Fish guts and bitter water

HTacianas · Mar 13, 2019

Numbers 5 describes a procedure for determining if a wife has "strayed", i.e., committed adultery. It seems a priest is to mix dust with holy water and have her drink it.

Tobit 6 gives a recipe of sorts to banish a demon by burning the heart and liver of a fish to drive away the demon.

Do you put much stock in such things? If you had a demon bothering you would you cook up some fish innards?

Presbyterian Continuist · Mar 13, 2019

HTacianas said:
Numbers 5 describes a procedure for determining if a wife has "strayed", i.e., committed adultery. It seems a priest is to mix dust with holy water and have her drink it.

Tobit 6 gives a recipe of sorts to banish a demon by burning the heart and liver of a fish to drive away the demon.

Do you put much stock in such things? If you had a demon bothering you would you cook up some fish innards?

Can you imagine Paul, when followed by the demonized slave girl, stopping her and feeding her fish innards to get rid of the demon?

Handmaid for Jesus · Mar 13, 2019

HTacianas said:
Numbers 5 describes a procedure for determining if a wife has "strayed", i.e., committed adultery. It seems a priest is to mix dust with holy water and have her drink it.

Tobit 6 gives a recipe of sorts to banish a demon by burning the heart and liver of a fish to drive away the demon.

Do you put much stock in such things? If you had a demon bothering you would you cook up some fish innards?

No. Jesus' name is sufficient.

Gregory Thompson · Mar 13, 2019

HTacianas said:
Numbers 5 describes a procedure for determining if a wife has "strayed", i.e., committed adultery. It seems a priest is to mix dust with holy water and have her drink it.

Tobit 6 gives a recipe of sorts to banish a demon by burning the heart and liver of a fish to drive away the demon.

Do you put much stock in such things? If you had a demon bothering you would you cook up some fish innards?

Hmm, never tried that. Sometimes I put sea salt in water and drink it, it calms magic down a little.

I found the Tobit passage curious when I read it in the past.

Presbyterian Continuist · Mar 13, 2019

Handmaid for Jesus said:
No. Jesus' name is sufficient.

A demon is a spirit being, so spiritual weapons (not carnal) are required to defeat it.

HTacianas · Mar 13, 2019

Oscarr said:
Can you imagine Paul, when followed by the demonized slave girl, stopping her and feeding her fish innards to get rid of the demon?

To be honest, if I was bothering someone and they reached into their pocket and pulled out a handful of fish guts I would leave them alone.

Presbyterian Continuist · Mar 13, 2019

HTacianas said:
To be honest, if I was bothering someone and they reached into their pocket and pulled out a handful of fish guts I would leave them alone.

Yes. I would think that there is something fishy about them. Do you know that old fishermen never die; they just smell that way.

Gregory Thompson · Mar 13, 2019

The physical remedies are used by non-christian religions to weaken the bond a spirit has with the body, they have no power against spirits.

Pavel Mosko · Mar 13, 2019

HTacianas said:
Do you put much stock in such things? If you had a demon bothering you would you cook up some fish innards?

There is some possibility that this could be an exorcist ritual of Solomon. I can see some potential Typological foreshadowing in it...

A few months back, I listened to a pod cast put on You-tube of the early origins of exorcism in Judaism. Here it is for folks that are interested in the topic.

Handmaid for Jesus · Mar 13, 2019

Michael Collum said:
I found the Tobit passage curious when I read it in the past.

Yeah, I did too. I often wonder how people lived without Lord Jesus. But I am grateful for being born on this side of the cross.

mark kennedy · Mar 13, 2019

I remember that potion the woman suspexted of adultry was supposed to drink. This doesn't sound like it belongs in the Mosaic Law.

Gregory Thompson · Mar 13, 2019

Pavel Mosko said:
There is some possibility that this could be an exorcist ritual of Solomon. I can see some potential Typological foreshadowing in it...

A few months back, I listened to a pod cast put on You-tube of the early origins of exorcism in Judaism. Here it is for folks that are interested in the topic.

That's interesting, I took the setting into account and figured it was a pagan remedy since they were in assyrian captivity and surrounded by all these other religions.

HTacianas · Mar 13, 2019

mark kennedy said:
I remember that potion the woman suspexted of adultry was supposed to drink. This doesn't sound like it belongs in the Mosaic Law.

I've always wondered if it is meant to be a bluff. Supposedly if the woman drinks the bitter water and she is guilty, all sorts of bad things happen to her, making her likely to confess rather than suffering the ordeal. But if she goes through it and no harm comes to her, the husband is punished for jealousy.

Each of them is at risk of loss so it goes a way in preventing false accusations.

Gregory Thompson · Mar 13, 2019

HTacianas said:
I've always wondered if it is meant to be a bluff. Supposedly if the woman drinks the bitter water and she is guilty, all sorts of bad things happen to her, making her likely to confess rather than suffering the ordeal. But if she goes through it and no harm comes to her, the husband is punished for jealousy.

Each of them is at risk of loss so it goes a way in preventing false accusations.

Not so sure about that, I've noticed when it is announced that communion can harm people who take it unworthily, this seems to place a curse on it .. because if this is not said .. no such consequences appear to be observed.

HTacianas · Mar 13, 2019

Michael Collum said:
Not so sure about that, I've noticed when it is announced that communion can harm people who take it unworthily, this seems to place a curse on it .. because if this is not said .. no such consequences appear to be observed.

That's something I never thought about. Paul said that receiving communion in an unworthy manner can cause sickness and even death. But he said that some had already become sick and died from it.

I'm not sure how the two are related. But it does give something to ponder if only to fill up some spare time.

Handmaid for Jesus · Mar 13, 2019

Michael Collum said:
Not so sure about that, I've noticed when it is announced that communion can harm people who take it unworthily, this seems to place a curse on it .. because if this is not said .. no such consequences appear to be observed.

In communion, I think the Catholics have this right, because the unworthy manner is not recognizing the body and blood of Lord Jesus.

Gregory Thompson · Mar 13, 2019

Handmaid for Jesus said:
In communion, I think the Catholics have this right, because the unworthy manner is not recognizing the body and blood of Lord Jesus.

I agree with that, I think there are problems like I described earlier when additional conditions to worthiness are added.

Pavel Mosko · Mar 13, 2019

Michael Collum said:
That's interesting, I took the setting into account and figured it was a pagan remedy since they were in assyrian captivity and surrounded by all these other religions.

I would recommend the fore-mentioned podcast/video previously posted. In Psalm 91, "the terror of the night" is a reference to a succubus / incubus type demon that many of the near eastern people's believed in.

I will also add there seems to be a lot of weird stuff in Jewish folk religion. Before I joined the Coptic Church, I was in a church that descended from the Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorian Church). The East Syriacs in one of their writings known as the Margenetha (The Pearl) mentioned a pious practice of rubbing dirt from a graveyard where saintly people are buried for healing (very ironic given what we know about germs etc. because we know this was done for many things and people most likely got their wounds infected doing this!).

Anyway a few years later I was reading up on the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and low behold I ran across the same thing! So this was some kind of old Jewish practice since both those Churches mostly descend from Jews who converted to Christianity. But this sort of thing really looks like necromancy to an outsider!

Gregory Thompson · Mar 13, 2019

Pavel Mosko said:
I would recommend the fore-mentioned podcast/video previously posted. In Psalm 91, "the terror of the night" is a reference to a succubus / incubus type demon that many of the near eastern people's believed in.

I will also add there seems to be a lot of weird stuff in Jewish folk religion. Before I joined the Coptic Church, I was in a church that descended from the Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorian).
The East Syriacs in one of their writings known as the Margenetha (The Pearl) mentioned a pious practice of rubbing dirt from a graveyard where saintly people are buried for healing (very ironic given what we know about germs etc. because we know this was done for many things and people most likely got their wounds infected doing this!).

Anyway a few years later I was reading up on the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and low behold I ran across the same thing! So this was some kind of old Jewish practice since both those Churches mostly descend from Jews who converted to Christianity. But this sort of thing really looks like necromancy to an outsider!

I think they might have picked up this practice from the OT passage that describes someone falling to his death into a hole where the bones of Elisha were and then got up like nothing was wrong with him.

Pavel Mosko · Mar 13, 2019

Agreed! I say that because I have been in many Apologetics discussions over the years concerning ancient church customs and liturgy that they are necromancy, paganism etc. and not true to Jewish or Biblical norms.

Fish guts and bitter water

Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

You can't steal my joy

Change is inevitable, feel free to spare some.

Senior Veteran

Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

Change is inevitable, feel free to spare some.

Arch-Dude of the Apostolic

You can't steal my joy

Natura non facit saltum

Change is inevitable, feel free to spare some.

Well-Known Member

Change is inevitable, feel free to spare some.

Well-Known Member

You can't steal my joy

Change is inevitable, feel free to spare some.

Arch-Dude of the Apostolic

Change is inevitable, feel free to spare some.

Arch-Dude of the Apostolic

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency