- Why “Witch” in the Bible Is a Translation Problem
- The Witch of Endor: The One Witch the Bible Doesn’t Kill
- The New Testament Vocabulary of Sorcery and Magic
- How Medieval Christianity Reshaped the Biblical Definition
- How Modern Witches Respond to the Biblical Definitions
- Christian Witchcraft: The Synthesis That Refuses to Die
- Common Misconceptions About the Bible and Witchcraft
A Roman priest once told a Greek colleague that his gods had no myths, only rituals. The Greek laughed. The Roman was not joking.
When the King James translators rendered Exodus 22:18 as “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” they set in motion a chain of consequences that still shapes how millions understand witchcraft. That single verse, filtered through a 1611 English translation unfamiliar with the original Hebrew, has been used to justify persecution, define heresy, and create a binary that modern witchcraft neither fits nor accepts.
The relationship between witchcraft and biblical definitions is one of misreading, translation drift, and a fundamental clash between two entirely different worldviews. The Bible never addressed what modern practitioners call witchcraft. It spoke to specific Canaanite and Hellenistic practices that the Hebrew and Greek texts named with words like kashaph, ob, and pharmakeia. Those words were later collapsed into the English “witchcraft,” and the collision has never stopped.
Why “Witch” in the Bible Is a Translation Problem
The Hebrew text of Exodus 22:17 (verse 18 in Christian Bibles) uses the verb תְּכַשֵּׁף (tekhasheph), from the root כָּשַׁף (kashaph). The word appears fewer than a dozen times in the Old Testament. Scholars debate whether it referred to a specific type of divination, a form of poisoning, or a kind of ritual manipulation of deities. No surviving passage describes what a mekhasheph (the noun form) actually did.
The Septuagint, the Greek translation used by early Christians, translated kashaph as φαρμακεία (pharmakeia), the root of “pharmacy.” That word carried connotations of drug use, magical potions, and poisoning. The New Testament picks up the same term. Galatians 5:20 lists pharmakeia among the “works of the flesh,” alongside enmity, jealousy, and drunkenness.
But by the time the King James translators worked in 1611, English had a different target. The word “witch” already carried the weight of medieval European folklore: women who made pacts with devils, flew on broomsticks, and attended sabbats. The translators mapped that imported concept onto the Hebrew and Greek, and the map was wrong from the start.
The result is that the English Bible condemns a practice that the original texts never described.
The Witch of Endor: The One Witch the Bible Doesn’t Kill
First Samuel 28 presents a strange exception. King Saul, desperate for guidance, seeks out a woman with an אוֹב (ob) — a familiar spirit or ghost-medium. The woman raises the prophet Samuel from the dead. Samuel delivers a prophecy of doom.
The text never calls her a mekhasheph. She is a ba’alat-ov, a “mistress of a ghost.” She is not executed. She survives the story and even prepares a meal for the terrified Saul.
Centuries of Christian interpreters have argued over her: was she a true necromancer, a charlatan, or an instrument of God? The account is notable for its lack of condemnation. The woman is a competent practitioner. She is also pragmatic, feeding the king after his encounter.
That story reveals something crucial: the Hebrew Bible distinguishes between types of prohibited practices, and the English word “witch” blurs them all into a single category. The ob is not the kashaph. The yidde’oni (a spirit-knower, Leviticus 19:31) is not a poisoner. The biblical authors were specific. The translators were not.
The New Testament Vocabulary of Sorcery and Magic
When the New Testament mentions sorcery, it uses two main terms: φαρμακεία (pharmakeia) and μαγεία (mageia — magic). Pharmakeia appears in Galatians 5:20, Revelation 9:21, and Revelation 21:8. The word refers to the use of drugs or potions for ritual or harmful purposes. It does not mean casting spells in the modern sense.
Mageia derives from the Persian magoi, the priestly caste that visited the infant Jesus in Matthew 2. The Greek word for “magician” appears in Acts 8:9, where Simon Magus practices sorcery and later tries to buy the Holy Spirit. Simon’s sin is not witchcraft as understood later; it is attempting to commodify divine power.
The New Testament never defines a systematic theology of witchcraft. It treats magical practices as one among many behaviors associated with the pagan world, lumped with idolatry and sexual immorality. The condemnation is moral and theological, not a classification of techniques.
By the time the KJV translates these passages, “sorcery” and “witchcraft” are used interchangeably. Revelation 21:8 condemns “sorcerers” (pharmakeus) to the lake of fire. Modern readers often assume this includes all modern witchcraft. It does not. The Greek condemned drug peddlers and ritual poisoners, not people drawing down the moon.
How Medieval Christianity Reshaped the Biblical Definition
The English word “witch” arrived in the Bible already carrying baggage. By the 16th century, European demonologists like Heinrich Kramer (author of the Malleus Maleficarum, 1486) and Jean Bodin had constructed a detailed theology of witchcraft: heretical pact with the Devil, aerial flight, infanticide, and cannibalism.
James VI of Scotland published Daemonologie in 1597, four years before the King James Bible began its translation. James had overseen witch trials. His book argued that witches were Satan’s agents. The translators of the KJV worked under James’s patronage. It is no coincidence that “witch” appears instead of a more precise term.
That definition — witch as devil-worshiper, became the default Christian definition for centuries. It never came from the Bible itself. It came from a 300-year synthesis of folk belief, Inquisitorial manuals, and royal propaganda.
Modern biblical scholarship has largely abandoned that reading. Lexicons now translate kashaph as “to practice sorcery, to use magic,” and pharmakeia as “sorcery, magic, often involving drugs.” The medieval witch is absent from the lexicons. But the association persists in popular Christianity.
How Modern Witches Respond to the Biblical Definitions
Practitioners of modern witchcraft, whether Wiccan, traditional craft, or eclectic, generally recognize that the biblical condemnation does not apply to them. The reasoning is straightforward: the Bible condemns practices that are foreign to modern witchcraft, child sacrifice (Deuteronomy 18:10), divination for malicious purposes, and ritual poisoning.
Where the biblical texts overlap with modern practice, reconciliation varies:
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Divination: Some practitioners argue that their use of tarot or scrying is no different from the biblical urim and thummim or Joseph’s cup divination (Genesis 44:5). Others accept the biblical ban as specific to Canaanite worship and not universal.
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Herbalism and spellcraft: The Hebrew term kashaph may have referred to harmful magic. Modern witchcraft emphasizes ethical constraint, often a Rede that forbids harming others. Practitioners draw a sharp line between biblical pharmakeia and their own healing work.
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Spirit communication: The ob of the Witch of Endor resembles modern mediumship. Some traditions reinterpret her story as an example of successful necromancy that was not condemned by the text itself.
The dominant stance in contemporary witchcraft is that the biblical definitions are irrelevant to a non-Christian practice. The Bible is a holy book for two religions, not for ours. But for Christian witches, those who practice witchcraft while maintaining Christian faith, the relationship is more contested.
Christian Witchcraft: The Synthesis That Refuses to Die
A small but persistent tradition of Christian witchcraft has existed for decades, formalized in books like R.J. Stewart’s The UnderWorld Initiation and the writings of Christian Wiccans. For these practitioners, the biblical definitions must be reinterpreted, not rejected.
They argue that the Hebrew condemnation of kashaph targeted Canaanite fertility cults and child sacrifice, not prayer, herbcraft, or ritual. They point to the priestly magical traditions of the Old Testament: the ritual of the red heifer, the Urim and Thummim, the consecration of the Temple. If magic is defined as ritual action that seeks to contact the divine, they say, the Bible is full of it.
Critics within both Christianity and witchcraft reject this synthesis. Mainstream Christian theology holds that witchcraft, by any definition, is a violation of the First Commandment. Many pagan witches argue that Christianity is an incompatible cosmology, and that Christian witchcraft is a contradiction in terms.
The debate remains unresolved. What is clear is that the biblical definitions of witchcraft were never intended to address the practices and worldviews that carry that name today.
Common Misconceptions About the Bible and Witchcraft
Myth: The Bible defines witchcraft as devil worship.
The Devil in the Old Testament is a limited figure, not a rival god. The New Testament develops Satan as a tempter, but never associates witchcraft with his worship. That link came from medieval demonology.
Myth: Leviticus 19:26 bans all forms of divination.
The verse prohibits “soothsaying” and “divining” as practiced by surrounding nations, but the Hebrew terms are specific: nachash (divination by omens) and anan (cloud-reading). The Bible elsewhere records divination without condemnation, as with Joseph’s silver cup.
Myth: The “witch” in Exodus 22:18 is a woman.
The Hebrew participle mekhasheph is masculine. The KJV translators added the feminine pronoun from their own cultural assumptions. The text does not specify gender.
Myth: Witchcraft is the only sin punishable by death in the Bible.
Many offenses carried the death penalty: adultery, blasphemy, striking a parent, working on the Sabbath. The verse is not uniquely harsh.
Myth: Modern Wicca is a revival of practices the Bible condemns.
Wicca was developed in the 1940s and 1950s by Gerald Gardner, drawing on ceremonial magic, folklore, and theosophy. It has no direct connection to ancient practices described in the Bible.
FAQ
Does the Bible really forbid witchcraft?
Yes, but the forbidden practices are specific to ancient Near Eastern and Greek contexts, not to modern witchcraft. The Hebrew and Greek terms do not translate cleanly into “witchcraft” as understood today.
What is the Witch of Endor story?
A woman with a familiar spirit summons the prophet Samuel for King Saul in 1 Samuel 28. She is not called a witch in the Hebrew text, and she is not punished.
Can a Christian be a witch?
Some Christians practice witchcraft and reconcile the two through reinterpretation of biblical texts. Mainstream Christianity generally considers the two incompatible.
How did “witch” end up in the Bible?
The King James translators used “witch” for Hebrew and Greek words that referred to different practices. Their choice reflected contemporary European beliefs about witchcraft rather than the original meaning.
The relationship between witchcraft and biblical definitions is not a disagreement about facts. It is a collision of two languages, separated by centuries of translation drift and cultural projection. The Bible condemns what it names. What it names is not what we do.
If you find yourself in this intersection, start with the primary texts. Look at the Hebrew and Greek. Read the historical context of the English translations. And then decide whether the verses apply to your path.
From the archives of Le Grand Grimoire, explore the deeper threads: the glossary entry for kashaph and the full guide on Christian witchcraft.