One of the more interesting stories in the Old Testament concerns Saul and the Ewok Witch of En-dor. The ewok witch calls up a spirit, which foretells the events of the battle which will take place the next day:
“The Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David . . . Moreover the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.”
The events occur as foretold, of course.
What does this story tell us? Well, if the witch did not receive this vision from God, but rather from Satan (and our Bible Dictionary explicitly states that this is not a vision from God), then Satan appears to be capable of granting prophetic visions to his followers. Is he?
A few possible interpretations spring to mind:
1. First, perhaps Satan can actually give the gift of prophecy (or some Satanic equivalent of it). This is important. For one thing, it calls into question the ability of a prophet to establish himself as a true prophet through the validation of his prophecies. For another, it opens up a theological can of worms. If prophecy is really a gift of the Spirit, how can Satan have access to it? And which other gifts of the Spirit might Satan be able to use?
2. Second, perhaps Satan cannot actually give the gift of prophecy, but can mimic it through other means. This might happen through a few different methods.
One possibility is that Satan has sufficient influence among evil men that he can often predict their actions with a high degree of certainty. Thus, he may reveal to a prophet of his that “a thief will steal Kaimi’s car tomorrow.” Satan knows this because he influences the thief who is going to steal my car. The ewok of En-dor’s prophecy may fit in this category.
Another possibility for mimicking prophecy could be based on Satan’s knowledge. Satan has very broad knowledge. He sees many things. Thus, he could reveal to a follower the location of a buried treasure, for instance.
The import of a Satanic ability to mimic prophecy is still great. This also means that we cannot use the eventual occurence of a prophet’s predictions as proof that the prophet is of God.
Note that this suggests a few particular limitations. If a prophet has predicted something which could be based on the actions of evil men, or could be based on knowledge alone, then that prophecy is not valid in determining whether the prophet is of God.
3. Third, perhaps Satan doesn’t really tell his followers anything useful or reliable. He tells them all sorts of nonsense, and it is occasionally correct. This is reassuring, from a practical standpoint (we can still use the “did the prophesied event actually occur” test) and a theological standpoint (no worries about Satan having access to gifts of the Spirit). But it’s less compatible with the text.
It would seem that Joseph smith thought that Satan had access to power that might be considered a spiritual gift:
It could also be that the Bible dictionary is wrong.
This could also be an interesting extension of the Foreknowledge debate. There are many around who deny absolute foreknowledge. The consequent validity of prophecy becomes a function of knowledge and power – both to which Satan has a limited access.
Kaimi: The LDS analogy to God’s knowledge is that of a Father’s indepth knowledge of his children. Perhaps the same is true of the Adversary and “his” (self-selecting) “children”?
Kaimi,
You’ve missed out an important fact: the witch called-up Samuel. So for this scripture to support the idea that Satan can “prophesy” you would have to say that Satan is capable of summoning past-prophets from beyond the grave who then prophesy in his behalf.
Lyle,
It isn’t just the knowleged of “his” (self-selecting) “children.” He still remembers the pre-existence, and so remembers us. According to tradition, his “job” in the pre-existence was training and testing (still doing that), and so he should have some knowledge of our strengths and weaknesses. At least he sure knows _my_ weaknesses.
Or perhaps there was a conversation in the realms of heaven that the angels going in and out were gossiping about the fate of Saul, and Satan or one of his minions picked up on this chatter while waiting for a flight to the nether regions and decided to leak the information to Saul via the ewok witch king of Angmar, I mean En-dor. If that were the case, than I would have to say that the realms of heaven probably thereafter sent a memo to all angel associates reminding them not to leak trade secrets, err.. heavenly foreknowledge, to the press, I mean Satanic minions…
But of course, foretelling the future is not the same as prophecy. Prophecy is the testimony that Jesus is the Christ. Foretelling the future is a related, but not essential, gift, and may well be available to Satan, as one who lives outside of mortal time (or, if you prefer, who knows us all from our preexistent state).
Hugh – I believe that your definition of prophecy is indefensibly limited. Our heritage is full of apostles and prophets using the word “prophecy” to describe the foretelling of future events.
Couldn’t we take this story the same way as Macbeth? One doesn’t need to believe the witches had any real foreknowledge just because what they predicted to came true. Perhaps they pretended to know or falsely believed they did, in Macbeth’s case to tempt him, and in Saul’s case to give despair. Or maybe this is just unrelated.
The Witch’s vision may not have been prophecy from God, but perhaps she had listened to other prophets and knew with some degree of certainty that such events would occur. I can’t imagine every prophecy told by God is recorded in the Bible. My guess would be that the witch, like many modern flim flam artists, used what she already knew to guess or predict what would happen. Perhaps other prophets had seen the events unfold and they were ignored or not written down but the witch was privy to them through social cirlces.
Just another possibility.
Charles,
I like the idea of describing the witch as a “flim flam artist.” When you boil it all down, that is all Satan is, just another snake oil salesman.
There’s a term for #3: The “Jeane Dixon effect.”
I believe the apocrypha clearly states that a ouija board was utilized.
The Bible says it was Samuel.
If it was Samuel then is Satan telling one of his 100 truths to get across a single lie?
This could be a self-fulfilling prophecy and a pretty nasty one too.
We have to consider the difficulty of actually knowing the future if people have real freedom any time we consider prophecy. I know that this problem is easily dismissed in most Sunday School discussions but it is a real problem.
If it wasn’t Samuel we have a problem with the scriptures being exactly wrong. It is hard for me to dismiss this one as a translation problem. The story dosen’t make sense. (It doesn’t makes sense the way it is written either). If you can make this a translation problem then rational discussion ceases because you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to say, including the opposite of what it says.
If it is a metaphor then it seems to be a rather obscure one. What is the point?
According to the Bible Dictionary, Samuel either came back in spite of the Witch or it was another spirit impersonating Samuel. In either case, the purpose of the visit was to extinguish King Saul’s hope and cause dispair.
Prophecy seems to more take a different light to things:
1. Inspire hope of promises to come.
2. If there is doom, it’s usually with the caveat of failure to repent or to keep the commandments.
I don’t see the events with the Witch as being prophecy, because they don’t follow either of the two above criterion. I think Satan can entice and maybe Samuel came to forbode doom, but I don’t think we’ll find out for sure in this lifetime.
The Bible does notsay that the ghost announced that it was Samuel. The Bible says simply that it was Samuel.
We can question the voice of the text. Who exactly wrote this and who copied it? Ezra?
The reason this passage is so difficult is because it challenges the very basis of how we read the scriptures. Do we believe what the text says? When it doesn’t fit with what we think is right, what is our response? To change the meaning of the text and create dissonance between what we think it says and what it says?
Do we try and find some excuse to make it fit? Context or translation problem?
Phone rang, can’t finish this.
This seems pretty simple actually. Its all based on patterns. Satan and his minions I suspect can read patterns. People do this now, with technology, just in a limited form. They look at stats, past and present, anaylize them and are able to make tons of predictions that usually come true based on information. The more accurate information you have the better and more accurate you prediction will become. We do this now every day, with a minute fraction of the information that Satan has access to. Reading patterns.
I suspect that Satan can pretty much predict the future. Yes we have free agency, and it is not as perfect as God could do, but it would be pretty much 99.9 % acurate. He know what has happened in the past, what each person involved strengths and weaknesses are. What they have done in simular situations, what they are most likely to do, weather patterns ,fears, stats stats, stats..etc etc etc etc etc etc etc . He cannot actually predict the future, he sees patterns. The same way that we can have free agency, but God can know exactly what will happen, and every person will do. But a far far less perfect version.
As our ability to access information gets better, we become better at doing this very same thing. If you ever do research on this type of thing, you will find many stories that tell of a demon/evil spirit etc telling someone the future, etc…..im sure many are bogus stories, but I suspect much might be true. Mothman comes to mind.
Small example..Satan knows someone cells are starting to form Cancer, he knows how long it will take based on past experiences etc to kill this person, he knows that the shock of the cancer and the person dieing is going to send the already unstable Mother to commit suciede, and cause the family dog to have to go to the Uncles house, where the little boy, who has been cruel to animals in the past will abuse and eventually kill it. He could tell you this and it would come true. He would have seemed to predicted/saw the future. He simply had access to more information, and was able to read the patterns to come to a 99.9% conclusion. It would seem impossible for him to know this without having SAW it in a vision or something, but with enough information, it was probably a pretty simple prediction. Mabye not the best example, but you get the idea.
Bryan’s point is well taken. One would not have to be too brilliant to see where Saul was headed. The problem isn’t so much that the forces of evil could predict the demise of Saul in battle the next day.
The problem is when a witch presumably using diabolical powers can summon the spirit of a prophet to reluctantly appear and tell Saul to basically go to hell. This passage is one of many examples of “magic” in the Bible in contrast to exercising the power of God through the Priesthood or in other righteous ways.
I define righteous Priesthood power as doing the will of God to summon help from the metaphysical world that God is more than willing to provide.
I define magic as the attempt to control or manipulate forces for my own purposes from the metaphysical world and not in necessarily an appropriate way, the focus being on my will not Thine. That it is reported to actually work at times goes against my strong naturalistic tendencies.
That this evil power is described to have control over the spirit of seemingly a righteous and powerful prophet really blows my mind. Maybe it is just a story that was made up and put in the Bible, I am willing to allow for some pious fiction in the cannon, but what pious purpose this story serves is beyond me.
I like what some posters from Wikipedia have said about this story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_of_Endor
For example, “Christian author Hank Hanegraaff argues that although it is impossible for humans to summon the dead, Samuel did appear before Saul and the witch by a sovereign act of God. Hanegraaff interprets the passage to mean that the witch was surprised by these events.”
Interesting that in the JST work, Joseph Smith was silent on this passage but edited several more mundane passages such as the last chapter of 2 Samuel.