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Summary
- The Bible forbids sorcery and says nothing about the folkloric witch — hat, broom, cauldron — which is early modern European.
- Deuteronomy 18:10-11 lists practices rather than people, and the reason given is that Israel had a better route: God would speak through a prophet (18:15).
- Exodus 22:18’s King James “witch” renders a Hebrew word better read as sorceress. That English sentence was quoted at trials across Europe and colonial America, which the verse never required.
- 1 Samuel 28 is a tragedy, not an occult adventure: Saul consults a medium because God has gone silent, and the woman screams when it works, then makes him eat.
- Scripture supplies no dream key (Genesis 40:8), and a dream about a witch is no evidence anyone is cursing you — a belief that still gets people driven out or killed.
Bibliography (Click to show)
Sources: Scripture quotations from the NIV via BibleGateway except Exodus 22:18, quoted from the King James Version to show the translation difference (Deuteronomy 18:10-11, 15; Galatians 5:20; 1 Samuel 28; 1 John 4:4; Genesis 40:8; Daniel 2:27-28). The Greek pharmakeia and the Hebrew term behind “witch” in Exodus 22:18 are given as in standard lexicons. The use of that verse in European and colonial American witch trials, and continuing violence against people accused of witchcraft today, are matters of historical and contemporary record.
