The Biblical Beard!

(Please note - I am a total beard enthusiast)

Bible Beards:

1Corinthians 11:14  Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace…?

What then of the beard? Nature quite clearly teaches us that God put a beard on man’s face to distinguish him from a woman. Numerous commentators state that the force of Paul’s argument in this verse is to suggest that having long hair was effeminate and that this was the disgrace Paul was describing in the context.  Similarly, is it not also effeminate to shave off the unique feature of a man’s face in order to maintain the appearance of a lady or a child?

Indeed, there are even Christians who believe that women must wear skirts in order to distinguish themselves from men!  Accordingly, the Christian husband wakes up every morning and proceeds to ritualistically shave off the very feature our wise God has created for that purpose.  They would rather impose a man-made item of clothing on women for any needed distinction.

‘How do we distinguish between a man and a woman?’ The answer is right under your nose.  And what, I ask, is wrong with the natural feature God has created for this purpose?

Throughout God’s Word, we see that men have beards. It is taken as obvious that they would have beards, with the shaving of them being the custom of heathen tribes for the mourning of their dead (Leviticus 19:27). In fact, in the Scriptures, we see that shaving off one’s beard is shameful:

2Samuel 10:4-5  So Hanun took David’s servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away. When it was told David, he sent to meet them, for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return.”

Dr Gill interestingly points out that, were shaven men to have been acceptable in God’s Israel, they could have easily just shaved off the other half of their beard.  But no!  This was so shameful and ridiculous that they could not return without a beard.

So why do men shave today? How have things changed since David’s time? How did beard shaving come about?

The history of beard removal:

Ancient postdiluvian history – Cave paintings have been found depicting men plucking their beards off with sea shells; similarly flint appears to have been used for shaving various body parts as well as for cutting the flesh for diabolical pagan rituals.

Later, the Egyptians, particularly the priesthood, shaved their faces and heads. For the Egyptians, the less hair on one’s body, the higher their status. The Mesopotamians and the Sumerians too would shave off their beards with obsidian blades.[1]  Note that Moses was raised in the house of Pharaoh and the children of Israel had interactions with the Mesopotamians, particularly Balaam. And yet the Lord calls for Moses and the children of Israel to not do as the heathen nations do in shaving their beards and cutting themselves

(Leviticus 19:27-28). 

Between 3000 and 1500 B.C. – Cultures from India to Scandinavia developed various permanent razors from copper and other materials for use in rituals for the dead.

500 B.C. – As homosexuality prevails in Greece and elsewhere, the hairlessness of men becomes increasingly popular. By the late 300’s B.C., Alexander the Great expanded his empire from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas and notoriously popularised shaving. He vainly would not go into battle without shaving.[2]  Just as notorious became the Greek baths where men would seek out younger men, perfumed and hairless. 

The term ‘barbarian’ is thought to refer to supposedly uncivilised or un-barbered nations, the Greek word ‘barba’ meaning ‘beard’.

300 B.C. – Publicus Ticinius Maenas, a Greek barber, comes to Rome and the fashion spreads into Europe. It becomes so popular that once men reached the age of 21 they were legally required to be shaved using an iron novacila. Only the military and philosophers were exempt. With homosexuality just as popular and acceptable in Rome as in Greece, the rich had live-in servants to shave their bodies whilst the plebeians had to go to the barber to make themselves appear more effeminate and attractive to other men.

This practice continued and was increasingly popularised at least until 100 B.C. by Julius Caesar and by the openly sexually deviant Emperors such as Nero.[3]

The Dark Ages – As the Roman Empire falls and is divided, the Papacy arises as the revived head of Rome.  The ecclesiastical system of Antichrist Rome adopted countless Pagan customs; one of these being the shaving of their priesthood.  Another example is the shaven head or ‘tonsure’ which was and is the custom of various heathen religions.  By 1000 A.D., it was so engrained in the minds of Europeans that a shaved man was automatically a popish priest, it is thought that the Normans won the battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D. because their spies came clean-shaven and were mistaken by the Saxons for priests.

However, during the Reformation, beginning in the 1500’s A.D., for a priest to declare that he had been liberated by the light of the doctrines of grace and saw the Papacy as the

Antichrist, he grew his beard; this was a rejection of the darkness of the abominable traditions and errors of Rome.

The ‘Renaissance’ – The renaissance also began in the 1500’s A.D.; this movement saw artists, architects and philosophers reviving ideas from ancient Greece and Pagan Rome. Michelangelo, a notorious homosexual, amongst the works he was commissioned to create by the Papacy, carved his statue which is supposed to represent king David.  Michelangelo, hearkening to the debauched artistry of ancient Greece and Rome, with their heavy emphasis on nude males, carved the statue of a completely naked, shaven man standing in an obscenely effeminate pose, facing towards Rome.  This is most ungodly.  Yet, this monstrosity declared to the western world what was considered masculine for centuries to come, even having been described as ‘the perfect man’.

Shaving increasingly became more popular among those of a higher status in Europe, as in

Egypt and Rome before it; shaving was considered the height of fashion in the 1600’s and

1700’s A.D., with popular books written on the subject. Peter ‘the Great’ of Russia even made beards illegal in order to be more like Western Europe.[4]

‘Modern’ Times – Since the safety razor was introduced in the 1800’s, men have scarcely looked back.  Today, if you are deluded enough to watch much T.V., a deliberately deep voice will attempt to sell you the idea that if you are clean shaven, attractive women will want to come and stroke your face.  This is a stupid notion and those that fall for it, sadly, deserve to.  Nothing has impeded the advance of this originally pagan practice from invading Protestantism and ruining many a fine beard. Very few voices, it seems, have stood against it.  Charles Spurgeon declared in the 1800’s:

‘[G]row your beards! A habit most natural, scriptural, manly, and beneficial.’[5]

Conclusion:

Brethren, consider Christ who truly was the perfect man, indeed a bearded man (Isaiah

50:6); consider the thoughts of the early church of the 2^nd century:

‘How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them! …For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest, a sign of strength and rule… This, then, is the mark of the man, the beard. By this, he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve…It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness.’6

To conclude, I am NOT saying that a man who shaves cannot be a Christian and I certainly do not want to glory in the flesh of my brethren.  But I do believe that someone who shaves their beard simply for vanity and to appear ‘normal’ in the eyes of the world is only satisfying their fleshly desires.  Embrace what God put on your face; it turns overgrown schoolboys into men!

In all seriousness, I pray we would examine all of our habitual daily activities in light of God’s Word.

---

1 Encyclopaedia Britannica

2  Allen, A. (1875) Smith’s A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, s.v. ‘Barba’

3  Ibid.

4  Encyclopaedia Britannica

5 Spurgeon, C. H. (1981 ed.) Lectures to My Students, First Series, Lecture 8, Baker Book House, p.134

6 Clement of Alexandria, vol. 2, pp. 275-276

The Last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ

Hebrews 9:15-17  Therefore [Jesus] is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.  For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.  For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. (ESV)

There are many who disagree on the interpretation of the Greek word ‘diatheke’ here, which can mean either covenant or testament.  The reason some do not like the idea of a clear New Testament or ‘will’, as the context clearly denotes, is because they are striving to maintain the idea that the old covenant made with Moses and ethnic Israel was simply renewed by Jesus and not automatically revoked with the enacting of a New and ‘better Testament’ (Hebrews 7:22).  The motivation for this bizarre interpretation is essentially to preserve the tradition, within many ‘denominations’, of the Sabbath doctrine and the understanding that the ten commandments still apply to Christians and have applied to all human beings (Gentiles included) since they were first handed down to Adam.

The fact that the Old Testament is crystal clear that these commandments only applied to Israel and were first given to Moses, and that this was always the Jewish understanding, is not enough to convince them (Deut. 5:3, Nehemiah 9:13-14, Psalm 147:19-20 & Ezekiel 20:11-12).  Therefore, we must look at what the New Testament explicitly says the New Testament is in order to leave them with nowhere to run by denying this simple truth but the shadows of wilful ignorance.

The main resource for this study is the exhaustive scholarly effort of Dr. Norton: Norton, F. (1908) A Lexicographical and Historical Study of διαθήκη from the Earliest Times to the End of the Classical Period, University of Chicago Press

Norton examines the very earliest uses of this Greek word to identify the fullest meaning of Hebrews 9.  Interestingly, he notes that the ancient Greek law relating to wills was derived from the contract for the adoption of children.  But he also notes other meanings:

‘The disposition or arrangement which a man makes with reference to his property in view of death. The word is here used in the singular number to denote the instrument as a whole—a Greek will or testament in the legal or technical sense.’ (p.33)  This is essentially a will or testament.

The other main meaning is: ‘An agreement, or settlement, arrived at by means of a disposition or arrangement of points in dispute, a mutual settlement.’ (p.35)

It is interesting to note that God created an eternal Covenant which would accomplish all of these; we are adopted as His children and thus receive a glorious inheritance with Christ (Eph 1:5 & 11), who died as the testator of this will and this contract acts as a ‘settlement’ over any ‘dispute’ we had with God, having once been His enemies (Romans 5:1 etc.).

Nevertheless, as the Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon confirms, the most frequent and ancient usage of this word is in reference to the ‘disposition of property by will’.  For example, this word is used in Homer’s Iliad when Agamemnon makes a will regarding his possessions.  When examining a real ancient Greek will, Norton shows that the inclusion of this legal understanding simply cannot be excluded by those who take this word as purely meaning a covenant:

 ‘The senses of “testament” and “compact” were so closely allied that the same word could be used for both, and the orator could have either or both in mind as suited his argument. In fact, we have no one word that exactly expresses the idea conveyed by διαθήκη to the Greeks.’ (p. 39, footnote to Isaeus)

 

This word all at once referred to wills, certificates of adoption, dispute agreements and, yes, contracts in general, as Norton also recognises:

‘A disposition or settlement of relations between two parties, wherein one party lays down the conditions, and the other accepts them and binds himself by an oath or solemn promise to keep them; a settlement, arrangement, compact, covenant.’ (p.41)

 

But, regardless, a will was the most commonly understood usage of the word and, when the context speaks of Christ’s death initiating this testament, it can mean nothing else in Hebrews 9.  Furthermore, even if this were just a covenant, the breaking of this in ancient Greek law meant that the covenant was revoked, not in need of renewal!  The Jews broke God’s covenant and thus it was revoked.  Likewise, if we take this to mean a testament, this also makes the older testament null and void.  Again, Norton confirms this: ‘[T]he testator…could revoke it by the substitution of another document’. (p.70)

So whether this verse refers to a covenant or testament, the Bible is clear: the covenant which was broken previously had ended and an entirely New Covenant had to be established.

Hebrews 8:6 ff.  But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

For he finds fault with them when he says:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Where are the angels who sinned? In hell or on earth?

The London Baptist Confession of 1644 notes the sin of the angels under article IV: ‘Satan…with his Angels having sinned before, and not kept their first estate, but left their own habitation…’  Nothing more is said regarding the sin of the angels because Scripture says nothing more.  God only indicates to us that the sin of the angels was to have departed from their original dwelling place.

2Peter 2:4  For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment…
Jude 1:6  And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Most recognise that 2Peter and Jude appear to be parallels of one another and give greater depth of the meaning intended by the Holy Spirit, in much the same way the four Gospels do.  Here, they are comparing the sinfulness and condemnation of the evil angels to that of false teachers and false brethren – ‘…to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.’ (Jude 1:13)
The  phrase used by Peter, ‘cast them down to hell’, is a single word, a verb – ‘tartarosas’.  Tartarus was the lowest place of Hades in Greek mythology. 

On 2Peter 2:4, with the angels being cast down into Tartarus, Matthew Poole writes:
‘What place that is we find not expressed in Scripture, and therefore we are not to be over curious in our inquiries after it’. 
I do not agree!  We must seek to know the will of God and we should be diligent in our studies.  If a matter is hard for us to understand, we must pray that the Lord would open our eyes.

What or where is Tartarus in the New Testament?

According to Strong’s Lexicon, this word is derived ‘[f]rom…Tartaros̄ (the deepest abyss of Hades); to incarcerate in eternal torment…’

Therefore, to tartarus someone, as this verb designs, is to cast them down in a spiritual sense; the ex-Pagan Gentiles would have readily understood the spiritual significance of this verb because the primary inhabitants of Tartarus, according to Greek mythology were the Titans - ancient deities who had been overthrown and cast down by Zeus and the Olympian gods.  Words and concepts were often used by the early Christians to convey ideas to their Pagan or ex-Pagan audience (eg. the Logos, Hades etc.).  But, as Peter and Jude tell us, this is not referring to that final judgment when the devil and his angels are plunged into the lake of fire; these chains of darkness are simply where they are reserved for that punishment – ‘not as equivalent to Gehenna, but as the place of detention until the judgment’, as Vincent’s Word Studies puts it.  And so this action refers to when the ‘sinning angels were cast out of heaven.’ (People’s New Testament commentary)

This understanding is further confirmed by the ancient Hebrew understanding of this verse in Peter's letter:

Aramaic Bible in Plain English - And if God did not spare the Angels who sinned, but cast them down in chains of darkness into the lowest depths and handed them over to be kept for the judgment...

Any confusion as to why Satan can roam around as a lion (1Peter 5:8) is therefore cleared up once we recognise that the evil angels are not in hell (Gehenna - the lake of fire).  So Jamieson-Fausset-Brown comments thus on Peter’s use of this Pagan Greek word: ‘ "Tartarus": nowhere else in New Testament or the Septuagint…though [the evil angels] final doom is hell, yet for a time they are permitted to roam beyond it in "the darkness of this world." Slaves of Tartarus…may also come upon earth.

So, how are the fallen angels incarcerated?  Simply put, God tartarus’ed, if you will, the evil angels in that He cast them down and they now inhabit darkness, particularly spiritual darkness and are in this jail, having received their prison sentence, now awaiting that punishment.   They left their original status and are now reserved in chains of darkness; they are kept in that outer darkness, no longer in the light of God’s presence.  Satan and his angels will not be cast into the lake of fire and properly tormented before the Day of Judgment (Matthew 8:29 & Matthew 25:41).

We see a symbolic vision in which the evil angels are cast down in the Revelation:

Revelation 12:9  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

The casting down of Satan is also confirmed by the Lord Jesus:

Luke 10:18  And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
And we see very clearly from the Scriptures that these evil angels do subsequently inhabit darkness. 

The evil angels inhabit darkness

In Psalm 78, the Holy Spirit describes the various plagues which God sent upon Egypt before the exodus of the Israelites.  The description of the plague of darkness is fascinating and very informative:

Psalm 78:49  He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them.

The Greek word used here for ‘evil’ in the Septuagint is used many times in the New Testament to refer to evil spirits (Luke 7:21, Acts 19:15 etc.) and so this cannot simply be referring to good angels who were sent to bring destruction.
Also, it is interesting, though by no means authoritative, to note how the Jews recalled the events of this darkness in which evil angels came to trouble the Egyptians.  We can see an account given in the apocryphal book of Wisdom:

Wisdom 17:2-4  When lawless people tried to oppress your holy nation, in actual fact they were the prisoners who were being held in a dark place, bound in chains through a long night. They were confined to their own homes as they vainly tried to flee from a plan that had been prepared for all eternity.
They thought that they could hide their sins by pulling a blanket of forgetfulness over themselves. But instead they were scattered in every direction, terrified by fear, and spooked by nightmarish visions.
They hid themselves in the deepest corners of their houses, but couldn't escape from their fears. Even there they heard all around them sounds that terrified them. Mournful ghosts with gloomy faces appeared to them.

Not only do the evil angels appear to have tormented the Egyptians by pretending to be ghosts but we also see that the darkness they experienced in this plague appears to be much the same as the darkness in which the Lord keeps the evil angels bound in chains, according to 2Peter and Jude.  Perhaps this is why Moses describes this darkness as a thick darkness which could be felt (Exodus 10:21-22).
But, more than this, we see why the children of God and of the devil are distinguished as being of the light or of darkness respectively:

1Thessalonians 5:5  Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

Satan inhabits the darkness and the sinfulness which spiritual darkness seeks to conceal:

John 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

But, Jesus Christ is the Truth itself; He is that God which is light, scattering the darkness and revealing all hidden things:

John 8:12  Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Jesus’ words in chapter 8 of John are significant; when we are told that Satan abode not in the truth, we have some idea then of how it is that the evil angels sinned to begin with.  To return to 2Peter and Jude, we see that the angels sin was that they ‘kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation’.  These angels didn't abide in the truth, the light –

Ephesians 5:13  …all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

They departed from the presence of the Father of lights and abode in darkness.

Contentions

There are many who would and have contended that these angels must have been cast out into a bottomless pit, perhaps the one used symbolically in the Revelation (9:11).  But we can easily dismiss this notion with the following verses in which Christ encounters some men possessed with demons:

Matthew 8:29  And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
Luke 8:28  …I beseech thee, torment me not.
Luke 8:31  And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep [the abyss].

From these verses we can gather that: the demons know they will be tormented at a certain time in the future, i.e. in the lake of fire; the demons also know that the Son of God will do this; they further equate this future torment with being cast into the abyss.  Therefore, as the demons understand their own punishment in the lake of fire and being cast into the abyss, we have no warrant to invent some other bottomless pit which either some or all of the evil angels now inhabit.  We might see symbolic beasts and locusts emerging from symbolic pits in the Revelation, but this is not explicit, like when Christ tells us of the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  

The Greek word for ‘abyss’ is used in the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament to translate the Hebrew meaning of the deep places of the earth, particularly under the oceans (e.g. Genesis 7:11).  If the demons’ intent was to avoid going to this abyss, why dive into the sea once they had been cast out into the herd of pigs (Matthew 8:32)?
The abyss which the demons wish to avoid can be nothing other than their destined place of torment, the lake of fire, for this is where they shall be tormented:

Revelation 20:10, 13-15  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

…death and [hades] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

And death and [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Conclusion

Again, we must conclude that both evil angels and wicked men will be cast into the lake of fire after the resurrection and the final judgment; and that the angels which sinned await their punishment whilst having been imprisoned in chains of darkness, roaming this earth.

Necromancy - Saul and the Witch of Endor

Necromancy -

Saul and the Witch of Endor

(from B.H. Carroll's commentary of the Bible

all thoughts are welcome)

There are several theories of interpretation concerning the transaction in 1Samuel 28:11-19, but I will discuss only three of them. Saul himself goes to the witch of Endor and asks her to call up Samuel, making an inquiry of the dead through a medium, wanting information that God had refused to give him. These are the theories:

1. Some hold that there was no appearance of Samuel himself nor an impersonation of him by an evil spirit; that there was nothing supernatural, but only a trick of imposture by the witch, like many modern tricks by mediums and spirit rappers, and that the historian merely records what appeared to be on the surface. That is the first theory. That is the theory of the radical critics, who oppose everything supernatural, and you know without my telling you what my opinion is of that theory. There are indeed many tricks of imposture by pretended fortunetellers, and some of them are marvelous, but such impostures do not account for all the facts.

2. Others hold that there was a real appearance of Samuel, but -the witch didn't bring him up; she was as much if not more startled than Saul when he came; that God himself interfered, permitting Samuel to appear to the discomfiture of the witch, who cried out when she saw him, and to pronounce final judgment on Saul. They quote in favor of this theory Ezekiel 14:3 & 7-8 : "Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them? . . . For every one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that separateth himself from me, and taketh his idols into his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet to inquire for himself of me; I, Jehovah, will answer him by myself; and I will set my face against that man, and will make him an astonishment, for a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people." They interpret this passage to mean that when a man violated God's law, as Saul and this witch did, that God took it upon himself to answer, and answered through Samuel.

That theory is the Jewish view throughout the ages. According to the Septuagint rendering of 1Chronicles 10:13, "Saul asked counsel of her that had a familiar spirit, and Samuel made answer to him." It further appears to be the Jewish view by the apocryphal book Sirach 46:20, which says, "After his death Samuel prophesied and showed the king his end, and lifted up his voice from the earth in prophecy." The Jewish view further appears in Josephus who thinks that Samuel was really there, but that God sent him; not that the witch had brought him up or could do it. This view was adopted by many early Christian writers; for example, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Augustine, all great men, and this view is held more and more by modern commentators, among them, for instance, Edersheim, in his History of Israel, and Kirkpatrick in the "Cambridge Bible," and Blaikie in the "Expositor's Bible," and Taylor in his History of David and His Times. All those books I have recommended; they all take that second view.

3. Now here is the third theory of interpretation. First, there is such a thing as necromancy, in which, through mediums possessed of evil spirits which spirits do impersonate the dead and do communicate with the living. This theory holds that the case of Saul and the witch of Endor is in point – that an evil spirit (for this woman is said to have had a familiar spirit; she was possessed with an evil spirit and the business of these evil spirits in their demoniacal possession is to impersonate dead people;) caused the semblance of Samuel to appear and speak through his mouth. This theory claims that the scripture in Job 3:17, to wit: "When the good man dies he goes where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest," would be violated if this had really been Samuel, who said, "Wherefore hast thou disquieted me?" And whoever this man was that appeared did say that.

If God had sent him he could not very well have used that language. God had a right to do as he pleased, but Saul had no right to try to call back a dead man to get information from him. This theory also claims that the prophecy pronounced by that semblance of Samuel was not true, but it would have been true if Samuel had said it. That prophecy says, "Tomorrow thou and thy sons shall be with me," but Saul didn't die until three days later; on the third day the battle of Gilboa was fought, and that Samuel, neither dead nor alive, would have told a falsehood. Very many early Christian writers adopt this theory, among them Tertullian and Jerome, the author of the Vulgate or Latin version of the Bible, and nearly all of the reformers, Luther, Calvin, and all those mighty minds that wrought out the reformation. They took the position that the evil spirit simulated Samuel. Those who hold to this theory further say that unless this is an exception, nowhere else in the Word of God is any man who died mentioned as coming back with a message to the living except the Lord; that he is the first to bring life and immortality to light through the gospel after he had abolished death. They do not believe that the circumstances in this case warrant an exception to the rule that applies to the whole Bible, and particularly they quote the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man asks that Lazarus might go back to the other world with a message to his brethren, and it was refused on the ground that they have Moses and the prophets, and if a man won't hear Moses and the prophets neither would he hear though one rose from the dead. That makes a strong case.

Certainly the first theory is not true, and the other two theories are advocated with such plausibility and force that I will leave you to take whatever side you please. My own opinion is that Samuel was not there, but on a matter of this kind let us not be dogmatic. Let us do our own thinking and we will be in good company no matter which of these last theories we adopt.