Where to start? I understand that you are trying to make a jab at the arrogance of the write. And the person is both arrogant and wrong ( Greek wasn't the original language of the book of Exodus for one thing). but when you label yourself, "eclectic Pagan Christian" there is a certain contradiction of terms in that, and although you can call yourself anything you want, and make points about what people think about the linguistic definition of the term witch, rather than the actual one, there is a matter of reality that is at issue in this whole post.

While I wish you well on your spiritual journey, there is something specific indicated in "Christian" as a label and "Christianity" as a set of beliefs and lifestyle. It becomes meaningless when interchanged with anything someone personally wants it to be.

but, yeah, basically I agree with you on this: we should try to think before we speak(write).

The educated liberal writer thinks that Exodus was originally written in Greek? Some education. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is a decent translation of the original Hebrew.

"I am more educated then most Christians will ever hope to be."

This Christian would have written THAN instead of THEN. Do I get smart points for that?

Yes, well, I can't speak to his deep study of religion, but apparently it didn't go far enough as he seems to think Exodus in the original is Gree, whereas of course it's Hebrew.

I hope this post provides some added value to some of the above comments.

The source quote in Exodus uses the word /MKeShePhaH/, which the King James Version translates "witch" and the New International Version better translates "sorceress".

Hebrew, like Arabic, is based upon a consonantal root. In this word, the root is /KShPh/ (sorry, I don't know how to put in Hebrew characters: caph/shin/pe), which means "to pray to" or "to worship". It is then modified with an intenstive, changing the meaning to "to invoke" or "to call upon to do one's bidding". In the Bible, it is only used in reference to false gods.

The word is modified with the "person who" prefix /M/ (like the well-known in /jihad/ --> /Mujihadeenn/ (/een/ being the plural), and the /+feminine/ suffix /aH/, to produce the word /MKeShePhaH/, meaning "sorceress": a female person who invokes false gods to do her bidding.

But back to "cairde_luis", the nom-de-web of "Kin Rowan". She now is in the somewhat enviable position of being able to demonstrate whether or not she is, as she claims, "educated". An educated person will say something like, "Oh, my. Yeah, I made a mistake. Of course that should've been 'in Hebrew' instead of 'in Greek'. And I was just plain wrong about that 'poisoner' bit: I must've read it somewhere and just trusted the guy who wrote it: sure got the wool pulled over my eyes."

Unfortunately, there is a very strong self-delusion possibility. This would think, "Well, I know that the word means 'poisoner (of wells)', so anyone who claims otherwise is just a liar and I don't need to pay attention to such absurdities."

Time will tell which is more like Ms. Rowan at present.

"I follow some of the tenants of Christianity."

Speaking of smart points, I wonder how much rent the "tenants of Christianity" are paying, and whether one would be a stalker if one followed them too closely.

I did a little Goodling, and while I can't find the original source for this idea, it seems to have been popularised by the SF writer Robert Heinlein....very popular amonst Neo-Pagans.

I think I've found the source from whence this confusion probably comes...the Septuagint version has the word as "pharmakos", who indeed dealt in poisons.

There's a fascinating, rather well-informed article at

http://www.draknet.com/proteus/Suffer.htm