Reference: Magic, Divination, And Sorcery
Hastings
Magic, divination, sorcery, and witchcraft are all connected with belief in superhuman powers, and are methods whereby men endeavour to obtain from these powers knowledge of the future, or assistance in the affairs of life. Belief in magic and divination is most prevalent in the lower stages of civilization and religion. The arts of the magician and the diviner were founded upon the same logical processes as have issued in the development of modern science; but the limits within which deduction would be valid were disregarded, and the data were frequently imperfect. Accidental coincidence was often confused with causal sequence. (See Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, art. 'Divination'). Magic and divination were derived from attempts at reasoning which were very often erroneous; but from such crude beginnings science has slowly grown.
In their beginning these arts were associated with religion; and diviners and magicians were those thought to be most intimately connected with the Deity, and, owing to their superior knowledge of Him and His ways, best able to learn His secrets or secure His aid. Among the Arabs the priest was originally also the soothsayer; the Heb. k
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but after he had planned this, there appeared an angel of the Lord to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, fear not to take Mary your wife home, for what is begotten in her comes from the holy Spirit.
Now when Jesus was born at Bethlehem, belonging to Judaea, in the days of king Herod, magicians from the East arrived at Jerusalem,
Then, as they had been divinely warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by a different road.
Do not pray by idle rote like pagans, for they suppose they will be heard the more they say;
Besides, if I cast out daemons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Thus they will be your judges.
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we would like to have some Sign from you."
Now the Pharisees and Sadducees came up and, in order to tempt him, asked him to show them a Sign from heaven.
Besides, all they do is done to catch the notice of men; they make their phylacteries broad, they wear large tassels,
Besides, when he was seated on the tribunal, his wife had sent to tell him, "Do nothing with that innocent man, for I have suffered greatly to-day in a dream about him.")
Others by way of tempting him demanded he should give them a Sign from heaven.
Once more he came to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a royal official, whose son was lying ill at Capernaum;
Now for some time previous a man called Simon had been practising magic arts in the town, to the utter astonishment of the Samaritan nation; he made himself out to be a great person,
But the sorcerer Elymas (for that is the translation of his name) tried to divert the proconsul from the faith.
Now it happened as we went to the place of prayer that a slave-girl met us, possessed by a spirit of ventriloquism, and a source of great profit to her owners by her power of fortune-telling.
Some strolling Jewish exorcists also undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, "I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches!"
and numbers who had practised magic arts collected their books and burned them in the presence of all. On adding up the value of them, it was found that they were worth two thousand pounds.
idolatry, magic, quarrels, dissension, jealousy, temper, rivalry, factions, party-spirit,
so as to set you consecrated and unblemished and irreproachable in his presence ??23 that is, if you adhere to the foundations and stability of the faith, instead of moving away from the hope you have learned in the gospel, that gospel which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I Paul was made a minister.
Bad characters and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and deceived themselves;
nor did they repent of their murders or of their magic spells or of their sexual vice or of their thefts.
And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, crying, "Lo, God's dwelling-place is with men, with men will he dwell; they shall be his people, and God will himself be with them: