Ghost Hunters in the bible

Ghost stories fascinate me. I'm not sure why. But I love to hear them. I am intrigued to hear about people (or animals) who have passed on from this life but are not resting. Maybe I want to help them? Maybe I fear I will be one? I know I don't actually want to meet one. I'm not sure how to tell the difference between a ghost and a demon, and I don't think it would be fun to figure out. (We can look at demons in the bible another day.)


But these are just fairy tales, strange EMF readings, echoes of another time, energy trapped by certain physical objects... Perhaps...


Ghost Hunters is now a popular SyFy show, where they use science to try to prove or disprove hauntings and echoes. I spent several hours watching this show, criticizing their methods, the drama, I like doing that. But you don't see me looking for ghosts. It's really easy to criticize from the couch.

But did you know there are ghosts in the bible? And not just the Holy Ghost (Spirit). Full on ghosts. Cause people to faint from terror ghosts.

Read with me in 1 Samuel. The woman could see Samuel, but Saul could not. Then Samuel speaks to Saul (and I assume it was because his spirit possessed the woman, look closely at 1 Samuel 28:21. That, or she got so frightened she ran away?) I would argue that Saul "fainted" in 1 Samuel 28:20.

Jesus' disciples believed in ghosts. They accused him of being one when he was walking on water.

Leviticus has many laws about avoiding people who commune with ghosts.

• Don't seek them out
• Really, don't
• Heck, kill them

Why so harsh? Some of my favorite theories on why God said "Kill, Kill, Kill" are a) the word came through Moses, and as the word came  through  Adam, we see that man likes to set the line back much further than God sets it - God incorporated Rahab into the nation after all, b) the nation wasn't very sophisticated yet, they were just freed slaves with not much education, and to learn the heart of God they needed to remove all temptation in the most drastic way possible. Perhaps I will examine this in more detail in another post.

There are also many references to evil spirits and demons. We'll tackle that in yet another post.