A) It didn't mean ANYTHING in Biblical times; English didn't exist until  
much later. This is NOT sophistry, by the way; far too many people forget that  
not only is King James a translation, it's a pretty poor one at that, sometimes 
 (as with this verse), mistranslated on purpose.  

>Goddlefrood:

<snip>
we must bear
in mind the times during which the King James Bibil came  about.

It was shortly after a dynasty change in England and King  James
basically wanted to resatore relations with the Pope, such
relations  having been strained for close to a century before
due to Henry the eighth  being fed up of the sight of Catherine
of Aragon (and who would blame him  ;)).

The other thing to keep in mind is that witches were an  active
concern of the Stuarts, so the inclusion of the verse inserted
by  Pippin is prescient, and would have widely entered the public
consciousness  of the time because the message in the KJB was
spread by Ministers, the  populace being mostly illeterate at
that time.

Nikkalmati
 
 
I am not sure how that passage cited by Pippin is a mistranslation or what  
Bart would cite as a better one (necromancer?)  The OT has several passages  
which condemn witchcraft, so the sentiment at the time was widespread in Israel  
and Judah.  I am not sure how much the persecution of witches by King Saul  
has to do with our canon, but I believe the Christian persecution, which was  
carried on for centuries by all denominations, has something to do with our  
story.  I know Hagrid  attributes the Statute of Secrecy to keeping  Muggles 
from turning to wizards to solve all their problems and Binns assures  his 
classes that real witches were not executed, but it must have been  troublesome for 
most witches to be accused and tried and I believe there was  some 
confiscation of property involved? :>)   In any case, some  Muggles must have died.  The 
period of 1692 was just about the time witch  hunting was tapering off 
although it continued at least in some places until the  1750's.  One could claim the 
Statue of Secrecy and the separation of  witches and wizards from Muggles 
ended the hunts.  I understand why JKR  downplays this aspect in children's 
books, but the hysteria created by a witch  hunt is no joke. 
 
BTW the Papacy was not in favor of the translation of the Scriptures into  
the vernacular (if you couldn't read Latin, you should not be reading them) and  
the King James version was on the Index of Forbidden Books until the  1960's.
 
Nikkalmati




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