Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 1: Biblical and Pagan Societies

WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC IN EUROPE: BIBLICAL AND PAGAN SOCIETIES, edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark is the first in a six-volume series of scholarly essays on the subject of magic and witchcraft in Europe from the Iron Age through modern times. I have read five of the six books, and found them to be very scholarly, extremely interesting, and best of all-objective. The last book in the series, Volume 4. "The Period of the Witch Trials" (known as the "burning times" in 15th Century Europe), is scheduled to be published in late 2002. The historians, linguists, archeologists, and other social scientists who worked on these volumes are academics and experts in their subject areas.Volume I contains two essays, "Witchcraft and Magic in Ancient Mesopotamia" by Marie-Louise Thomsen and "Magic in Ancient Syria-Palestine and in the Old Testament." Thomsen's essay examines and comments on literary and other material found in archeological digs in Mesopotamia. Treasures unearthed in what is today modern Iraq speak of lost empires (Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian) and wonders of the ancient world such as the White Ziggurat and the Hanging Gardens. Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where the Moon God Sin and the Goddess Inanna ruled) has produced numerous ancient cuneiform writing tablets which describe the power of precious stones, amulets for the protection of babies, love charms, potency incantations, and a variety of other practices for dealing with ghosts, evil portents, healing and the removal of curses. The work of Babylonian astrologer/astronomers still amaze.Cryer's work tackles the notion of the Bible as "truth" head on. He sets about constructing the story of magic in ancient Israel and Judah (Syria-Palestine) using archeological evidence and other extra-biblical material, as well as the Bible. He says the Old Testament is an "anno mundi" chronology that takes the moment of creation as it's starting point. However, "the Biblical anno mundi chronology is badly out of synchronization with world history." Cryer argues extra-Biblical material cannot be used merely to "illustrate" Bible text, i.e. the Bible should not be treated as a privileged source by scholars but must be subjected to the same scrutiny and analysis as other historical documents. For example, "All indications are that the territorial states of Israel and Judah existed...." However, the archeological record does not support the stories of Moses and the wandering of the Jews in the wilderness following 400 years in Egypt.Cryer suggests the Durkheimian distinction between the religion of the group and the magic of the individual may be misleading. He says Jewish priests of the Old Testament practiced magic as part of their religion, but their magic was not very different from that of non-Jewish "sorcerers" or magicians they condemned. Cryer provides numerous examples from Biblical text that reveal magical thinking/action, and he compares them with similar thinking in texts from Mesopotamia. He suggests that it comes down to this-the magic others do is evil while the magic sanctioned by your group is religion. He says the Old Testament priests condemned astrology because they did not know how to do it.Regarding the magical practice of "casting lots" to predict an outcome, Cryer suggests the magi/priest knew it would work on average, but could not explain why. Casting lots is not very different from what modern statisticians do when they conduct an exit poll in an election. Even today, no one can explain WHY probability works (ask any mathematician). It is MAGIC.

There is a very big problem with this book. The first part is a well rounded review of some of the tablets translated from the cunnieform of Sumer. It reads like a Master's Thesis, with a lot of information crammed into a review format. This is the only reason this book gets two stars.The bad part is the second half of this book. It is authored By F. H. Cryer. The second part titled "Magic in Ancient Syria- Palistine - and in the Old Testiment" is so poorly written that I have to question the education of the man who wrote it. One of the MOST glaring ommissions is that Phonecia is COMPLETELY left out. You know, Phonecia, the driving force of religion in the entire middle east for over a thousand years?Phonecia, the civilization that included major goddess and god forms that formed the bulk of middle eastern religion, and with Tanit in North Africa also influencing symbology in Egypt ? None of this is included. To Mr Cryer, apparently none of this existed. The Phonecians are KNOWN to have had major sway over the entire region. Instead, Mr. Cryer has a fitfull expression of the Old Teastiment as "history". In this he does such a poor job of explaination of why the Old Testiment is not a reliable historical document, that he leaves out vast amounts of information that would actually be pertinent to the topic of the series. It comes off as a snit.I have to admit that Cryer's section is so devestatingly bad, that I have come to question the University of Pennsylvania's judgement in offering this series under their imprint. The original was published in Britain. After I apprehended this fact, I understood why the scholarship was so poor. If you are interested in this series I recommend that you skip this volume.

I first encountered this series in my college's library. They only had a couple of volumes to this six volume set, but I could not put them down. The historical research is thorough for anyone interested in the subject of witchcraft and magic throughout history.Volume 1 is a bit slender,unlike the rest of the set which are a bit thicker. There is sketchy information about the witch's craft during the early periods because much of what is now practiced were incorporated in both state rites of now long gone civilizations and folk ways that were not so well documented during a mostly illiterate populace. All in all, this book builds a solid foundation for the rest of the series.

First, this has very, very little to do with witchcraft or magic in Europe. The first part is about Mesopotamian magical texts, while the second one involves questions of divination and curses in the Old Testament.This book is also quite simplistic and does not provide a very deep look at any of these subjects.I would recommend "Amulets and Superstitions" by Budge as a better coverage of the same material despite the fact that it is a century out of date.

good book fast delivery

Of the two main essays included the first one alone makes the purchase worthwhile. As others have said, the second is a little superfluous and probably just there to make it a book and not just a pamphlet. worth buying nonetheless.

Not bad