A Defense of Exodus 22:18

One undeniable dark stain on the history of Christianity is the proximity of Christians to the despised witch hunts of earlier centuries.  Opponents of Christianity can simply cite the legendary Exodus 22:18 after recounting the evils of these hunts, seeming to have an impenetrable case that the Bible, with its condemnation of witchcraft and how it assigns it capital punishment to it, teaches a depraved position on the subject.  After all, the verse does say "Do not allow a sorceress to live" (NIV).  But I will show that these critics have either misunderstood or ignored what the Bible does and does not command with regard to treatment of sorceresses.  I must address several points to prove that Exodus 22:18 does not stoop down to some heinous evil.  In doing so I will clarify and defend Mosaic Law's position on witchcraft.

First of all, Mosaic Law never commands or uses the infamous "water trial" or "trial by ordeal".  This refers to the asinine practice of hurling a woman (or a man in some cases) into a river to discern if she was a sorceress.  If she floated she was convicted as a witch, but if she sank to the bottom (and thus likely drowned) she was declared innocent.  Fascinating procedure, right?  So very ethical and rational.  Actually, this serves as a great example of the unjust lunacy Mosaic Law repeatedly legislated against.


--Deuteronomy 17:6--"On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness."

--Deuteronomy 19:15--"One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed.  A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."


In contrast to the moral and rational errors of other nations which resorted to superstitious rituals like the water ordeal to establish supposed guilt or tortured people until they confessed to witchcraft, the due process principle in Deuteronomy makes it clear more than once that it does not allow for these abominations (see also Numbers 35:30).



Stories of sorceresses emphasize their often grotesque
malevolent and deceptive nature.  In tales and historical
events they have been charged with murder, seduction,
kidnapping, deceit, and causing disease.

Secondly, now that the water trial point has been addressed, I will focus on the wild hunts for witches that Christians are accused of condoning or carrying out in the past.  It is clear that the Bible never calls for mass witch hunts led by crazed, delusional individuals willing to interpret every event as a possible or definite indicator of sorcery, nor does it defend such practices.  Some justifications for actively searching for witches do seem far more unlikely than others.  A medieval volume titled Malleus Maleficarum written by a church figure apparently recorded that witches kidnapped penises by using magic to separate them from their bodies, though they retained some sort of life and somehow developed consciousness . . . and were fed oats while held captive within nests by the witches.  I swear I'm not contriving this; I've actually read that this belief was cited as a valid reason for active witch hunts!  But Biblical law did not instruct anyone to coercively and disruptively search for people to label criminals, but instead it conveyed an appropriate penalty enforced only upon the testimony of two or more honest eyewitnesses.  Witch hunts are a foreign concept to the Bible and are never mandated or excused.

Now I will move on to examining the actual punishment for a convicted sorceress in Scripture.


--Exodus 22:18--"Do not allow a sorceress to live."

--Leviticus 20:27--"A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death.  You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads."


Other verses explicitly prohibit sorcery or necromancy of any kind.


--Leviticus 19:26--"Do not practice divination or sorcery."

--Leviticus 19:31--"Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them.  I am the Lord your God."

--Leviticus 20:6--"I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from my people."

--Deuteronomy 18:9-11--"When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.  Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.  Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you."


Obviously the penalty was death; however, there was never to be any flogging, racking, or any other tortures prior to the death of a sorceress, or any other capital criminal for that matter.  I have heard of ancient and modern treatment of alleged sorceresses where the accused were subjected to abuse prior to their deaths, and this never occurred under the ancient Jewish legal code.  Mosaic Law only rarely implements torture of any kind [1], and even then it is very mild and quick (even by comparison to some modern punishments) with strict limitations on its extent, though it is never used in addition to capital punishment.  The Bible never advocated the torture of even convicted witches but merely ordered their death.

Sorceresses have appeared in many places in literature: Circe in The Odyssey, the witch
of Endor in the Bible (1 Samuel 28), Morgan le Fay in tales of King Arthur, the three
witches in Macbeth.
 

So no one can claim the Bible supports hysteria-motivated witch hunts, the concept of trial by ordeal [2], pre-execution torture, or any of the atrocities people have engaged in as they investigate or punish those they believe are witches.  Christians or "Christians" who endorsed or participated in the witch hunts in question here committed the same error as the "Christians" in history that took benevolent laws in Scripture concerning slavery and corporal punishment and twisted them into justifying the slave trade or vicious tortures.  They perverted truth by distorting it entirely.  But true acts of malevolent sorcery certainly deserve the death penalty as enforced in Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:27.  Women (and men) who have used spells to kill, injure, torment, and terrify others deserve to die, as Exodus clearly states.  In addition to the obvious malicious uses of sorcery, to engage in such activity relies on a supernatural force contrary to God and thus constitutes an act of grave idolatry as well.  Two great horror films this year, The Witch and Blair Witch, each presented the terrors of what a powerful witch (or witches) might inflict on other humans, and the results would be quite frightening.  After all, witches in legends often commit acts of terror, murder, kidnapping, and malevolent magic, causing sicknesses and agony, inciting great fear, and communing with evil spirits.  If someone like this was demonstrated to exist, we would indeed have a moral obligation to kill her.

Last but not least, the Bible did not selectively oppose sorcery by targeting female witches but not male sorcerers.  Though some critics of the Bible have argued that Exodus 22:18 is sexist, the reference to killing sorceresses in the verse does not at all mean that male witches escaped punishment, as Leviticus 20:27 proves otherwise.  So civil government should not "allow a sorceress to live", but should also not commit the same horrifying errors as past generations regarding this area. 

Of course, if God does not exist then there is no point to morally objecting to this law regardless of what it actually means, because in the absence of God there can be no such thing as right or wrong.  No one can consistently condemn Exodus 22:18 unless he or she is some sort of theist.  Christians themselves need to remember that there is no such thing as ethics apart from God; there is no other standard to appeal to outside of God by which to call him evil.


[1].  See:
  A.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/corporal-punishment-part-1.html
  B.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/corporal-punishment-part-2.html
  C.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/eye-for-eye-part-1.html
  D.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/you-shall-cut-off-her-hand.html

[2].  There is a somewhat related idea codified in Numbers 5 having to do with a woman suspected of adultery, but there is no ordeal by river water or fire authorized in the Bible, as the Old Testament instead demands that no one be punished for "any crime or offense" without two or three honest and unbiased witnesses.