Misapprehensions on the Ancients? (Was Re:Witches, Warlocks, Wizards, and JKR)

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 168747

> > > 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.

> >Goddlefrood (further snipped):
 
> > We must bear in mind the times during which the King James 
> > Bible 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

> 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.  
 
> 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.

Goddlefrood again :-<:

Neither was the papacy in favour of Spanish monarchs 
promulgating bulls.

The KJV appeared on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (ILP), 
but the sentiment behind the translation of the Bible into
the English vernacular of the time was very much as I 
suggest in my earlier piece (with which Steve / bboyminn
agreed), the relevant extract from ILP is "Biblia omnia 
vulgari idiomate, Germanico, Gallico, Hyfpanico, Italico, 
Anglico, fiue Fládri". The ILP as a whole was scrapped in
1966, and few if any books were ever removed from it once
placed on it.

http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/ILP-1559.htm#Bibles

The link to the ILP from a Hawaiian site there :-). So the 
English language translations in general were on the list,
which only means that King James, in sponsoring the Bible
to be translated was not forwarding his stated aims ;-).

Exodus 22.18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." King
James Version (KJV).

The argument presented relative to the passage originally 
cited by Pippin, criticised by Bart and explained by self
is somewhat misleading, IMO. The point is that translations
have been used by established churches and by nation states
at times to spread a message that they wanted spreading, 
usually to illiterate or semi-literate populaces. These 
translations are not the same as a more literal translation 
of the text, IOW.

Many more modern translations have dispensed with these 
types of mistranslations due to the increase in literacy,
which is a fairly recent phenomenon (perhaps a century, 
it's certainly little more than a century since the general 
population of even the more advanced nation was illiterate
or at best semi-literate).

This suggests also that due to the advances in scholarship 
it has been considered that witch hunts did not occur in 
biblical times. The original Aramaic or Hebrew texts (even 
though many translations are based on the Latin or Greek),
had been misrepresented, IMO.

My own thought on what is the closest translation from the 
ancient texts to words in modern usage of what a good number 
of biblical characters were hunting is "people possessed by 
devils or demons". Cumbersome perhaps, but more literal. 
The thing is we really don't know whether an ancient's 
understanding of what is a witch and the modern usage 
would coincide. E. H. Carr's "What is History?" is once 
more commended.

All rather dry, but there it is.

The period immediately before and after Wizarding seclusion is
interesting, there were witch hunts in many places, some most
probably due to no less a source than the KJV and its spread
amongst the populace by ministers. That is why Pippin's comment
in a far earlier post is relevant.

The Salem Witch Trials occurred in the very year of the passing
of the International Statute. Hagrid did indeed have a rather
hazy understanding of the period, but then I suspect he may 
have slept through many of Professor Binns's lectures, as many
of the characters in canon now do, or profess to do.

Neither offence is meant nor conceit, but the counter needs to
be stated for the benefit of the list as a whole.

Goddlefrood, looking forward to further comments from the Firenze
/ Minerva shippers, which have not been forthcoming so far, sad
to say.