“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God".

(1 John 4)

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Some fundamentalists use the Bible, which they consider to be a "Holy book", in a selective and decontextualized way, choosing some passages that present prohibitions which, according to them, should be followed faithfully to this day, and completely ignoring other prohibitions contained in the Bible itself. How to justify this "selectivity"?

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Let us begin by analyzing the Deuteronomy 18, which speaks of the "Prohibition of communication with spirits", used as a reference for combating Spiritism.

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"When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.  Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.” (Deuteronômy 18:9-11)

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If we examine the text carefully, not only with a "religious" and dogmatic look, but with a broader view of the historical context, we will see that such a prohibition had a very specific purpose and was applied in a particular moment in the history of the Jewish people, just like all other prohibitions we will see in this chapter.

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Deuteronomy was written at a time when the Jewish people really needed a very rigid discipline, for they still bore habits acquired from the period when they were slaves in Egypt, among them the consultation with "necromancers", who were people evoking the dead with the purpose of "guessing" the future and, through this trick, they used to deceive and exploit the people of that time, as still happens today, where it is still possible to find bad people who carry out such activity. Within this context, at that time Moses forbade the Jewish people to seek communication with the dead.

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The Bible does not prohibit communication with spirits in a generic way. We can even find in the Bible itself a passage which contains an orientation regarding the care we must take in this communication: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, (1 John 4)

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The above passage clearly demonstrates that there is no condemnation to the communication with spirits. It only suggests caution in such communication; that we must "prove" or "verify" whether the spirits with whom we communicate truly "come from God" or not, that is, if they are good or bad spirits.

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Moreover, if communication with spirits were forbidden in a generic and universalistic way, how can we find in the Bible the reports of Jesus himself communicating with the dead?

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”After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.” (Matthew 17:1-3)

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If there are then reports that Jesus himself spoke to spirits, we can come to two conclusions:

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1. Communication with the spirit of a dead person is possible

2. Such communication is not something abominable, otherwise Jesus himself would not have done it

 

 Other Biblical prohibitions that are ignored by fundamentalists

 

Let us now look at other prohibitions, also found in the Bible, some even in the same chapter of the prohibition on communicating with spirits, which are conveniently ignored by fundamentalists, because obviously they would not be applicable in modern times:

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• Prohibition of shaving and cutting hair:  “‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27)

• Prohibition that women teach or have any authority: “ A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. (1 Timothy 2:9-12)

• Submission of women: “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Colossians 3:18)

• Death penalty for a woman who did not marry virgin: “If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

• Death penalty for those who work on Saturdays: "For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death. (Exodus 35:02)

• Prohibition of disabled persons from entering temples: “No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed;  no man with a crippled foot or hand,  or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles.  No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. (Levíticus 21: 17 - 21)

• Prohibition of unlawful children or people with problems in the genitals of entering the churches: “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord. No one born of a forbidden marriage nor any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation. (Deuteronomy 23:1-2)

• Death penalty for rebellious children: “If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard”.  Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

 

So let us ask: Why should the prohibitions presented above be ignored and the prohibition contained in Deuteronomy 18, related to communication with spirits, must be faithfully obeyed?

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In  fact, what we see is a "selective choice", made by fundamentalists, of the biblical passages that they wish to defend. Of course, in modern society, it would be very difficult to convince the believers to stone their rebellious children to death, or modern women to be submissive to men, or the authorities to execute people who do not work on Saturdays.

 

Women who did not marry virgins would not be stoned either; disabled people could not be prohibited from entering religious temples. So, since modern society would never accept the application of these ancient and cruel laws, fundamentalists "make an exception" in their literal interpretation of the Bible, stating that such passages were valid only in Moses' time.

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However, the chapter Deuteronomy 18 must be conveniently interpreted in a literal way, in order to provide an  argument "grounded" in the Bible, in an attempt to justify a "condemnation" of Spiritism and communication with spirits. But, as we have seen, such a biblical prohibition, like all others, is totally out of context and cannot be generalized because, if it were to be generalized, then all other biblical prohibitions should also be, bringing the whole world back into the primitive era.

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From everything that has been exposed, we can conclude that the Bible is not a book that must be followed literally. On the contrary, we should be able to see in it the "disciplinary" content contained in the Old Testament, which is made up of severe and regulatory laws applicable to the Jewish people at that time, and which are not applicable today.

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It is essential to use discernment, rationality and logic, so that we can extract from this millennial book its true essence, without inconsistencies, contradictions or adulterations motivated by religious and political reasons.