*NEVER AGAIN THE BURNING TIMES*
Michelle G. dream comment prompted me to write a historical note concerning that inflammatory sentence “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18)
This was a mistranslation into English of the Greek (1) word pharmakeia (Strong’s 5331) or pharmakeus (Strong’s 5332) which more accurately translates as ‘poisoner’.
As a result of that single erroneous mistranslation an estimated 40,000 (2) people, women, men and children were cruelly tortured and punished with ‘confessions’ extracted under conditions of extreme duress and sentenced to death.
NEVER AGAIN THE BURNING TIMES
N.B.
(1) Although the Old Testament was originally written in (‘Biblical’) Hebrew, during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.) the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible were translated into Greek. The rest of the Old Testament was translated shortly afterwards by approximately 70 translators, hence, the Septuagint is known by the letters LXX, the Roman numerals for seventy.
(2) Ronald Hutton, in his unpublished essay “Counting the Witch Hunt”, counted local estimates, and in areas where estimates were unavailable attempted to extrapolate from nearby regions with similar demographics and attitudes towards witch hunting. He reached an estimate of 40,000 total executions.
s. ‘ .d. ‘ .
In Nomine Serpens, In Nomine Draconis
Embrace the Darkness
N.B. Articles whose titles are *marked by asterisks* are also published at The Sacred Serpent Society
