Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

At 12:51 PM 2/7/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Let me try one more time.  Dave, I don't want to "get around" what the text
>says.  The text I read tells me that an illegal person practicing an banned
>profession had no clue that the giant standing in front of her could only be
>Saul, which surely makes one wonder how psychic she truly was, non?  

true enough. yet the fact that she is surprised that her own abilities prove
effective gives one cause to pause....

When
>she was persuaded to ply her trade despite her illegal status, 28.12 tells
>us that the woman cried out with a loud voice. What is it that terrifies
>her?  It might be the vision of Samuel, but linguistically it is just as
>possible, and I believe more contextually plausible, that she is frightened
>to realize that she has just plied her trade in the presence of the very
>king who had proscribed her entire profession. 

i disagree-- for if that were her fear she could honestly denounce the king
as well for urging her to practice those arts.  *the king told me to*- what
could be a better defense?

 See on this point, Alter's
>short discussion in THE DAVID STORY, where he suggests that she knows her
>visitor is Saul because, "it is only for the king that the prophet Samuel
>would have thus risen from the underworld in full-body image" (p. 174).
>Either way, it doesn't matter to the next point, which is that after 28.12
>says she saw Samuel, Saul asks her what she sees, and her answer is "I have
>seen elohim coming up from the earth" (28.13).  The old KJV may have been
>the most honest of all in rendering elohim here as "gods."  Modern
>translators dance around a bit, as a quick check will show anyone
>interested.  But the Hebrew text has the plural form (olim as the verb of
>elohim!

see psalm 8-  you are little less than gods-- so that the notion of humans
as nearly divine (and kings as divine) is not utterly foreign to the hebrew
bible.  see also the numerous enthronement psalms where the *divine sonship*
of the king and hence his divinity is clearly announced.  (ps 2 for instance).

that she sees a god- a divine samuel- is no shock- for the one who anoints
is clearly superior to the one anointed.

>
>Saul then asks about the form [singular] of her envisioned guest, and she
>describes Samuel: "an old man cloaked in a coat [me(il] is coming up" [here
>the singular (oleh in 28.13].

she has to use some description doesnt she?  
>
>[1] How an old man wearing a coat coming up out of the ground signifies a
>spirit I have no idea. Samuel's mother made him a new coat [me(il] every
>year, according to 2.19, and Saul had seized such a coat [me(il] and had
>torn it upon learning of his rejection from kingship [kata 15.27].  So the
>coat here is an identifying mark of Samuel, clearly linked to the wardrobe
>common to his earthly life.

exactly.  samuel.  not as a human being but as a spirit.

>
>[2] Why the actions of such a woman would be taken as grounds for any modern
>theological tenet I have no idea.

she is an unwitting partner in a revelatory act.

>
>[3] What this has to do with nephesh I have no idea.

it demonstrates that the notion presented by liz that the hebrew bible knows
of no spiritual life after death is false.

best

jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD

Biblical Studies Resources
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest