On Thursday 06 February 2003 21:18, Charles David Isbell wrote:
> Hi Liz,
> Whether or not WE think her a fake is not the point. But that the author
> of the passage, and the editors of the larger framework signal clearly
> THEIR perception of her as a fake is what I do see as the point. I don't
> see the reason for basing anything theological on a passage describing an
> incident that the biblical writers themselves did not perceive as
> plausible.
[snip]
I'm not sure how you get the idea that the writer did not perceive the event
as plausible; the text explicitly says that Samuel *did* appear, and it
scared the bejabbers out of the woman. Whether she had been a fake up to
that point, we are not told, but this event is described as actually
happening from the writer's POV. I don't see how it's possible to get around
that.