On Fri, 29 Nov 2002, Matthew Hunter wrote: >On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 12:02:55AM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet ><dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: >> I'm an extremely poor biblical scholar, but even I can point out >> that the early Israelites were punished for being *too lenient* >> to defeated enemies, and that while the injunction against >> letting a witch live may be a mistranslation, that argument is >> about "witch", not about the rest of it, so *somebody* shouldn't >> be allowed to live. >"poisoner", I think, which I frankly don't have much problem >with. :) > I'm surprised no one else has pointed this out, but this notion (that Exodus 22:17 says "Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live") is utterly mistaken, and is based on a misunderstanding of the Septuigant (early Greek translation of the OT). The Greek word "pharmakous" [1] does apparantly have the ambiguity to mean either "sorceress" or "poisoner" (and indeed, the English word that derives from it suggests that the early Greek concept was some sort of medicine-dispenser - most medicines can be poisons if used in the wrong amounts or combinations, and knowledge of medical herbs is indistinguishable from knowledge of poisonous ones). However, the original Hebrew word was "michashefa" [2], which is translated as "sorceress" in the Soncino bible that I have. The root word, "cheshef", is used elsewhere when referring to the context of magical practices (which are likewise forbidden), and the masculine plural ("michashefim") is used when referring to the various magic-workers that the Pharoh called for when Aaron's staff turned into a snake. Anyway, the word means *some* sort of female magic worker. I'm not sure if "sorceress" or "witch" is a better translation into English, but "poisoner" is almost certainly wrong (unless you want to argue that the two concepts are identical, which I suspect most magic- workers (and pharmacists) would argue with). A couple of verses later on, though, it says that anyone who sacrifices to any god besides Yahweh shall be utterly destroyed. [1] {phi}{alpha}{rho}{mu}{alpha}{kappa}{omicron}{upsilon}{sigma} [2] {mem}{chaf}{shin}{feh}{heh}