This work studies the occult terms witch, wizard, magician, soothsayer, and sorcerer which appear in the King James Bible and its usage of these words with corresponding terminology in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, sixteenth-century English, and modern English Bibles. In order to make the comparison of Biblical occult terminology the most accurate, I utilized the definitions of occult terminology provided by modern anthropologists whose research in the occult are widely regarded as definitive. / Chapter One provides the anthropological foundations. Chapters Two through Four discuss the occult terminology in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Bibles along with a brief excursus on the social and cultural conditions of the respective historical periods in which these Bibles were written. Chapters Five and Six relate the political, socio-economic, and religious conditions of sixteenth-century England coupled with a lengthy discussion of the occult terminology contained in the Bibles and other theological literature of that era and locale. / This study has shown that the meanings of certain occult words in the various Bibles did change throughout respective historical periods and within certain religious and social contexts due to authorial intention. Finally, this research has shown that the King James Bible, against which the terminology of the other Bibles was compared, was a brilliant piece of rational scholarship. The Conclusion and Appendix attest that the King James Bible started a translation tradition, continuing to be employed, which utilized a less descriptive, more generic occult terminology in line with the terminology used by the original authors of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament for the express purpose of attempting to de-energize popular belief in the occult. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-12, Section: A, page: 3984. / Major Professor: David H. Darst. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78115 |
| Contributors | Jeffers, Steven L., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 282 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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