Num 21:3, Deut 9:19, Deut 10:10, 2 Kings 13:4 .... The word "hearkened" is there but that's not the same thing. Jonah spoke out loud in front of everyone for God to do something and God did it. Something huge, something wild, something that sounds almost crazy.
Joshua 10:12 KJV
(12) Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
That's what it means by it hasn't happened before, and has not until now. It would be like if I went out and said "Everest, begone into the Pacific" and God just did it right there, SPLASH, with a resulting tsunami.
...
Of course. But even to this day, I don't think anything that dynamic has happened where a man said "do this" and God did it for him.
So you agree that it is the magnitude of the event that distinguishes it from Joshua's event, coupled, I suppose, with the request. Thus, the Egyptian plagues and the Red Sea crossing might equal the magnitude, but don't have the request.
I would suggest Hezekiah's sundial regression (Is 38:8 and 2 Kings 20:8-11) as a comparable event, certainly equal or greater in category, and it was at Hezekiah's request. I say "equal or greater" because in Joshua's event, the sun stopped, but in Hezekiah's the sun actually moved backward, unless it was a trick of light. The implication, it being a sign of mighty power God offered, and Hezekiah acknowledged it as harder to regress than to progress the shadow, is that the sun really stopped and reversed course momentarily, in a timeframe that was noticeable to observers.
Plus, it has the advantage that it happened after Jasher's writings, but I don't know if it happened after Jasher was quoted in the writing of Joshua and 2 Sam.
But our disconnect is centered on whether the appearance of Samuel was of the same magnitude to prevent the raising of Samuel from being considered; your opinion is that it is. I think it is more likely, as I mentioned before, that it was the category of the event that distinguished it. Thus, I need Hezekiah's event, which I consider to be of the same category, to be outside of Jasher's, and the author of Joshua's timeframe.
Yes, and I will clarify my meaning. He would be just as unable to raise a spirit of Samuel "coincidentally" making it seems "in response to a seance" as he would be unable to regenerate a man's severed arm, who invoked the power of healing by offering a blood child sacrifice while cursing the name of Jehovah. Even under better circumstances, Jesus was unable to perform miracles of healing where their faith was lacking.
I agree with your concern here, but I question whether your perception of the events is accurate. For one thing, was it a spirit that was seen? Or was Samuel possibly raised in the flesh? The text doesn't say. The comparison might be to Elijah and Moses at the Transfiguration, though the request is missing. What were Moses and Elijah at that time? Were they spirits or flesh and blood. I don't know. But the text doesn't prevent an interpretation of actual flesh of some type, just as various theophanies in the OT were probably very real, including at least one where they ate (which Jesus seem to think showed His physical reality after His resurrection (Luke 24:41-43).
And it didn't seem to be the witch's power that did the job, as I suggested before. Our evidence is scant, but her reaction to seeing Samuel, perhaps a real, solid Samuel of flesh, knitted together for this singular occasion, was a sudden recognition of her sin and the possibility of punishment--JUST FROM
SEEING SAMUEL, as far as we can tell.
I will admit that the witch took credit for Samuel's appearance in 1 Sam 28:21.
21 And the woman came unto Saul, and saw that he was sore troubled, and said unto him, Behold, thine handmaid hath obeyed thy voice, and I have put my life in my hand, and have hearkened unto thy words which thou spakest unto me.
But the narrative never gives her credit. That's the distinction I'm trying to make. If the narrative cannot be trusted here, then the narrative in other places is just as likely to be untrustworthy, including all the description of Jesus' death and resurrection, all the description of the creation of the cosmos, all the description of the plagues in Egypt, the promises of God, the Law, the Prophets, etc. AMR bewailed the loss of scriptural veracity if we call this thing Samuel; I think he has it backwards as to which position undermines scripture the most.
And notice one more thing in 28:21. "The woman came unto Saul". This seems to indicate that the woman was out of the picture while Samuel was talking. Samuel wasn't speaking through her. Thus, either it was a demon speaking directly to Saul, or it was Samuel speaking directly to Saul.
There's a flaw in there somewhere. Devils do sometimes give accurate prediction, and God is under no obligation to make the words that come from a devil's mouth not come to pass. Once you leave the safety of God, you're on your own at that point.
I'm glad you agree--I was pointing out where your logic was taking you.
I am not persuaded as such, for reasons voiced above. After the LORD refused to answer Saul by prophet or legitimate oracle, Saul went and sought out the enemies of the LORD that he was obliged to put to death, and engaged in witchcraft by performing a seance. The text does not say that the LORD intervened, or sent an angel, or a saint, and as such we should expect that this was a "normal" seance, with the results of what you would normally expect from a seance.
Yours is an argument from silence, here.
The ghost saying it was "disquieted" by Saul's act does nothing to authenticate it as being legitimate. That's exactly what you would expect a demonic apparition to say as well. If we were to assume this was the legitimate Samuel, he would have been obliged to at the very least disassociated himself from the witch... but rather he heeded her summons, and (we assume that) she even got paid.
My point there was to say that if it were a true messenger from God (as my other points were supposed to have proved), then the only option for which messenger it was, was Samuel, as a true messenger from God wouldn't pretend to be Samuel.
I don't understand you. I'm speaking of when Jesus was very hungry. Like not having eaten in forty days. The devil appears, and says "You are very hungry. If you be the Son of God, you have the power to make those stones bread. Aren't you hungry? Why not do it?" We know Jesus didn't turn the stones into bread. I'm going to assume that we are in agreement that he had the power, and he was hungry, so why didn't he?
What you said was
Ah, but you say, perhaps the LORD decided of his own will coincidentally? That's not acceptable either, for look how Jesus answered the temptation of the devil? When he was hungry, and Satan told him to make bread, he refused to avoid any appearance of obeying the suggestion.
I unconsciously unraveled your triple negative ("refused", "avoid", "any appearance") to believe you meant that Jesus did everything He could to keep from looking like He was obeying Satan. I don't think He did any more than the scripture says He did, which was to quote scripture and not turn stones to bread. There's nothing more to justify your statement.
God has no motive to help the witch in her craft. An argument that God coincidentally decided to perform a miracle seems very shaky. Given the setting, it would need a "Thus the LORD did .... such and such" for support.
Given the setting of a seance performed by a witch, it would definitely need such a declaration.
Again, this is an argument from silence, and not a very effective one in my view.
We are told that Jesus didn't speak before multitudes without parable, Matthew 13:34, Mark 4:34, which sets the default for anytime Jesus is about a multitude. So without something to indicate that Jesus is obviously using plain speech, the bible default is parable.
And thus we can completely ignore any real admonition to "love they neighbor as thyself", and to "do unto others as you would they do unto you". Perhaps try reading the "without parable" as a general rule that has exceptions, rather a hard and fast law for Jesus' public ministry.
Yes, I am saying that the passage is implicitly saying it isn't the legitimate Samuel. I understand that the Bible is expected to be read in context. But you are not correct in saying that the text has explicit statements that the spirit is legit. Here's the definition of explicit:
explicit: stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.
If there was an explicit statement, there would be no room for the argument of implicitness.
I appreciate your definition. And based on that definition, I'm not sure how much more explicit the text could be, than to say:
[1Sa 28:15-16, 19-20 KJV] 15
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. 16
Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy? ... 19 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. 20 Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid,
because of the words of Samuel: and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.
Again, you could be correct, but in being correct, you undermine the whole of scripture, and thus your victory is Phyrric. If we can't trust the scripture's explicit statements here, where can we trust them?
This is veering off on tangent slightly, but as to the question of whether the sun stopped moving, or the earth stopped rotation, and all that, whether the earth moves around the sun or the sun around the earth is simply a matter of where you define your mathematical zero.
If I understand AMR's points, he did not agree with your mathematical zero distinction. I tried to continue the discussion
here to keep from hijacking the thread, but the conversation lagged... I'd be interested in your thoughts on the matter.
How do you think the witch realized that she was dealing with Saul? Do you think she figured it out on her own, or was told?
I, along with some others in this thread, think that the sight of Samuel or perhaps who was with Samuel, was enough to trigger the reaction, whether surprise or dismay. There's no indication of it being verbal, and Saul's response to her was "what did you see?" She then told him what she saw.
[1Sa 28:12 KJV] 12 And
when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou [art] Saul.
[1Sa 28:13] 13 And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for
what sawest thou? And
the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth.
What about the sight was different from her normal experience? I don't know what her normal experience was, but she points out that she saw "gods" ("'elohiym") coming out of the earth. 'elohiym is translated in various ways, including God (2,346x), god (244x), judge (5x), GOD (1x), goddess (2x), great (2x), mighty (2x), angels (1x), exceeding (1x), God-ward (with H4136) (1x), godly (1x) (all KJV). I doubt "God" applies. "gods" makes little sense to me, though that seems to be a preference for several translations. "Angels" piques my fancy the most, but "judge" offers a rather interesting twist to the plot, since Samuel was a judge.
Whatever it was she saw, the fact that she saw something different from normal tells us that it wasn't her actions that caused it! Something happened she didn't mean to happen. And if she didn't do it, who did?
Well, who else involved has the power to cause "gods" or "angels" to come out out of the earth? The LORD is the only answer I can come up with. Certainly not Saul or Samuel. Perhaps the woman's familiar spirit, but again, it wasn't the normal result. What would make the familiar spirit do something abnormal?
One more thing--I recognize a disconnect with my view in that Saul was not seeing these things, at least at first. He had to ask the woman what she saw, and he used that to determine if it were Samuel. Whether Saul "perceived" Samuel in 1 Sam 28:14 with his eyes or with his understanding, I can't tell. But I doubt he would bow down to the witch. So he either bowed down to something he couldn't see or to what he perceived with his eyes was Samuel. Since it seems like the thing talked to him directly, without the witch's help, I would lean toward Saul seeing the thing represented as Samuel directly.
So that brings up the question of why didn't Saul see Samuel at the beginning. One possibility is that the witch actually had some kind of power to see something that wasn't in visual range, but when it came close enough, Saul could see it, too. What kind of power might that be? Something derived from the familiar spirit is my guess. Maybe that's why the word "seer" was used in those times, because they could see things (not necessarily future, but past and present) others could not.
This is rather long, and I apologize.
I've treated ECT on principle alone, and it fails miserably, plus all the issues over the word 'aion' and its derivatives indicate periods of time, not a state of endlessness or everlastingness. Beyond quibbles over grammar, still the concept of ECT violates so many ethical precepts and conscience, and decimates any genuine revelation of the grace of a loving 'God', that its no wonder a great deal of those in insane asylums got there in part by religious misrepresentations of 'God', and are living their own 'hells' while on earth, becaues the 'Devil' has his 'forks' in so much 'theology' these days. And thats just the tip of the iceberg.