I REALLY need some guidance!

[triplemoonlove9091]

Exactly. Thank you.

[mary25]

I hear what you are saying but many, many, many Christians do not believe or adhere to every word of the Bible but they still call themselves Christians, just as there are people who call themselves Christians and do not attempt to convert others. I say this as a person who has worked for the church and I know priests and bishops who do not take every word of the Bible at face value.

I have great respect for neo-pagans, atheists and people who practice other religions. I personally do not feel conflicted about honoring Hecate AND Jesus.

I do understand that there are many people who have had negative experiences with Christianity and that much wrong has been done in the name of Christianity, as well as good things. There are ugly passages in the Bible as well as beautiful ones. One of the things I love about Wicca is that there are NO ugly parts. I entirely understand why many people would reject Christianity as a faith and even hate it. There are practices by denominations that I personally reject. But I do not hate my religion. I have chosen to shape it into something I can live by by discarding what doesn’t work for me and keeping what does, and I am far from the first Christian to do that. My faith is not based in fear. It is based in love, as is my practice.

[Jewitch]

I personally identify as a Jewish Witch — I was raised Christian, but I’m currently in the process of converting to Judaism. I’m just not telling my rabbi that I still work with Hekate, Bast, and Hestia

I think it’s important to acknowledge here that there are so many ways of translating and interpreting the Bible. It’s important to acknowledge that all translations are flawed in one way or another.

I’ve taken a university course on Biblical Hebrew where I learned the language and as a final project had to translate a chunk of the Hebrew Bible (i.e., Old Testament in Christian terminology). I can say from experience that it’s practically impossible to 100% faithfully translate from Hebrew into English.

Long story short, there are really only two forms (if I’m remembering correctly — it’s been a while since I took the class) of verbs, and each of those two forms is used for the English equivalent of multiple different verb forms. So that makes it impossible to know what the exact meaning behind the Hebrew words meant when they were written down hundreds, if not thousands, of years before the stories and laws were actually written down. In addition, Hebrew is a consonantal language, meaning that when it’s written, the vowels are left out of the words. “Modern Hebrew” developed a system of marking the vowels, but, unfortunately, when the rabbis of the Middle Ages (if I remember the timeframe correctly) who were marking the vowels in the text to make it easier to read, they went off the pronunciations of the passages as they were passed down orally. Pronunciation changes and vowels shift, as can be seen historically in the English language. Different regions pronounced things differently, and each region’s pronunciation and dialect were affected by the other languages that people spoke in that region. All this is to say that the vowels that were codified were the best guesses of the rabbis who were marking the vowels at that time.

Back to the verb forms. The verb forms in Biblical Hebrew were differentiated by what sometimes came down to a single vowel sound. A single dot can completely change the meaning of the verb.

For example, when you turn to Genesis 1:1, if you’re reading any modern translation (i.e., pretty much any translation other than the King James Version), it points out additional possible translations of that verse. “In the beginning, God created…” has numerous possible translations that seem subtle but in other parts of the Bible can completely change the entire meaning of something. There’s a big difference between “In the beginning, God created” and other possible translations such as “…when God began to create.”

On top of the (often inaccurate) translations, the Bible has the opportunity to be interpreted in an infinite number of ways. There is no one correct translation or interpretation of the Bible. Even the rabbis who went through the Bible and wrote down all the laws during the codification of the Mishnah during the Rabbinical Period of Jewish history believed that the Bible wasn’t meant to be read in the literal sense of the words on the page/scroll. They believed that the Bible was meant to be interpreted to apply to the current age, and not to only look at the literal meaning of a Bronze Age text. The rabbis at that time acknowledged that it shouldn’t be taken literally because they acknowledged that because it came from such a different time, (1) they couldn’t know exactly what was meant by some of the words/verses, and (2) the Bible was meant to be interpreted and applied to the current era, not to make one be stuck in the Bronze Age. When the rabbis codified the Mishnah, they laid out the law as they interpreted it, but even within that law, there were many varying opinions.

TLDR, the rabbis who codified Jewish law were essentially saying “These are the laws, but we acknowledge that there’s no one completely correct way, and the Bible should continue being interpreted in ways that are relevant for each following time period.”

I could ramble forever about that kind of thing, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll stop there and you can interpret what I’ve said as you wish.

In terms of the prohibition on Witchcraft, divination, etc., there are also multiple interpretations of those prohibitions.

Here’s an article I found where someone shared their interpretation of those prohibitions. Please keep in mind that this is only one opinion, and it’s not meant to be taken as Gospel because it’s just that — an informed opinion and belief. Can You Even be a Jewish Witch?

The important takeaway here is that just as there’s no one way to be a Witch, there’s also no one way to be a Christian or to be a Jew. Gatekeeping is toxic in any community and only leads to more harm.