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John Gee's Last Stand

I haven't seen much discussion of something very noteworthy that Bill Reel dropped last week on his Facebook feed - scans of John Gee's final words as editor of the Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities (JSSEA). What Gee wrote in his remarks is not about apologetics directly, but the connection to his apologetic studies is obvious; in fact, I think it is apparent in Gee's final words that apologetics are his first priority. All that being said, I should probably confess that, although the repercussions for Gee's style of apologetics are obvious in these scans, the actual reason I enjoy this stuff is less about detached academic curiosity, and probably something closer to the reasons my wife watches The Bachelor.
The JSSEA is, as far as I can tell, a legitimate academic journal publishing in the field of Egyptology, based in Toronto. According to Gee's CV, he edited three volumes of this journal from 2008-2010. The final volume he edited (vol. 37) begins with some editorial remarks by Gee, an odd diatribe railing against the concept of peer review, titled "The Problem With Peer Review." Scan can be found here, but I am including a transcription:
The Problem with Peer Review
Peer review is supposed to be an unalloyed good, but anyone who thinks so cannot have spent much time in the process.
In theory peer review works as follows: A submission is received and the editor sends the submission without the name attached to one or more reviewers, each of whom is an expert in that subject. The reviewers independently recommend whether to accept the submission or suggest revisions. The reviewers do not know who wrote the paper and the author does not know who the reviewers are. If the paper does not pass muster, the editor is relieved of the responsibility of rejecting a friend's paper.
In practice, however, there are numerous problems with peer review.
Since Egyptology must cover four thousand years of human history and every facet of a complex civilization, Egyptologists must specialize of necessity. While the pool of Egyptologists is not very large, the number of peers in some specialized areas can in some cases be numbered on the fingers of one hand. In such small specialties, any reviewer who cannot figure out who the author is within a couple of minutes probably does not know enough to review the piece, and the same is true of an author who cannot discover who the reviewer is. If, as is true for some specialties, none of the specialists agree, it will simply not be possible to publish anything in a peer reviewed journal.
Peer review can be manipulated for malicious purposes. Examples from other disciplines have gained some notoriety. Under such circumstances, peer review can actually impede progress in a discipline as it prevents publication of new ideas, or correction of mistakes.
Because peer review is mostly anonymous and unremunerated work, there is no incentive for a peer reviewer to invest time or effort in it. As a result, some peer reviews are perfunctory without much thought or effort. I am aware of one papyrus published in an ostensibly peer-reviewed journal where the author cannot possibly have even read the papyrus he was publishing, but none of the reviewers even noticed showing that they cannot have read it either. This publication has been cited numerous times showing that none of the scholars citing the publication had bothered to read the papyrus either. This is clearly a failure of the review system.
As part of the peer review process, reviewers sometimes make suggestions to improve the article. These suggestions should improve the article. Sometimes, however, they do not improve the article. At other times they would have improved the article but the author has chosen to reject them.
Finally, one cannot edit a journal without stepping on various toes. I regret that I had to turn down many papers, including some written by friends. No personal slight was intended even if some was taken.
It is understandable why a freshly graduated student might be justifiably proud of themselves. It must be so wearisome to work with mere mortals. Mere mortals might not be overawed with a freshly graduated student's certifiable brilliance (just look at the diploma) and might actually make editorial suggestions or have the temerity to question the logic of the argument. I apologize to those who were offended at the prospect of working with mere mortals.
I am sorry for the inordinate delay in this issue. As one literary character expressed it, "I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I any thing to plead in excuse of my stay."1 When an editor can no longer bring the Journal in on time, it is time to leave. I wish Katja Goebs the best as she takes over the helm of the JSSEA...
Wow, that's... really something. While I'm sure that many of the imperfections of peer review he cites are real, it is nevertheless surprising to me that he would finish his editorship in an academic journal with a rant that seems to imply the academic community would be better off without it, not to mention a weirdly sarcastic tangent apparently directed at some student whose article he must have rejected. I am also curious about this alleged incident where someone published in "an ostensibly peer-reviewed journal where the author cannot possibly have even read the papyrus he was publishing," which he claims is a failure of the peer review system. RfM speculated this is a reference to Robert Ritner's 2000 article published in Dialogue titled, "The 'Breathing Permit of Hor' Thirty-four Years Later." The article is an update to Klaus Baer's original translation of the named papyrus. As the article notes in the introduction, Baer's initial work was based on photographs, and Ritner's own update is based on newer color photographs, since the church hadn't published an official volume yet, and since the church did not grant much outside access to the actual papyrus. Although the essay itself is tangential to any apologetics on the Book of Abraham, there is some criticism of Gee's arguments therein, mostly in the footnotes. After reading the rest of Gee's remarks in his journal, I am inclined to agree with RfM that this is probably what Gee is referring to.
So let's move on to Gee's next contribution to his final edited edition of this journal, a book review of The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt's Third Intermediate Period by Robert Ritner. As many of us are aware, Ritner was once Gee's professor's, and there is a history between the two, much of it centered around Gee's apologetics on the Book of Abraham. The book being reviewed, however, apparently has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham. The scan of the review can be found here, but I will transcribe the text as well:
Robert K. Ritner, Jr., The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt's Third Intermediate Period, [Writings of the Ancient World 21) (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009). ISBN-13: 978-1-58983-174-2. xx + 622 pp. $59.95.
For twenty years, the Society of Biblical Literature's series, Writings of the Ancient World has made available affordable and accurate translations of ancient texts that prove invaluable to students and professionals, especially ancient historians and biblical scholars who might not be proficient in the various languages. This book continues that series with translations of a number of texts from the Libyan period - the Egyptian time period contemporary with the bulk of the biblical narrative. Professor Ritner is generally a capable scholar, but has been known to badly misread the texts that he was proportedly (sic) publishing,24 so his translations and particularly his transliterations need to be checked against the original glyphs. The work under consideration shows that still to be the case.
Professor Ritner translates nearly three hundred texts in his anthology but numbers them rather oddly so that it seems as though there are only about two hundred. Most Of this material is conveniently available in the more comprehensive work of Karl Jansen-Winkeln25 and Olivier Perdu26 neither of which does Ritner mention. Anyone who uses Ritner's work will want to have Jansen-Winkeln at his elbow. For example, Ritner's translation of the settlement text of Henuttawy (C) from the Tenth Pylon of Karnak (pp. 138-43) is missing significant portions of the text, which may be found in Jansen-Winkeln.27
The translations are adequate. Hyper-Polotskian translations often leave the impression that the text has been translated but not into English. The translator seems to have avoided the worst excesses of the Polotskians but the translations are still often awkward and mechanical. "This is one of Ritner's few positive contributions to the field, one not written with the primary intent of attacking someone, and he seems thoroughly bored. It is disappointing that Ritner's considerable verbal gifts vanish when he is not writing vitriol.
Professor Ritner seems proud that his was the first Egyptological volume in the series Writings of the Ancient World to provide transliterations of the texts (p. 9). This would have been a real achievement if the transliterations were on the facing pages of the translations like those of the Other volumes of the series. Alas, such was not the case. Five pages of straight transliteration (pp. 88-92,349-53) followed by six or seven pages of translation (pp. 92-98, 353-58) becomes ludicrous besides useless. pinnacle is ten pages of straight transliteration (pp. 468-77). Think of the paper and ink wasted on pages that will scarcely be read! Without them the volume would have been much shorter, and probably significantly less expensive. Inclusion of the transliterations might have been helpful if the transliterations were accurate. Ritner's transliterations are generally an idealized view of the text as though they were written in the correct Middle Egyptian of a thousand years previously. But they were not, so the text in the transliteration often does not reflect what is written the hieroglyphs, and Ritner's transliterations suppress or distort numerous features of the contemporary language. Throughout the book brackets are so commonly misplaced that it is a wonder that they were included at all.
The poor formatting can at least be explained by noting that Professor Ritner simply dumped material on Bob Buller who tried to pull together "a coherent manuscript" out of the mess that Ritner gave him (p. 10). Buller has spent an enormous amount of work on this volume and the fact that it is as good as it is says much to Buller's credit. Buller should be exonerated for the continuous type-setting problems such as not placing the transliterations and translations on facing pages, or the ubiquitous breaks of lines in the middle of the words. Professor Ritner should have caught some of those. It was simply beyond Buller's skill to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that he had been given.
The book appears in print a decade out of date. Only four works in the bibliography date after 1999. At one point, Ritner says that a book that came out five years before his did was too late to be considered (p. 193). Ritner only lists it as "Wilson 2005" but does not include it in the bibliography and so leaves follow-up impossible. Several times Ritner says that the "dimensions [are] not given" (pp. 66-67) even though they are in a book that he lists in his bibliography (p. 601) and published by the Oriental Institute where he works, but apparently could not bother to use as a basis for the inscriptions that he published from it.
The numerous historical errors will lead those who are not specialists on Third Intermediate period studies astray. Here are a sampling:
- Ritner provides a helpful genealogy of Ankhefenkhonsu (p. 16) showing the High Priest Menkhepere (conventionally 1035-986 B.c.) ten generations apart from Sheshonq 1 (924-889 B.C.). This would mean that if Ritner has reconstructed the genealogy correctly, then for ten generations, the men in this genealogy were consistently having children at the average age of eleven. Either Ritner's reconstruction is incorrect or the chronology of the Third Intermediate Period needs to be expanded on the order of a century.
-Ritner often assigns rulers incorrectly. This is attributable to a number of reasons. Sometimes it simply reflects the uncertain nature of work on the Third Intermediate Period. Sometimes it reflects the inability or unwillingness to stay current in an active field. Sometimes it reflects carelessness. A few examples from the first seventy pages will suffice:
- An inscription of Sheshonq Vla (Janssen-Winkeln's V II) is attributed to Sheshonq I (p. 34).
- An unattributable inscription is attributed to Osorkon II (p. 36).
- An inscription of Petubastis I is attributed to Sheshonq Ill (p. 37).
- An inscription of Takeloth Ill is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 39).
- An inscription of Osorkon II is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 40).
- Inscriptions from different rulers are combined (p. 51).
- An inscription of Sheshonq IV is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 57).
- An inscription likely of Osorkon II is unattributed (p. 59).
- A unattributable inscription of early Dynasty 22 is attributed to Osorkon I (p. 61).
For this reason, Ritner's book needs to be used very carefully and everything should be double-checked.
While the Twenty-First through Twenty-Fourth Dynasties can properly be called the Libyan period, and there is certainly Libyan influence, Ritner has a tendency to see influence when it is not actually there. Two examples will suffice. Ritner labels one individual a "Libyan Dynast" and reads his name 'Pk-wꜣ-iw- šꜣ(?)" (p. 79). He has misread the name, which is Pkwꜣrꜣwr, an odd spelling for the well-attested Egyptian name Pꜣ-krr. In one of the priestly annals, his insertion of the title "chief of the Man is simply his own invention surreptitiously inserted into a lacuna (p. 53).
The preceding has been a mere sample of the hundred of errors that plague the volume. There seems little point wasting paper by listing all of them.
In the end, this book constantly reminds the reader of Breasted's Ancient Records, a ground-breaking translation effort making many texts available for the first time in English, which unfortunately is out-of-date and in desperate need of revision. Breasted's work took at least half a century to achieve that feat, but Ritner's needed merely to roll off the press. While Egyptologists may find Professor Ritner's numerous mistakes amusing, no historian or biblical scholar should rely on his work. In that sense the volume defeats its purpose.
John Gee
Wow! It's hard to know where to begin with a book review that's dripping with so much personal invective. The actual validity of his criticisms is well outside of my expertise, but I am reminded of when Gee published a similarly scathing review of Volume 4 of the Joseph Smith Papers Project. It looks like a pattern that when Gee perceives an enemy to his apologetic endeavors, he publishes scathing "proxy reviews" that don't address his underlying apologetic concerns, but which are clearly motivated by them. In the case of the JSPP volume 4, both Mormon and non-Mormon academics outside his circle of apologetic allies agreed that his criticisms were spurious. In searching for opinions from Ritner's peers on his book, I can only find one review from the Journal of the American Oriental Society, which is very positive, labelling it "expertly produced and efficiently organized," "extremely important for anyone researching the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period," and his translations "as fresh as they are up-to-date." Google scholar lists 96 citations of this work.
But of special note is footnote 24, which is supposed to cite Gee's allegation that Robert Ritner "has been known to badly misread the texts that he was proportedly (sic) publishing." Some of you may have been wondering what egregious academic error he cites here that establishes such a poor reputation for poor Robert Ritner. Surely, if Gee is publishing such a hostile assessment of Ritner's abilities in an academic journal, he must be citing something substantial and widely accepted within the Egyptological community right?
That's where this gets good. Following footnote 24, it turns out his citation is an article from freaking FARMS! In an Egyptological journal! I kid you not. He cites "Kerry Muhlestein, "The Book of Breathings in Its Place," FARMS Review 17/2 (2005):482-86."
But we aren't done, because the cherry on top are the editorial remarks by Gee's successor, Katja Goebs, in the subsequent volume. I will transcribe her relevant remarks here:
2) Peer Review
It is the conviction of the current editor and board that peer review is an indispensable, even if not infallible, factor in ensuring high academic standards. It has also become — at least in the North American context — a sine qua non for young scholars seeking to bolster their CVs when applying for grants and jobs. What is more, the referees' comments often furnish helpful additional materials and theoretical insights for author and editor. JSSEA will remain peer reviewed.
...
4) Book Reviews
Recently, there has been some discussion about the appropriate level of criticism that might be conveyed in a review. Our Book Reviews Committee is committed to ensuring that a scholarly discussion of new academic works takes place that neither descends into insubstantial generalities, nor into angry personal vendettas. An apparent recent exception to this rule represents an oversight resulting from time-pressures shortly before publication of the issue in question.
Lol.
I think this episode is valuable as a demonstration of why one should not mix apologetics with scholarship. Even though none of the content here is ostensibly about the Book of Abraham, it's all about the Book of Abraham, and that has seemingly compromised Gee's academic career. It's fine to defend one's faith on intellectual as well as faith-centered grounds, but the Interpreter-style apologetics frequently forgets that they cannot claim the authority of academic inquiry without adhering to its core precepts.
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Recap of everything confirmed so far and some theories about Darktide

Hello, OneTrueSkeleton here. As you guys may (or may not) be aware, various bits of information has been dropped over the last few weeks. Between their website, 2 trailers and some other bits me and the peeps over at the Darktide discord have tried to throw together all the information we can from all the sources. Bellow is a compiled list from u/Zherlum, who took everything and threw it onto the Steam forums for us
In short before anything is said I'll use 3 distinct keywords :
I'll separate everything so people can easily search what they want.
HER' WE GO !
I)The story
[Confirmed] The game is set during the Indomitus crusade, which means Cadia is gone, the Cicatrix Maledictum is here, Roboute Gulliman is back and the Plague Wars are happening. Fatshark wants the game to be aligned with what's currently happening in the 40k setting.
[Confirmed] The game takes place on the planet Atoma Prime, in the hive-city of Tertium, ruled by the Moebian government. Said government is having a rebellion issue within the hive and has deployed the Astra Militarum regiment Moebian 6th to quell the rebellion, what they did not expect is the regiment turning traitor and joining the forces of Chaos. The traitor guardsmen are now attempting to seize power and it is our job to solve this.
II)The playable characters
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/786208719200583710/787315421149134878/chrome_2020-12-10_13-43-19.png?width=400&height=209
[Confirmed] The 4 guardsmen of the teaser died during their scouting mission, they will not be the playable characters that were shown in the gameplay trailer. [Theory] Since there was a white line instead of the regiment number on their armor on their shoulder, we can theorize that those were conscripts, sent to scout and report to the inquisitor about the rebellion happening in the hive. This would also explain why one of them was using a plasma rifle, a weapon that is commonly used by the guard but mostly by experienced soldiers. The plasma rifle being able to dispatch most opponents even bigger ones, which would increase the survival rate of the scouts, but in that case, that didn't seem to help them since they are dead.
[Confirmed] There will not be any Space Marines in this game, Fatshark wants Darktide to be a game where you play low power characters that must work together to survive the odds.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/786208719200583710/787316774240387112/chrome_2020-12-10_13-39-49.png
[Theory] Since Fatshark wants to keep the characters at a low power level, tech-Priests and Sisters of Battle are likely things we won't see because those characters tend to be far better equipped or powerful than an average guardsman. Between the SoB power armor and Engiseers wearing power armor aswell and robotics giving them far more endurance and strenght than a normal human ...
[Official] Fatshark hasn't confirmed that there will only be 4 characters, so we may see 5 or more characters appear.
[Confirmed] The 4 characters we will play that were shown are :
All of these characters have been confirmed to have a character depth similar to those of Vermintide so expect them to have a good amount of personnality and banter between them.
III)Character customization
[Confirmed] Fatshark has said in their interview with PCGamer that people should not expect the character system to be similar to Vermintide.
[Theory] So what we thought is that we may not see each character having different carreers like they did in Vermintide. Fatshark has said that the carreer system was more of a crutch, allowing the players to have different flavours of a same character and different playstyles without needing to create new characters, which is time consuming and hard.
With customization being something Fatshark wants to give us and teamwork to be vital, what we expect is that each character is his own carreer and will have access to his own loadout that you can change depending of the mission you'll do (something that will make more sense later trust me) :
[Confirmed] So far, the weapons confirmed are :
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/786208719200583710/803715493315084338/unknown.png?width=138&height=463
IV)Our enemies :
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/786208719200583710/787315244148981770/chrome_2020-12-10_14-06-08.png?width=259&height=300
[Confirmed] Like aforementionned, we will be facing :
[Official] Fatshark has stated in the IGN article that since Chaos is such a broad choice, they can use a lot of enemies to throw at our faces such as traitor marines, chaos spanws, daemons and much more.
[Theory] Nurglings and Deathguard space marines sounds like they would be part of the game since they both encompass very well Nurgle in general. Of course don't expect us to kill Death Guard by the dozen, we are afterall but normal humans and a abhuman but maybe as a boss ....
[Theory] After seeing the enemies we will be facing and how similar our cast is to theirs, the similar equipment and how we are convicts, our characters could very well be members of the Moebian 6th that chose to remain loyal to the Emperor.
V)The city of Tertium
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/786208719200583710/787315305722281984/chrome_2020-12-10_14-09-47.jpg?width=400&height=185
[Confirmed] Fatshark has confirmed in the PCGamer article that they will try to make each playthrought of an area different, we will also be playing in more open maps with more verticality with elements that could be possibly randomly generated and shuffled.
Things we can expect :
VI) Bibliography
If you're looking for our sources for everything with the [Confirmed] keyword, you'll be able to find this in :
VII) Conclusion :
Well that was quite the essay, thank you for reading all of this.
If you have more questions or things you don't agree with, we would be more than happy to discuss in the official Darktide Discord server !
I'll update this as and when new information drops
Edit 1: For anyone looking to play the game on console, Fatshark has just covered it briefly in this article here. Looks like Xbox only at launch, other then that just some minor details on Xbox Series X hopefully not chocking on the game. https://gamingbolt.com/warhammer-40000-darktide-interview-combat-next-gen-xbox-exclusivity-and-more
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The Resurrection According to Paul: A Guide to Paul's Understanding of the Resurrection

Introduction: This post attempts to show that Paul could not have conceived of a resurrection body where the deceased earthly body is left behind in the grave. As John Granger Cook hypothesizes:
There is no fundamental difference between Paul’s conception of the resurrection body and that of the Gospels.
(John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp. 1)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Resurrection of the Dead, According to Paul

The most frequently used verb for resurrection in the New Testament is ἐγείρω/egeirō. Throughout the chapter, Paul uses the verb "egeirō" for the resurrection of the dead (cf. 1 Cor 15:15-16, 29, 32, 35, 42-43, 44, 52). Surprisingly, however, despite it's importance in the NT and it's central place as language for the resurrection, this verb has received little detailed study. This verb was not a slippery term as often assumed. Until the reaction of the Gnostics in the 2nd century and later, this word was used to denote bodily resurrection by both Jews and pagans, and both groups continued to use "egeiro" to denote bodily resurrection into late antiquity (cf. John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp. 574). James P. Ware writes:
The Greek verb ἐγείρω has a more restricted semantic range, and cannot mean raise or rise in this wider sense of elevation or ascension. Rather, ἐγείρω means to get up or stand up, that is, to rise from a supine to a standing position. Thus the verb is regularly used to denote the raising or rising up of one who has fallen (LXX Exod 23.5; LXX1 Kings 5.3; LXX Eccles 4.10; Jdt 10.23; Philo, Agr. 122; Mut. 56; Migr. 122; Matt 12.11; Mark 9.27; Acts 9.8; 1 Clem 59.4). It is also used of one kneeling or prostrate being raised back to a standing position (LXX 1 Kings 2.8; LXX 2 Kings 12.17; LXX Ps 112.7; LXX Dan 10.10; Philo, Ebr. 156; Post. 149; Matt 17.7; Luke 11.8; Acts 10.26; Hermas, Vis. 2.1.3; 3.2.4). The verb is used of one lying down, very frequently of one lying sick,who is restored to a standing posture (Matt 8.15; 9.5, 6, 7; Mark 1.31; 2.9, 11, 12; Luke 5.23–4; John 5.8 ; Acts3.6-7; James 5.15). The verb is also frequently used of one sitting who rises to stand (LXX Ps 126.2; LXX Isa 14.9; Matt 26.46; Mark 3.3; 10.49; 14.42; Luke 6.8; John 11.29; 13.4; 14.31; Hermas, Vis. 1.4.1). In no instance within ancient Greek literature does ἐγείρω denote the concept of ascension, elevation or assumption. Rather, it denotes the action whereby one who is prone, sitting, prostrate or lying down is restored to a standing position.
(James P. Ware, The Resurrection of Jesus in the Pre-Pauline Formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5, New Testament Studies, 2014, p. 494)
The 2018 Brill Encyclopedia entry affirms Ware's work. Cook in his 2018 monologue (Mohr Siebeck) conjured up a gallery of examples in ancient literature where "egeiro" simply entailed standing up from a supine position (and not ascension). This following short gallery derives from Cook's book Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, Mohr Siebeck, 2018 (pp. 13-15, 19-20):
(1) In a passage in the Iliad, Nestor wakes Diomedes:
Wake up, son of Tydeus, why do you sleep the whole night through? ... So he spoke, and he leapt up very quickly. (Homer Il. 10.159, 162)
"Wake up" includes the sense of “getting up,” or at least implies it.
-
(2) The chorus (that is, the Furies) in the Eumenides of Aeschylus cry to each other to wake/get up after Orestes has escaped:
Wake/get up, you get her up, and I [will get] you up. Do you still sleep? Stand up, shaking off sleep. (Aeschylus Eum. 140–1)
The command to stand clarifies the action (motion upward) implicit in the command to “wake” or “get up.
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(3) Cytherea, in Bion’s Epitaph for Adonis, uses the verb to coax her dying lover upward, even if for one last kiss:
Rouse yourself a little, Adonis, and kiss me for a final time; kiss me as much as your kiss has life, until you breathe your last into my mouth, and your spirit flows into my heart ... (Bion [Epitaph. Adon.] 1.45–8)
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(4) An idyll attributed to Theocritus about two fishermen illustrates the motion of standing up straight from a supine position:
And their customary labor roused up the fishermen, and chasing the sleep from their eyelids, provoked speech in their minds. (Theocritus Id. 21.20–1)
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(5) In a much later example from Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor contemplates the occasional difficulty of waking/getting up from sleep:
Whenever you wake/get up from sleep with difficulty, remember that according to your condition and human nature you perform social activities, and that sleeping is something also shared with irrational animals. (Marcus Aurelius Med. 8.12)
The active component of the verb (i.e., getting up) is readily apparent in the emperor’s text.
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(6) In Aristophanes’ Clouds, a father attempts to get his sleeping son up:
(Strepsiades) But first I wish to wake him/rouse him up. How then could I rouse him up in the gentlest way? How? Phidippides, my little Phidippides. (Phidippides) What, father? (Str.) Kiss me, and give me your right hand. (Aristophanes Nub. 78–81)
Presumably, Strepsiades sits or stands up after his father takes his hand. But the verb probably contains, even here, the sense of rising up from his supine position, since the father clearly intends to get his son into an upright position, as the reference to his “hand” makes clear.
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(7) In his Frogs, Aristophanes includes a character who roused himself up (or “woke up”), after Dionysus recounts his exploits to Heracles: "and then I roused myself up" (Aristophanes Ran. 51).
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(8) An ancient scholiast also believed the verb indicates “getting up,” since it implies that Dionysus dreamed of his alleged naval victory:
And then I woke up: it is a joke about Dionysus. And then, he said, I got up from a dream; making it clear that a dream accomplished these things. (Scholia in Aristophanem Ran. 51)
Clearly the scholiast believes that a seme of “upward motion” belongs to the verb.
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(9) In the Rhesus the king’s charioteer awakes from sleep when he dreams that the king’s horses are being ridden by wolves:
And I roused up from sleep warding off the beasts [wolves] from the horses. For the night terror urged me. And raising my head, I hear the moaning of the dying. A warm stream of new blood from the wound of my master falls on me, as he died hard. I rise upright, my hand empty of any spear ... ([Euripides] Rhesus 787–92).
This is a clear example of the spatial motion upward contained in the verb.
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(10) An ordinary inscription from Rome also provides striking additional evidence. The last line from this burial inscription says ("ἐντεῦθεν οὐθὶς ἀποθανὼν ἐγ[ε]ίρετ[αι]") (‘no one who has died arises from here’). In this inscription, the use of ἐντεῦθεν (‘from here’) together with ἐγείρω unambiguously indicates the concept of getting up or arising from the tomb (IGUR III.1406).
​
There are further arguments in favor of the notion that Paul is arguing for a resurrected body that is continuities to the body that is laid in the tomb, and against the Martin, Engberg-Pedersen, and Borg view of the resurrected body being some sort of ethereal body (see Ware's article here):
  1. Within 15:36–49, which is structured by twelve antithetically paired verbs (that is, six pairs of verbs) denoting death (or the mortal state) and resurrection (or the risen state), the subject of these antithetical verbal pairs is one and the same both for verbs denoting death, and those denoting resurrection. The subject throughout is the perishable body, which “dies” but “is made alive” again by God (15:36), which is “sown” (speiretai) in mortality and death, but “raised” (egeiretai) to imperishable life (15:42–44). This basic observation, which is nonetheless commonly ignored by interpreters, has profound exegetical implications. Paul does not describe resurrection as an event in which x (the present body) is sown, but y (a body distinct from the present body) is raised, but in which a single x (the present body) is sown a perishable x, but raised an imperishable x.
  2. "Throughout 15:50–54 [SEE DIAGRAM BELOW], the subject of the verbs Paul uses to describe the resurrection event is the corruptible body of flesh, whether laid in the tomb or still living at the parousia. It is this present body that is raised and transformed. Indeed, the fourfold repetition of “this” (τοῦτο) emphasizes that it is this mortal, perishable body that is the subject of the transformation. “The subject persists throughout the radical change." Mortal flesh, far from being excluded from this divine, saving event, is the subject of that event. (Ware, "Paul's Understanding of the Resurrection," pp. 825). The fact that Paul envisions the bodies of the living to be transformed rather than annihilated is one more clear indicator of the physical and bodily character of the resurrection of the dead in his thought, since he envisions the same "change" for all (1 Cor 15:51).
  3. In addition to the verb egeiro, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 employs a variety of additional verbs to denote the resurrection event: zoopoieo (“make alive”; 15:36, 45; cf. 15:22), phoreo (“be clothed”; 15:49), alasso (“change”; 15:51, 52), and enduo (“clothe”; 15:53, 54). These additional verbs are significant, for they each express, in different ways, not the annihilation or replacement of the fleshly body, but its revival (zoopoieo), investiture (phoreo, enduo), and transformation (alasso).
  4. The series of contrasts within 15:36–54 bet ween the ante-mortem and risen body do not occur in the subject of these periods, but in their predicates (verbs and verbal complements). And these predicate complements invariably describe a change of quality rather than of substance, in which what was once perishable, dishonored, weak, and mortal is endowed with imperishability, glory, power, and immortality (15:42–43; 15:52–54). Paul’s series of oppositions does not describe two bodies distinct in substance, but two contrasting modes of existence of the same body, one prior to and the other subsequent to the resurrection.
For #2 (from Ware's article):
Subject Verb Predicate
will be clothed with image of the Man from heaven
V. 51 we all will be changed ______________________
V. 52 the dead will be raised imperishable
we will be changed ______________________
V. 53 this perishable must be clothed with imperishability
this mortal body must be clothed with
V. 54 this perishable body is clothed with imperishability
this mortal body is clothed with immortality
Moreover, Paul explicitly teaches a resurrection where the earthly body itself is transformed instead of discarded in his other epistles. See, for example, Philippians 3:21:
[Jesus Christ] will transform our lowly body to be conformed to his glorious body, in accordance with the outworking of his power whereby he is able to subject the entire universe to himself.
When one reads the context of Phil 3:1-4:1, it becomes clear that, just like, 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul's thought embraces the whole eschatological event, involving both the living and the dead. On Philippians 3:21 for instance, the exclusion of the resurrection from this passage will not work exegetically. This verse needs to be read within the larger passage, Philippians 3:1-4:1. 3:21 picks up, and brings to a climax, the thought in 3:10-11, where Paul expresses his personal hope that he "may by any means possible arrive at the resurrection from the dead." The "we" of Philippians 3:20-21 picks up the "I" of Philippians 3:10-11. In light of 3:10-11, it is impossible that the thought of 3:21 excludes the resurrection. Than there is Rom 8:11:
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Lastly, in ancient Judaism there were a number of options for the afterlife: eternal soul, resurrection of the body, awakening of the spirit, or nothing. It seems, however, that whenever Jewish texts affirmed of resurrection (i.e. upward movement), they affirmed of bodily resurrection. In other words, while there were many different beliefs in the afterlife, there were not various types of "resurrection" beliefs. As John Granger Cook says in his recent book, "The current fashion among some scholars of asserting that there were various concepts of “resurrection” in Second Temple Judaism seems fundamentally wrong [...] Spirits or souls do not rise from the dead in ancient Judaism, people do. (2018, 569).
Many Jewish texts spoke of bodily resurrection. This gallery here is also derived mostly from Cook's 2018 monologue (chapter 6):
(1) Daniel 12:2-3 (II B.C.E.)
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
"Daniel is almost certainly referring to the resurrection of the dead. [...] The decisive confirmation of the bodily nature of resurrection in Daniel is the conclusion of the book where the seer is told that he will himself rise from the dead" (Cook, 465, 467):
12:13 But you, go your way to the end and rest; you shall rise [“stand”] for your reward at the end of days (NRSV mod.)
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(2) 2 Maccabees 7:7, 9-11, 23 (II B.C.E.)
7 After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their sport. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair, and asked him, “Will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb?” 8 He replied in the language of his ancestors and said to them, “No.” Therefore he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. [...] After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, 11 and said nobly, “I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again.”
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23 The creator of the cosmos, the one who shaped the origin of the human and invented the origin of all things, shall restore breath and life to you again with mercy, since now you disdain your very selves for the sake of his laws.
"2 Maccabees represents one of the most intensely physical understandings that can be found in early Jewish literature. The martyrs profess their hope in a resurrection in which the very same members of the body will be restored to them in a new and everlasting life (7:7, 9–11)." (C.D Elledge, Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism, 200 BCE-CE 200, Oxford Press, 2017, p. 26-27)
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(3) 1 Enoch 92:3:
The righteous one will arise from sleep; he will arise and walk in the paths of righteousness, and all his path and his journey (will be) in piety and eternal mercy.
"There seems to be no fundamental reason for rejecting the conclusion that the text refers to the resurrection of the righteous and their subsequent behavior. The image of walking apparently envisions a “physical resurrection from the dead.” The emphasis on physically rising from sleep, and not just waking from sleep, also supports the contention that the reference is to resurrection." (Cook: 490-491)
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(4) Syrian Baruch (Late I C.E.)
"2 Bar 30:1 describes the fate of those who hope in the Messiah:
And it shall come to pass after these things, when the time of the advent of the Messiah is fulfilled, that He shall return in glory. Then all who have fallen asleep in hope of Him shall rise again.
The author then describes the appearance of the souls of the righteous and the wicked (2 Bar 30:3–5). The Lord announces the resurrection to Baruch (2 Bar 42:8):
And the dust shall be called, and there shall be said to it: “Give back that which is not yours, and raise up all that you have kept until its time.”
The prophet queries the Almighty (2 Bar 49:2):
In what shape will those live who live in Your day? Or how will the splendor of those who (are) after that time continue?
He wonders if their form will be changed (2 Bar 49:3):
Will they then resume this form of the present, and put on these members that chains clothe, which are now involved in evils, and in which evils are consummated, or will you perchance change these things which have been in the world as also the world?
The question is about the nature of the resurrection body. The same image appears in this text (2 Bar 50:2–3):
For the earth shall then assuredly restore the dead, which it now receives, in order to preserve them. It shall make no change in their form, but as it has received, so shall it restore them, and as I delivered them unto it, so also shall it raise them. 3 For then it will be necessary to show the living that the dead have come to life again
This is undoubtedly resurrection of the body. The shape of the wicked will then become more evil, and the shape of the righteous will “become progressively more glorious” (2 Bar 51:2–5)." (Cook, pp. 496-497)
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(5) The Fourth Sibylline Oracle (Late I C.E.)
God himself will again give shape to the bones and ashes of people, and will raise mortals again, as they were before. (Sib. Or. 4.181-2)
"The Fourth Sibylline Oracle affirms that resurrection bodies will have the same form as they did in life." (Cook: 500)
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(6) The Testament of Judah 25:1 (II B.C.E -II C.E.)
And after these things shall Abraham and Isaac and Jacob arise unto life (25:1)
"The verb’s use [arise] indicates bodily resurrection" (Cook: 456)
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(7) T. Ab. 7:17 (I-II C.E.)
Bodily resurrection occurs in T. Ab.:
“At that time all flesh shall rise” (T. Ab. 7.17; the short recension)
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(8) SEG 15, 811 (II-III C.E.)
"A funerary inscription for a Jewish woman named Regina from the Monteverde catacombs [says]:
She will live again, return to the light again. For she can hope that she will rise to the life promised as a real assurance to the worthy and the pious in that she has deserved to possess an abode in the hallowed land.
Joseph S. Park writes that surgat “seems to evoke an image of the deceased literally rising from the grave” (Park, Conceptions, p. 167)." (Cook: 474)
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An Ethereal Resurrection?

According to many, what Paul thinks of is an ethereal resurrection - a heavenly body discontinuities with the body that decomposes in the ground. Thus Paul states that we are raised in a "spiritual body" (1 Cor 15:44), which he contrasts with the earthly body ("it is sown a physical body"), and that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 15:50). Paul also seems to believe that the earthly body is like a seed husk - discarded, while we are transformed into a new ethereal body (cf. 1 Cor 15:36-37). 2 Corinthians seems to be even clearer when Paul says in 2 Cor 5:1 that “the earthly tent we live in is destroyed (kataluthē)” and in 2 Cor 5:3, where Paul says that the earthly body “will be taken off (ekdysamenoi).” Thus, the source of the resurrected body is not the present earthly body, but it will be brought from heaven (2 Cor 5:2).
(1) On 1 Corinthians 15:44, what Paul has in mind when he says "it is raised a spiritual body" is a physical body that is empowered by pneuma, not made by it. The first indication of this is the use of the verb "egeiro." While egeiro appears in some contexts in which the soul is stimulated or roused, "nowhere in classical Greek or in the Greek of Jewish texts does a soul (or spirit) “rise” in a text that describes a resurrection" (John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp. 36). This was true until gnostic interpreters of the second century (ibid, 36). Furthermore, in 1 Cor 2:14-15, Paul makes a similar distinction between psychikos and pneumatikos. 1 Cor 2:14-15 says:
Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.
It makes no sense imagining Paul speaking about a person composed of soul verses those composed of pneuma. The adjective pneumatikos is used to refer to people or things empowered by the Spirit of God, such as: palpable manna and water (10:3–4), a tangible rock (10:4), and flesh and blood human beings (3:1; 14:37). Used with soma in 15:44, pneumatikos indicates that the risen body will be a physical body empowered by pneuma. James P. Ware writes:
The adjective that Paul here contrasts with πνευματικός is not σάρκινος (cognate with σάρξ), referring to the flesh, but ψυχικός (cognate with ψυχή), referring to the soul. This adjective is used in texts outside the NT, without exception, with reference to the properties or activities of the soul (e.g., 4 Macc 1:32; Aristotle, Eth. nic. 3.10.2; Epictetus, Diatr. 3.7.5–7; Plutarch, Plac. philos. 1.8). Modifying σῶμα as here, with reference to the present body, the adjective describes this body as given life or activity by the soul. The adjective has nothing to do with the body’s composition but denotes the source of the mortal body’s life and activity.
(Ware, "Paul's Understanding of the Resurrection," pp. 832).
Thus, “if σῶμα πνευματικόν in this context describes the composition of the future body, as a body composed only of spirit, its correlate σῶμα ψυχικόν would perforce describe the composition of the present body, as a body composed only of soul. Paul would assert the absence of flesh and bones not only from the risen body but from the present mortal body as well!” (Ware, "Paul's Understanding of the Resurrection," pp. 832-833).
Lastly, "the notion of a risen body composed of corporeal pneuma perforce entails (as Engberg-Pedersen has demonstrated) a specifically Stoic and pantheistic understanding of the relation of the divine to the cosmos, with the corollary that Paul conceived of the Spirit of God as a corporeal entity, composed of the same substance as the sun, moon, and stars (see Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self, 8–38; idem, “Material Spirit,” 184–87). [...] Such a reconstruction of Paul’s thought [is] without historical plausibility (cf. Rom 1:20–25; 4:17; 11:33–36; 1 Cor 8:4–6; 10:7; 10:14; 1 Thess 1:9–10)." (Ware, "Paul's Understanding of the Resurrection," pp. 833-834).
​
(2) On 1 Corinthians 15:36-37. Paul is comparing the naked seed (A) placed in the ground with the human dead body (B) that is placed in the ground; so as the (future) plant body (A') will be, so will the resurrection body (B') be. So as A is to B, A' is to B' - if one were to commit the analogy to symbolic form. The analogy points to both the material continuity of the mortal and risen body and the transformation of the mortal body that takes place in the resurrection event. As James P. Ware points out:
What is often missed is the critical significance of verse 39 for our understanding of resurrection in Paul. For the juxtaposition of 15:39 with 15:37 and 15:40–41 shows that here, reflecting the normal usage of Paul’s Greek-speaking audience, “flesh” (sarx) and “body” (sōma) function as synonymous terms for the human body. Paul’s analogy in 15:36–41 assumes both that the risen body will be a body (15:37–38, 40–41) and that it will be composed of flesh (15:39). Paul’s reminder of the various kinds of flesh (15:39), bodies (15:40), and bodily splendor (15:41) functions to prepare the reader for the depiction of transformed embodiment to follow in 15:42–54, in which the risen body of flesh is differentiated from its mortal counterpart not by change of substance, but by its freedom from weakness, mortality, and decay.
(James P. Ware, Paul's Theology in Context, Eerdmans, 2019, pp. 213-214)
Furthermore, Paul’s saying in 1 Cor 15:37, γυμνὸς κόκκος, has nothing to do with a Platonist naked soul or Stoic imagery of sowing and seeds. The context itself indicates that stoicism or Platonism is not in the mind of Paul when he says "γυμνὸς κόκκος." Instead, as John Granger Cook says, texts from Greek biology and agriculture are far more revealing. See John Granger Cook, A Naked Seed: Platonism, Stoicism, or Agriculture in 1Cor 15,37?, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft | Volume 111: Issue 2, 2020. 1 Clement and 3 Corinthians, for example, could be instructive for how we interpret 1 Cor 15:37, for the authors also refer to the resurrection using the image of naked seeds, and they are early interpretations to the preferred biological/agricultural reading of 1 Cor 15:37. 1 Clement says:
The sower went out and cast into the ground each of the seeds, which falling on the ground dry and naked decay. Then out of decay, the magnificence of the master’s providence raises them up, and from one seed more grow and produce fruit. (1 Clem 24:2)
"Clement’s imagery is physical, and the seeds are not naked souls, nor does he include any Stoic metaphors" (ibid, 308). 3 Corinthians says:
For they do not know, Corinthians, that the seed of wheat or other varieties, which are cast into the ground naked and which decay below, are raised by the will of God in body and clothed; so that not only is the body raised that was cast (into the ground), but it is abounding, upright, and blessed. (3Cor = AcPlCor 2:26–27)
3 Corinthian's imagery is clearly a flesh and bones resurrection.
​
(3) On 1 Corinthians 15:50, "flesh and blood" is not a synonym for "physical" or "that which is opposed to the physical." It is a semitism (or a figure of speech) for mortality. Thus, Paul is saying that mortality does not inherit the kingdom of God. John Granger Cook writes:
“flesh and blood” – in particular its use as a rabbinic expression which simply refers to human nature in its fragility and not simply to “physical flesh.” An early rabbinic example is from the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael where Exod 12:12 “I am the Lord” is explained as “What flesh and blood cannot say” (Mek. Pesach 1:7). Another occurrence is a discussion of Exod 15:1 “I will sing unto the Lord for he is really exalted,” which is explained by an example that begins “when a king of flesh and blood enters a province … (Mek. Shirata 3:1)
(John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp. 585)
​
(4) On 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, there is nothing in this passage that conflicts with Paul's robust doctrine of a "flesh and bones" resurrection. First off, in verse 3, what Paul wrote was endysamenoi (I put on, clothe), instead of ekdusamenoi (having put off). The manuscript evidence that supports this is overwhelming (p46 א B C D2 Ψ 0243. 33. 1739. 1881. Byz, lat, sy, co; Cl.). The evidence for ekdusamenoi is far less (see: Kevin Daugherty, Naked Bodies and Heavenly Clothing, Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 8 [2011–12], pp. 214). 2 Cor 5:4 is instructive on this regard when Paul says: "not that we wish to be unclothed (ekdusasthai) but more fully clothed (ependusasthai)." This expresses both the continuity of the risen body with the mortal body, and its discontinuity, in its transformation to imperishability through the work of the Spirit.
"Destroyed" in 2 Cor 5:1a is referring to death. 2 Cor 5:1 than stresses upon the transformation of the resurrection body when it says that we will receive an eternal heavenly body. It does not, however, indicate that the earthly body is left behind (cf. 2 Cor 5:3-4). That Paul in v. 2 is thinking of the heavens as a place where some kind of ethereal body that is now literally existent is probably false. Just like in 1 Cor 15:47, when Paul speaks in v. 2 of "the heavens" he is referring to God in the fullness of his presence and glory. Paul thus describes the risen body as "from heaven" in v. 2 in that it is the direct work of the Spirit of God (cf. 1 Cor 15:47-49).
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(5) On Josephus, "at no point in any of these texts does Josephus adopt the clear verbs for resurrection used by the Hellenistic translators of Dan 12:2. His language resembles reincarnation far closer than the texts of resurrection surveyed in this chapter." (John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp. 513). Paul in 1 Cor 15 is expressing a flesh and bones resurrection as evidence by his use of the language that Josephus here starkly avoids: the Jewish language of resurrection (egeiro and anastasis).
Plus, as D. Boyarin writes: “Josephus’s allusion ... to the idea of metempsychosis is presumably an attempt to present resurrection in a form more familiar to his audience.” (Border Lines. The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, 2004, pp. 13–22).
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Bibliography

submitted by Bohrbrain to AcademicBiblical [link] [comments]

Can we finally put the "Joseph Smith was a pedophile" to bed now.....Post from Ask Historians

Sorry I am not quite sure how to cross-post or if it is allowed. A user here u/Dwood15 Submitted a question to the Ask Historians Reddit and received a really a great answer from what I presume is a Non-Mormon.
Here is the question then followed by the detailed reply. From what I gather from a non-mormon historian looking at the evidence, he concludes Joseph's Marriage to Helen Mar Kimball is not as scandalous given the historical evidence when it concerns her age..... Warning it is a very long and detailed answer.

Title of Question...From the late 18th to early 19th centuries, how did people of that era look at men who married girls significantly younger than them?

The Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, in his later life, married girls much younger than him.
Were there people from that era who called him out for it?
Was it common for older men to get called out or stigmatized for marrying girls in that 12-17 year age range?
u/sowser answer
It was normal in the 19th century for men to be older than the women that they married, but it was still the case that women tended not to marry until they were into their 20s; it was only in the mid-20th century that it became the case that the average woman could expect to marry before her 20th birthday. Men would generally be older on the expectation that they were meant to be providers and heads of household for their spouses and so, accordingly, would need time to establish themselves financially or at least in the security of stable work before they were in a position to take a bride. For the vast majority of people marriage was something that came in their 20s when they had already attained the legal age of adulthood and not before, although some of the age gaps that were socially acceptable might arouse concern in us today - there's an average age gap of around 4 or 5 years between men and women, but 7 or 8 would not have been too odd.
However, there were a significant minority of American men who married women who were below the age of majority - and this was not necessarily the taboo practice we now rightly recognise it to be. The concept of "child marriage" doesn't seem to appear anywhere in American public discourse until the mid to late 1800s - there was no cultural understanding that it represented a distinct phenomenon different to regular marriage. In the 19th century age was something of a ephemeral thing. Many ordinary people may not have known their exact age; whilst people understood there was such a thing as 'childhood' and that children were more vulnerable than adults physically and emotionally, they also understood childhood and adolescence beyond the earliest years of life to be a state of mind or state of being more than a stage of life, and different individuals could mature into adulthood at different times. Additionally, marriage in the 1800s was understood to be an unequal institution in which there was supposed to be a power imbalance heavily skewed in favour of the male partner; the idea of the female partner being younger and more impressionable was not the inherent negative we recognise it to be in our modern gender equal societies today, and a young woman's freedom to choose a marriage partner was largely dependent on the extent to which her parents and any prospective partner cared about her feelings in the matter. Many women had little to no choice, or only a very limited choice, in who they were married to. In the gender unequal world of the 19th century some parents saw arranging marriages for daughters at a young age as a means to 'set them up' for the best possible life in terms of security and stability. Marriage itself was thought to have a morally sanctifying and uplifting impact on the people marrying each other also, which served to alleviate anxieties about one partner being young - the spiritually transformative impact of marriage would strengthen the virtue of the man and 'mature' the woman.
The law in these cases could be ambiguous but generally speaking, set a low age of consent. A major test case in the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1854 (Parton vs Hervey) ruled that the marriage of a 13 year old girl and a 19 year old man was valid despite the objection of the 13 year old's mother that she did not consent to the ceremony, arguing that legal tradition treated girls as being able to consent to marriage from the age of 12 onwards and boys from the age of 14 onwards. The state court did affirm that it was only legal to marry people without parental consent if they had attained the age of majority but did not invalidate the actual marriage. Tellingly, the concern of the parents in Parton vs Hervey was not that the girl was too young for her own good to be married but that by leaving the parental home early her family were deprived of the benefit to having her work in the household several years earlier than they expected; their concern was economic and social, not moral or sexual. The courts in contrast usually upheld child marriages in these cases for moral reasons - fearful that if they were dissolved, there would be a sudden influx in a number of young women forced to become single mothers, or that it would set a precedent for encouraging men to find ways to escape their marital obligations. For some girls marriage at an early age could also represent an age of agency and resistance to parental control by choosing to elope or secretly marry a partner old enough to provide in them but closer to their age or character compared to someone their parents might intend to pressure them into marrying, or to escape from abusive family. It was only really from the late 1800s onwards, and especially the early 20th century, that marrying a minor began to become something sharply taboo in American culture on the grounds that grown men should not be having sex with teenage girls.
Extreme age gaps were rarer but likewise not unheard of - in the 1760s, the 73 year old Governor of Virginia had married a 15 year old girl. Although he was ridiculed by his critics for doing so the criticism was not that the girl he married was too young but rather that the Governor was too old and behaving inappropriately. This was still generally speaking the attitude of the average American in the 1830s: whilst there was discomfort with marriages in which a teenage girl was wed to a significantly older man, the discomfort lay more in what that said about the man's character rather than in his sexual desires or the worry about how young she was. It was unusual, sometimes uncomfortable or frowned upon, but it was not seen as being fundamentally immoral or evident of deviant sexuality. Hangovers of this persist in our popular culture and laws today - in many parts of the United States it remains possible that teenage girls can marry older boys or men with parental consent, and this continues to happen to this day. Likewise in many places the age of sexual consent is set at an age lower than the age of majority for other activities and at a level most of us would be uncomfortable with if a 40 year old were partnered with someone at the age of consent. Consider the UK for example, where a 16 year old can sleep with a 50 year old Member of Parliament legally, but not vote for that MP in a general election for another two years. Moral and cultural attitudes to both the nature of childhood and sexuality have changed radically from the early 1800s.
In Joseph Smith Jr's case the objections to the philosophy of marriage that he developed later in his preaching rarely focused on the age of the women involved but rather that there were women involved, plural. For one, polygamy was only ever practised in secret during Joseph's life-time and although rumours of it did escape Illinois and made it as far afield as European newspapers, the exact details of who was involved were not known and the vast majority of rank-and-file Latter Day Saints were able to comfortably reject the idea (the public announcement of polygamy as doctrine under Brigham Young seems to have played a major role in almost destroying the Latter Day Saint movement outside of the United States by disillusioning members; the number of British followers collapses in the 1850s). It was the fact that Joseph and his close associates were marrying multiple women, not that some of them were of quite a young age, that was deeply scandalising to both civil society and internal dissenters within the Mormon church. The way in which Joseph was most remarkable for his time in terms of the age of his partners was the fact he married a number of women older than him, including his first and 'primary' wife, Emma, who was about a year older at the time of their wedding.
Perhaps the most telling evidence of contemporary attitudes comes from the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or the RLDS Church, which was organised by Joseph Smith III, Joseph Jr and Emma's son. Joseph III and Emma both staunchly denied that the founding Prophet of Latter Day Saintism has ever practised polygamy and insisted it was an innovation of Brigham Young that distorted Joseph Jr's teachings (RLDS historians now overwhelmingly agree Joseph Jr did practice polygamy). The early RLDS Church made rejecting what they perceived as the sexual deviancy and immorality of Brigham Young's theology a core part of how they distinguished themselves from the LDS Church in Utah, along with innovations like the idea of Eternal Progression and the Godhead (the RLDS Church retained a pre-Nauvoo, Trinitarian theology). Despite the fact Brigham Young and others also married teenage girls many years younger than them, this point of critique is absent from Address to the Saints in Utah and California, an 1864 missionary text by the RLDS Church aimed at proving polygamy is morally wrong and that Young cannot be Joseph Jr's successor; Joseph III did not add it in when he revised the text in 1869, and it is absent from other criticisms of plural marriage by Saints who did not follow Brigham Young to Utah.
It is worth contextualising all of this within the innovations of early Mormon theology. Latter Day Saintism history of gender roles is complicated: whilst in some ways early Mormons were fiercely patriarchal and had a very strict idea of sex roles between men and women, in other ways they were also much more equal than in many contemporary social groups and organisations. Emma and Joseph married for love in defiance of family protests and Emma had a disproportionately large impact on the development of the Latter Day Saint movement; most famously, the Word of Wisdom (LDS D&C 89 / RLDS D&C 86) that many Mormons live by in some way today came about from Emma's petitioning of Joseph to come up with standards of behaviour for the him and his male friends when they were socialising together. But she also played a major role in helping
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Joseph at every stage of his life's work, both as an adviser and in practice, and she was subject to her own personal revelation in 1830 that lead to her creating the first Church Hymnal and establishing the importance of music and singing as a form of worship in its own right in Mormon religious culture (LDS D&C 25 / RLDS D&C 24). At Nauvoo, women established the original LDS Relief Society in which women - though limited in where they could formally reach - were organised into a genuinely autonomous and vibrant organisation intended to parallel the male priesthood, with Emma Smith at the head. Over one thousand women took up roles of community leadership and organising through the Relief Society. Emma Smith used her position in the Relief Society to preach against polygamy - which many historians believe was because she was fully aware of the practice and trying to put pressure on Joseph to end it - but focused always on the immorality of what she saw as effective adultery, rather than concern over the exploitation of younger women or anything like that. The greater support network and in some areas of life greater autonomy for Latter Day Saint women in the highly communal early Mormon cities in Ohio and Illinois may have helped to quell nascent concerns about the implication of age gaps.
Second, it's worth keeping in mind that Latter Day Saint theology establishes a distinct period of 'spiritual' childhood that distinguishes adults from children in terms of their ability to take moral responsibility for their actions and choices. The Book of Mormon establishes that young children are incapable of true sin - transgression against God's will - and automatically enjoy eternal salvation; the baptism of babies or young children is very strongly condemned as immoral and regressive in the BoM (e.g. LDS Moroni 8:8 / RLDS Moroni 8:9). In 1831, revelation established this as the age of eight (D&C 68) and this has accordingly been Mormon practice ever since in all Latter Day Saint denominations. This is not to say that the Latter Day Saints in the 1830s became adults suddenly at the age of eight - children over eight are still considered children in Mormon scripture (e.g. LDS D&C 20 / RLDS D&C 17). Likewise, this was explicitly framed in rejection of the mainstream Christian idea that children were born inherently sinful and needing forgiveness and so were capable of sin at a young age, too; certainly for some early converts the promise of eternal salvation for children who died in infancy was appealing in a world where many parents lost children at a young age. This view of childhood as a time of pure and genuine innocence, with a fixed age of 'graduation' from that phase of childhood, is much more in keeping with our modern ideas about age. But at a time when ideas about age were much more fluid and varied and marriage was held to have a maturing, transformative effect on the individual, the idea of a 14 or 15 year old being close to twice the age of accountability may have also played a role in explaining why Latter Day Saints did not question the acceptability of child marriage as we now call it. Certainly there were individuals in Joseph Smith's lifetime starting to do so on the grounds that it was harmful to the development of young girls although, again, it would be close to a century before society began to seriously become concerned about grown men being attracted to younger girls.
In terms of actual sexual practices, the evidence for the extent to which Joseph Smith Jr had sexual relationships with all of the women he married is mixed - whilst he certainly did with some, it appears with others the marriage was motivated primarily by other factors, and it is not always to tell which spouses he did or did not. It seems unlikely that he ever had sexual relations with his youngest known spouse Helen Mar Kimball, who was 14 at the time of wedding. The marriage was most likely organised by her father, senior LDS leader Heber C Kimball, to connect the Kimball and Smith families in what he understood to be a profound and spiritual way. Although she was publicly known to have been married to Smith and was a vocal defender of the institution of polygamy when an 1892 trial between three different Mormon denominations saw the LDS Church in Utah nominate multiple of Smith's wives to testify that he had practised polygamy, with the goal of disproving the RLDS' claims about Joseph Jr, Kimball was not called even though a decade earlier she had written a tract directly attacking the RLDS philosophy of monogamous marriage. The three women who were called were all aged 17 - 19 at time of marriage to Smith, whilst the youngest person we have probable evidence of a sexual relationship with is Fanny Alger, who some think may have been his first 'plural wife' (although there is debate if it was a 'simple' affair), who was aged 16 when Joseph was 31. But the vast majority of Joseph's reported wives were older than this - Kimball is the only one known to be under the age of 16 and it was almost certainly a functional marriage. In addition, Illinois had an age of consent of just 10 years old by the tail end of the 19th century; if Smith had been so inclined, given he was already practising polygamy illegally and against the cultural norms of the day, he would have absolutely felt even more at liberty to exploit younger girls.
Finally, it might be useful to think of other contemporary examples to illustrate that whilst Smith's behaviour was unusual it was not unthinkable. Edgar Allen Poe famously married his 13-year old cousin when he was 27 years old in 1835, whilst the royal families of Europe could testify to an abundance of what would now be considered arranged child marriages in the 19th century, some involving pairings with similar ages and age gaps to the ones that frequently scandalise people reading about Joseph Smith. The future German Emperor, Wilhelm I, was married aged 32 to the 17 year old Augusta the year before the publishing of the Book of Mormon. Whilst these kind of unions were absolutely abnormal, and laws in the 19th century increasingly sought to restrict them and encourage marriage over the age of majority, there was simply not the same understanding of age and consent that we have in our modern world. It is Joseph Smith Jr's practice of polygamy that makes him stand out sharply from his contemporaries rather than the people who he was saying he was marrying.
There are absolutely many valid criticisms we can make of how Joseph Smith Jr and others appear to have practised the system of plural marriage as a coercive, patriarchal institution. Where age is concerned however, neither Smith nor his contemporaries were exceptional for the cultural norms of the time - age gaps between men and women were the norm rather than the exception and although most people did wait until full adulthood to marry, by no means would the idea of marrying a 15 or 16 year old have aroused the same feelings of outrage and alarm that they do today, and early Latter Day Saint thinking on the nature of adulthood vs childhood probably played a role, too. What made Smith and the Mormon polygamists exceptional was their practice of non-monogamy and extreme, church-sanctioned non-monogamy at that rather than the age dynamics or coercive nature of the relationships. Today, the lack of monogamy is probably the thing the average American would find least offensive in a culture with a much greater acceptance of sexual promiscuity, whilst the unequal treatment of women (even if the movement was in other ways progressive for its time) and acceptance of age gaps much more disturbing to our sensibilities. Whilst we can be rightly critical of these things in considering what lessons we want to take from our past to inform the shape and direction of our lives and societies today, we must be mindful that we do not project our modern sensibilities and perspectives onto the people of the past and try to understand their actions within the moral and social contexts of the societies they lived in. Understanding them as they understood themselves allows us to appreciate the pressures and influences they were acting and thinking upon, which enhances our ability to see the similarities and differences between yesterday and today when thinking about what yesterday means for tomorrow.
Selected Bibliography
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Edit* to update the Historian /sowser has posted a 2nd write up responding to a user here contentions. I also think it is a great read.
https://np.reddit.com/AskHistorians/comments/kvm8g3/from_the_late_18th_to_early_19th_centuries_how/gj8hfdw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
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FAQ: Combining witchcraft and Christianity?

Sorry this post is about 5000 words. There is a TLDR at the end, but I recommend reading the whole thing if you are seriously considering combining witchcraft/Wicca/paganism with Christianity in any way shape or form.

First and foremost...

I'll admit that I don’t identify myself as a Christian witch or a Christian pagan, but as I grew up in a Christian household and I began my interest in witchcraft, being a Christian witch or a Christian Wiccan was something I considered for a long time, so I feel confident enough to discuss this topic and give out advice about it.
I’m not making this post to bash Christianity or calling it out as a ‘bad’ religion. I have my own personal reasons for no longer identifying as a Christian that actually has very little to do with witchcraft. Also, I didn’t grow up in the Catholic scene, so I cannot give specific or overly accurate advice about Catholic Witchcraft, only what I have read from others on the internet.
I know this is a controversial topic, but I’m going to speak my own truth and what you choose to believe is totally up to you. If this doesn’t resonate with you, that’s okay, and if it does and you find it helpful, that’s great. Ultimately I want this post to provide understanding & insight rather than breeding more fear & ignorance.
This topic is important to me because I know that a lot of witches are in the broom closet because they live among Christians, so having the option to combine witchcraft & paganism with Christianity can make for a good compromise, or allow friends and family to be more accepting.
I’m going to cover 3 main topics; Christian witchcraft, Christo-Paganism, and Christian Wicca. These terms have a lot of overlap and defining them is a personal matter, but in this post I am going to treat them as distinct terms from each other, so I can cover different topics in manageable chunks. The things I discuss in the Christo-Paganism and Christian Witch sections will also be useful to a Christian Wiccan, and vice versa, so I recommend that you read the whole thing if you are considering blending witchcraft, paganism and Christianity.
Let’s take a step back for a second so we can be on the same page; I define the following terms as:
I know those are rather broad definitions, but that is how I like to define them. So now you understand where I’m coming from when I’m talking about witches, witchcraft, and magick.

Witchcraft & Christianity

Being a Christian witch means that you are first and foremost a Christian, and you also practice witchcraft. Since witchcraft is a skill or a practice, it is not in of itself religious. Therefore, theoretically, witchcraft can be practised in conjunction with any religion.
I define a Christian Witch to be someone who practices witchcraft but does not necessarily subscribe to any of the Wiccan or Pagan beliefs & practices. For example, during a spell, a Christian Witch would call upon solely God or Jesus to aid in their work, whereas someone like a Christian Wiccan may call upon both the God & Goddess.
Of course, the reason why Christian witchcraft is such a controversial topic is because the Bible literally says that sorcerers will go to Hell. I’m not exactly qualified to discuss the specifics of Bible verses and how they should be interpreted, but I have a bit of food-for-thought for you. I’ve done some research into the etymology of the word “sorcerer” in Hebrew and Greek, particularly how it is used in the book of Revelation chapters 21 and 22.
Long story short, Hebrew and Greek has many different words for sorcerers and witches. English basically has two; sorcerer and witch, and both words have rather negative connotations. But Hebrew and Greek has many words for those who work with magick (sorcery), and the definition of what exactly is considered to be sorcery has changed a lot over the last couple millennia. There are numerous pieces of evidence alluding to the fact that the Hebrew words for ‘sorcerer’ and ‘witch’ only referred to those who practised black magick, in essence, to harm others or use magick with malevolent intent. So if the Bible only condemns those who use magick to harm, then you can infer that it is perfectly fine to use magick as long as you don’t use it to cause harm. Sources: source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4
In my heart, how I feel, is that witches who use magick to heal and connect to the world God created, who come from a place of love, are welcome in God’s Kingdom. I think that as long as you have strict rules and morals for your craft like you never use magick to harm, you don’t do necromancy, you don’t do sex magick, you don’t work with demons, things like that, you can be a witch and still be a Christian.
In fact, depending on how on you define magick, you’re already using it without even realising.
And if we look at rituals in Catholicism in particular, some of them cannot be described in any way other than purely magickal. Some Catholic practices (or so I’ve been told by witches who are former Catholics) are just downright witchy. I’ve seen a lot of Catholics drawn to witchcraft because they love the ritualistic aspect of Catholicism, but they no longer find the belief system appealing. In other words, they’re looking for the intense spiritual experience without the misogyny and homophobia, among other reasons. Catholics and Christians use magick, they just don’t call it witchcraft, but for all in intents and purposes there is no difference.
The Bible condemns the use of divination, but have you ever seen an omen that influenced a decision or how you felt about something? A black cat crossing your path is an omen of bad luck, a sparrow in the house is an omen of death, flicking to a random page in the Bible for insight. Spotting omens is the most basic of divination practices. Are you going to Hell for believing in old wives’ tales?
Jesus performed "miracles" all the time. Turning water to wine, healing the sick, feeding hundreds of people, rising from the dead. Some of the stories may be exaggerated, but the essence remains the same; he used magick.

How to be a Christian Witch

Okay so now I have explained why I personally think it is fine to be a Christian witch, now let’s discuss exactly how to be a Christian witch.
First, if you want to label yourself as a witch, go ahead. But I think some Christian witches would be more comfortable with the term ‘light worker’. A light worker is basically someone who feels an enormous pull towards helping others. They are spiritually inclined beings who volunteer to act as a beacon for the Earth, and commit to serving humanity. I think this term is a much better fit for a Christian witch, since if you are a Christian then you are already committed to serving humanity and helping others. There is a lot of overlap in the practices of a light worker and a witch; for example, reading tarot, meditation & visualisation, reiki, crystals, candles, evoking benevolent entities & spirits, and more. Lightwork is not tied to any particular religion and it can be a secular practice, much like witchcraft.
I think before you start down the path of a Christian witch, you’ve got to have a strict list of your personal dos and don’ts when it comes to your craft. One of the most important rules for being a witch is to know thyself, after all.
You are first and foremost a Christian, so your craft should conform to your Christian beliefs and morals. Curses and hexes are probably going to be a “don’t”, but what about binding spells? Binding spells have many purposes that most would consider ‘good’. How do you feel about working with entities or spirits? Demons is a definite no, and angels are probably yes, but what about nature spirits? So compile your own personal list of the boundaries of your craft and how they conform to your values as a Christian.
You can still celebrate most or all of the sabbats that Wiccans and Pagans have. This is actually surprisingly easy because the majority of them have Christian counterparts. This is mostly because the traditional Pagan holidays were Christianised to make it easier for pagans to convert to Christianity. For example, Imbolc is Candlemas, Ostara is Easter, Lughnasadh is Lammas, and Yule is Christmas.
For casting spells and conducting rituals, you can call upon God or Jesus to assist you. Spells are just prayers with extra steps, so this makes sense. If you want to call upon the quarters like Wiccans do in casting a circle, you can call upon the archangels. Each one is associated with a different element.
For different practices, I suggest taking up some of the ones I mentioned earlier like tarot, crystal work, and meditation. Tarot, while it is no different to gathering insight from a random page in the Bible, can set off alarm bells for Christians so a good alternative is oracle cards, or even angel cards. Oracle and angel cards don’t have the same perceived negativity attached to them that tarot cards do. Another alternative is cartomancy; just using a regular playing card deck to divinate.

Further reading

I really recommend checking out The Mindful Mage on YouTube. She is a Christian witch who makes lots of videos about Christian witchcraft.
For even more information, I recommend reading The Christian Witch's Handbook by H. Fuller Hutchison. This book I would say is the definition of a Christian Witch. It’s literally Christianity but with witchy vibes, and with none of the Wiccan vibes either, despite the author having studied under a Wiccan priestess. While the author does recognise a feminine aspect of the Christian God in the Holy Spirit, this is not emphasised in any prayers or rituals and the author explicitly states that she doesn’t believe in a Goddess. Unfortunately this book is only sold second-hand at ridiculous prices, but I managed to snatch it up at a cheap price so if you want to read this book please get in contact with me and I will be able to show you its contents.

Christo-Paganism

I am going to define a Christo-Pagan as someone who is a Christian and also chooses to work with other gods from Pagan pantheons like Celtic paganism and Norse paganism. A Christo-Pagan may also practice concepts that are considered to be typically pagan, like earth-worship and working with nature spirits.
Christo-Paganism, like most forms of paganism, is a very individual path with many different flavours. Some are Christians with pagan leanings, others are pagans with Christian leanings, and some are kind of a 50/50 split combining both systems equally.
Most Christian Pagans have conflict when they think about The Ten Commandments, particularly the first one "You shall have no other Gods before me." Sounds pretty straight forward, right? You're not allowed to worship other Gods. But it makes an important distinction; it recognises the existence of other gods. This basically implies that you could worship other gods, but you must revere the nameless Christian God the most.
In the creed, you normally say "We believe in one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." We have a contradiction, one God and many gods; how can both be true? Well, a while ago, I discovered this belief called "Omnitheism". 'Omni' meaning 'all', and 'theism' meaning 'God'. It is the belief that there is one single Divinity, which I like to call The Source, or Spirit (other names include The All, Akasha, the High God, the True Divinity, or the Unknown Deity), and everything in the universe is a counterpart of The Source, or Spirit. It can also be the belief that every living being is a god within itself.
There are several ways of interpreting this. One is how the Hermetic Kabbalah describes the Tree Of Life: Spirit is an infinite source of energy, with no bounds. Spirit's energy pours through the different planes of existence before reaching the physical world. In the physical world, The Source's energy creates all physical things, objects, and living beings. Every plant, every animal, every person is a part of The Source, and our end goal is to seek unity with the Divinity, thus, you can argue that we are all God, since each of us possesses part of the vastness of Spirit, or The Source.
I like to think that it's like we are all individual branches on a tree, and as a whole we make one tree. At the same time, you can take a branch off the tree and plant it and it will make its own tree. So we're basically all gods in various stages; leaves, branches, and trees.
Another theory you may prefer is the Egg Universe. This is a theory that the whole universe is an egg, and this egg contains a juvenile god in a sense. In order to learn as much about life as possible, the god in this egg has split its consciousness into billions of separate consciences. And parts of this consciousness has manifested as you and me. We are all god. So yeah, there is one god, but we, and other levels of consciousness are part of it too, like the gods that Pagans worship, or even a plant growing in a forest. Every living thing is a counterpart of the greater consciousness. That was a really brief explanation so if you want to understand it better I suggest watching this YouTube video.
Look at different belief systems and make up your own mind. Religion is a highly subjective thing and only you can truly know God for yourself.
I haven’t even began to cover the fact that early Christianity was split into many different sects with wildly diverging beliefs. It’s only by chance that we have the type of Christianity we have today. One of these sects that faded into obscurity is Gnostic Christianity, which holds the belief that the God described in the Old Testament is not the true Christian God, but instead a mistaken creation by the female aspect of the True Divinity. They also believe that Jesus was created in order to fix the spiritual mistakes of the Old Testament God.

Psychological Perspective

All that I’ve covered so far is purely religious or spiritual belief. There are a lot of witches and pagans who are not strictly polytheistic but instead they choose to view other gods as psychological archetypes. For example, say if I wanted to love myself more and be more confident in my physical appearance, I might turn to Aphrodite. I might not actually believe she exists as a literal goddess, but I may subscribe to a psychological archetype of Aphrodite, basically invoking the idea of her and aiming to be more like her. This way, I’m technically working with Aphrodite for self-improvement, but I don’t necessarily believe that other gods exist other than the Christian God, and I’m certainly not worshipping Aphrodite over the Christian God, I’m simply studying what she stands for and how she might handle issues with self-esteem if she were a real person.

A lot of Saints are Ex-Pagan Gods

A lot of Christians are required to choose a "patron saint" to work with when they are confirmed. For Christo-Pagans, many choose St Brighid. She was a Pagan goddess so beloved by her people that they made her into a Christian saint. She is also a triple goddess (maiden, mother, crone), so you can work with her in unison with the moon phases and the wheel of the year.
Other pagan deities converted to saints include Kernunnos; the Catholic Church replaced Him with Saint Hubert and Saint Tatheus. And Sainte Ann was replacement for the Pagan Goddess Ana or Dana.

To sum up Christo-Paganism...

Taking all this into account, there isn’t really a reason why you can’t choose to work with other gods in your practices if you choose to believe that they are merely counterparts of Spirit or The Source, or psychological archetypes, or Saints, or some sort of belief similar to that. As long as you are praising the Christian God most, whatever you define that be, you’re not really violating any Christian values as stated in the Bible. Whether you think the Christian God is The Source, or you think ‘He’ is a counterpart of The Source, it still works.
And if you are drawn to Paganism because you feel that Christianity lacks the female aspect of God, this works for you too. Whether you believe the Gnostic concept of the female principle of the True Divinity, or if you prefer the energy of other female pagan goddesses like Gaia, Diana, or Artemis, for example. You can work with female Saints, or study goddesses as psychological archetypes.

Further reading

For more information and different viewpoints on Christo-Paganism, I recommend Christo-Paganism: An Inclusive Path by Joyce & River Higginbotham. It has a bibliography and a list of sources for the claims made in the book, so it makes for a really good resource.

Christian Wicca

I define a Christian Wiccan as someone who is a Christian and they also follow traditions set out by Wicca, this can be Gardnerian Wicca, Alexandrian Wicca, Dianic Wicca, or some other sect. A Christian Wiccan is someone who conforms to Christian values laid out in the Bible, whilst following fundamental Wiccan beliefs like the threefold law, the Wiccan Rede, and recognition of both the God and Goddess.
Things that separate a Christian Wiccan from a Christo-Pagan (in my opinion):
Obviously there is a lot of wiggle-room and intersection between a Christian Pagan and a Christian Wiccan, and your personal beliefs and practices are highly subjective, but this is how I am distinguishing these terms so I am able to explain these concepts in a way that can be digested easily.

The God & Goddess according to Christian Wiccans

Every Christian Wiccan has a slightly different view on their own religious practices, but from what I can gather, a lot of Christian Wiccans like to replace the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit with the Wiccan Goddess. Some believe that the Holy Spirit is the lost female aspect that Christianity is severely lacking in.
Other Christian Wiccans choose to work with Jesus to represent the God in their work, and The Virgin Mary as the Goddess. This makes a lot of sense because the Wiccan sabbats observe the Goddess giving birth to the God, and obviously Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Which belief you choose, or maybe a mixture of both, is completely up to you.
The sabbats are much the same as previously discussed, since most Christian holidays are Christianised versions of the pagan festivals that the Wiccan sabbats are based on.

Criticisms of Christian Wicca

It is vitally important to note that Christian Wicca is not without controversy. And I’m not just talking about the whole ‘Bible condemns witches’ thing, I’m saying that there is a significant portion of the witchcraft community that criticises Christian Wicca specifically. Honestly from my research I haven’t really found any witches criticising Christian Witchcraft or Christo-Paganism (with informed opinions), it is Christian Wicca specifically that raises problems, and this is why:
The Bible is rooted in the belief of a single deity, known as God. There are no other acceptable deities. Wicca, in contrast, involves the reverence of two deities minimally, a god and a goddess. If you worship God alongside a goddess in equal reverence, then you are breaking the Christian commandment to worship only God, and you are denying his existence as the only God. If you attempt to be a monotheistic Wiccan, you lose the polarity and unity of separate halves that is fundamental to Wicca. To clarify; Wicca is not a monotheistic religion; there is a God and a Goddess, with equal importance.
There are four general reasons why people attempt to be both Christian and Wiccan:
And I totally get it, all four of these reasons were the reasons for my inner conflict with Christianity, Wicca, and witchcraft as a whole some years ago. A lot of these reasons just come from simply not knowing enough about Wicca and witchcraft yet. The main things you need to realise if any of the aforementioned reasons apply to you is that:
  1. You don’t have to be Wiccan to use magick or practise witchcraft, and
  2. The practices you see commonly associated with Wicca are not exclusive to Wicca. Wiccans do not have monopoly over nature worship, burning incense, using altars, crystals, tarot cards, or meditation. You don’t have to be a Wiccan to do these things. For example as previously mentioned, you can be a light worker, you can be a secular witch, you can be an eclectic Christian, or something else. There are so many options.
For me personally, I eventually abandoned both Christianity and Wicca, but I kept some of their basic ideas in my practices. I still follow Jesus’ teachings and I have a great deal of respect for Him, and I have also adopted Wiccan practices like honouring the esbats and calling upon the God & Goddess to assist me in my spells. I don’t call myself a Christian Wiccan for these reasons though.
There are a number of reasons why some witches reject Christian Wicca, but the main reason is that there are just too many fundamental differences between the religions which means that you can’t combine them harmoniously. For example, Christians believe that God is wholly good, and Satan is the embodiment of evil. Whereas Wiccans embrace their deities’ shadow side as well as the light, as they exist in nature. Nature is not wholly good or wholly bad. Christians believe that humans need salvation from sin, but Wiccans believe that humans make their own choices, not because The Devil is tempting them. So those are fundamental beliefs in the religions that directly oppose one other.
With all of this said, the witches who have these criticisms are not gatekeeping. There is nothing wrong with combining Christian and Wiccan beliefs into something new. The problem is, they say, is when you insist on labelling yourself as something you no longer are. There’s certainly nothing wrong with bringing certain Christian concepts into your Wiccan practice or certain Wiccan concepts into Christian practice. But the choices should make sense just like any other belief system. Can a Wiccan follow Jesus’ ethical teachings? Absolutely. Can a Christian worship outdoors, creating their own sacred space? Of course. But neither of these situations results in a Christian Wiccan.
So those are some of the criticisms of Christian Wicca, just so you are aware of them. I’ll reiterate that I do not necessarily believe all the criticisms, but I do believe that they are valid. I still think that you can call yourself a Christian Wiccan if you want to, but just be aware of the reasons why some witches are opposed to the idea. Again, to my knowledge, the only source of controversy for Christian Witchcraft and Paganism comes from Christians themselves, but for Christian Wiccans, some of the backlash comes from the witchcraft & Wiccan community too.

Further reading

If you want some specific rituals and practices, I suggest reading Christian Wicca: The Trinitarian Tradition by Nancy Chandler Pittman. The book isn’t perfect I’ll admit, it can get a bit ranty and there are zero sources for any claims made, but it is pretty good and quite thought-provoking.
There are some resources online like trinitarianwicca.org, and Trinity Wicca on Twitter.
I also suggest having a look at The Path of a Christian Witch by Edelina St Clair. I know it says Christian Witch, but since her practices are largely influenced by Wicca I think this book is more useful to Christian Wiccans as well as Christian Witches. It is an overall well-received book, but it may be less helpful as it is written in the style of an autobiography rather than an informative text.
Finally, there is coven on www.spellsofmagic.com called Christian Wiccans. Their resources are private to outsiders, but if you think Christian Wicca may be the path for you then I'm sure you could join the coven. One of the council members, Trinitarian3, used to be a member of my former coven; she's very friendly and will gladly tell you about her beliefs and practices if you mail her.
This is what she told me when I asked about her beliefs: "I'm a Trinitarian Wiccan, also called a Christian Wiccan, and I worship God, the Goddess, and Jesus. Basically, the Holy Trinity is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So, I was thinking since the Spirit was the Spirit of God, and spirit is the quintessence of magic, I kinda melted it in with God the Mother, the Goddess."
If you want to read more about the criticisms of Christian Wicca, check out this article from Spells of Magic.

Final Message

I just want to say that even after reading this post, the answers aren’t going to come easy. The pursuit of your spiritual path takes years, a lifetime, even several lifetimes according to some. So don’t get worked up about finalising your beliefs and your path, because there’s no deadline. There’s no standardised test asking what you believe in and what your practices are. Your beliefs and your path will change as you grow.
So whether you choose to be a Christian witch, a Christian Wiccan, a light worker, an omnitheist, or whatever, please remember that you are valid, you are enough, and you are accepted. Even if you can’t find a single place where you belong, you are accepted here at BroomClosetWitch, okay?
And for other witches and pagans out there reading this, please be kind and give Christians exploring witchcraft & paganism a place where they can feel welcome. It is so tough, knowing that there are some parts of your church that you don’t fully agree with, or you feel are missing, and then being told that if you even question these things, you will suffer eternal damnation. It is so heart-breaking being manipulated into worshipping a deity you fear, because apparently they love you unconditionally.
And then, coming from a place of toxicity and hoping to find yourself in the witchcraft & pagan community, only to be marginalised and told that your path isn’t valid. That is truly terrible. So please give these folks a place to call home. You don’t have to agree with them, you just have to give them a place to be accepted and validated. Paganism & witchcraft is an all-inclusive community.

TLDR;

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Notthedarkweb_MNZP v. _MyHouseIsOnFire_, in re: Executive Order 02

Introduction.

Holderlin said, “What is the wisdom of a book compared with the wisdom of an angel?”. However, it is a fact that the art of government in the United States of America is bound by the wisdom of a book, the Constitution, not the whims of self-described angels who decide how to exercise sovereign power by setting their own limits. On February 12th, 2021, the Governor of this state, _MyHouseIsOnFire_, put into force Executive Order II: In Defence of the People, containing multiple measures, including but not limited to: 1) stop prosecuting crimes associated with a multiplicity of state statutes governing the possession and sales of firearms, 2) prevent the provision of funds to authorities who exercise federal and state statutes regarding possession and sales of firearms, 3) non-cooperation with federal authorities, specifically the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and 4), the non-collection of excise taxes on firearms ranges In the following brief, I shall explain why these actions are ultra vires.

Arguments

1. Non-enforcement of statutes.

Petitioner is aware of the fact that the non-enforcement of statutes by the Governor was found to be within constitutional limits by this Court in Ibney v. TheCloudCappedStar (2020), 19-15. However, it remains a fact that the decision was made on unitary-executive grounds on whether or not the Governor had the power to direct the Executive. This is beyond question. Petitioner points out, nevertheless, that the Atlantic Constitution and previous case law regarding executive discretion provides a significant limit on the exercise of executive power: the take-care clause in Article IV, Section 2 of the Atlantic Constitution. Under this clause, the Governor is ordered to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed”. In County of Oneida v. Berle, 398 N.Y.S.2d 600, involving executive action which in the words of the hon. Court involved “an attempt by executive edict to defeat the legislative intent of the law passed by the State Legislature”, the majority decided that “It is the opinion of this court that the impoundment of the seven million dollars appropriated funds by the Governor and the Director of the Budget was without authority in law and that said sum should be restored to the budget of the Department of Environmental Conservation and that the moneys so appropriated should be dispersed to the municipalities entitled thereto, pursuant to law.” Let us leave no doubt as to the nature of this ruling, for the hon. Court states: “If the law were otherwise, the executive branch by impounding funds could, not only limit the operation of a department or agency, but in fact, put the department or agency completely out of business, by merely denying funds.” To summarize, it was the finding of the Court that the Governor by refusing to allow the legislature’s intent to be carried out, was not faithfully executing the law as required by the New York Constitution, and therefore their actions were ultra vires.
It is not merely state case-law that proscribes the complete non-enforcement of statute, the majority decision in In re: Executive Order 002: Reforms to Immigration Agencies, 101 M.S.Ct. 118, the court decided that the President “may issue policies to shape prosecutorial discretion so long as such orders are not inconsistent with a statutory mandate. But he may not unilaterally issue an order that halts enforcement of a statute wholesale” and “is already under a constitutional duty to do just that, and we presume his future actions will take care that those laws are faithfully executed.” It is important to remember that the U.S. Constitution’s take care clause was modelled on the New York Constitution’s own take care clause (Goldsmith & Manning 2016).
From even a cursory glance of E.O.2, one notes that the entirety of Sec.1; Sec.III, clause 1 & 1.a and the entirety of Sec.V violate the take-care clause’s imperative to the Governor. If the hon. Court would prefer some further direction as to what “faithfully” constitutes, we can look at the prior jurisprudence of statutory construction in the state, with Fumarelli, 703 N.E.2d making clear that “the Court must now look beyond the language of the statute. Our preeminent responsibility in that endeavor is to search for and effectuate the Legislature's purpose.” The purpose of these laws was to enforce regulation of possession and sales of firearms, and the collection of excise taxes, and so forth.
From the above discussion of the facts of case-law and executive actions, it is clear that E.O. 2 is in violation of the take-care clause of the Atlantic Constitution and the offending sections should be struck down.

2. Violation of Separation of Powers Doctrine.

As the hon. Court noted in its memorandum granting a temporary restraining order in favour of petitioner, it has not treated violation of separation-of-powers on the part of the Executive lightly. In JacobinAustin v. _MyHouseIsOnFire_, (2020) Atl. 10, 30, the Court writes, “while the Governor must be granted broad deference in how he chooses to exercise the powers vested in the branch of government which he heads, no such deference will be accorded when he acts in a domain reserved in our constitutional structure for a coequal branch of government. “ In UnorthodoxAmbassador v. _MyHouseIsOnFire_, (2020) Atl. 11., the court applies heightened scrutiny to any such usurpations of the actions of the legislative domain. As the Court knows, intermediate scrutiny applies the following test to government actions:
  1. further an important government interest
  2. and must do so by means that are substantially related to that interest.
It is not clear to the petitioner how the Governor is furthering an important government interest by refusing to collect taxes, a power given to the Legislature in Article III, Section 1 of the Atlantic Constitution. It is furthermore confusing to the petitioner how the denial of collection of excise taxes furthers this unique government interest, considering that the collection of revenue for the operation of Government is generally considered to be one of the most important government interests existing. What important government interest can supersede the operation of the government itself? However, this is not what is concerning. We return to Article III, Section 1 of the Atlantic Constitution, which clearly and concisely states “the general power of taxation of any goods, services, or other actions vested in the legislature shall never be surrendered, suspended or contracted away.” As noted prior by this court, it is not the function of the Executive to legislate upon the collection of taxes, it is solely the Legislature’s function ( Aubrion v. Parado-I, (2019)) . States have “the attribute of sovereign powers in devising their fiscal systems to ensure revenue and foster their local interests” (Shapiro v. City of New York, 296 N.E.2d 230) and within the State of Atlantic, this sovereign power is solely granted to the Legislature. E.O. 2’s Sec.V clause (b) is blatant usurpation of this legislative power without any apparent showcase of an important government interest associated (Aubrion v. Parado-I, (2019))
This, however, is not all. In Trump v. Chu, 489 N.Y.S.2d 455, quoting Madden v Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83, 88, the hon. Court notes that a legislative statute enjoys “presumption of constitutionality which ‘can be overcome only by the most explicit demonstration that [the] classification is a hostile and oppressive discrimination against particular persons and classes. The burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support it’”. The Governor in E.O.2 claims “inherited New York Laws blatantly violate this clause of the Atlantic Constitution, and should not be enforced in any capacity as such”. This amounts to a claim that the Legislature has previously undertaken an unconstitutional action, without any demonstration of this fact through evidence. Without any portrayal of this apparent unconstitutionality by the Executive, the Court should apply intermediate scrutiny to Section III, clause 1) along with Sec V. clauses 1) & 3) for the usurpation of the legislative power of the Atlantic state’s legislature, and declare them ultra vires.

3. Right of Protection.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides for due process under law, as stated as follows: “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. In multiple cases in the highest court of the land, a right of protection, first under common law, and then under the 14th Amendment has been elucidated (see Marbury v. Madison; South v. Maryland ex rel. Pottle; City of Chicago v. Sturges). However, in DeShaney v. Winnebago County, 489 U.S. 189, the Supreme Court set out the following test that would determine if a state had an affirmative duty of protection to its citizens under the Fourteenth’s due process clause: 1) if the government is responsible for creating the danger or 2) if someone in government custody is unable to protect himself or herself. While a much more restricted standard than previous cases, there has been a flowering of case law after DeShaney elaborating on this test. In Wood v. Ostrander, 879 F.2d, 583 the Ninth Circuit decided that if a government authority showed “deliberate indifference” to a person’s safety, it could be held liable for civil damages for violating the affirmative duty to protection by creating harm. In Davis v. Brady, 143 F.3d, 1026, the Sixth Circuit agreed with the Ninth, stating that “deliberately indifferent” actions increased harm. In Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 335-36 and Davidson v.Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 348, the Supreme Court of the United States found that a due process violation under the Fourteenth that would increase harm required an intentional or at the very least reckless government act. In Munger v. Glasgow Police Department, 227 F.3d 1082, the Ninth Circuit provided a further elaboration on the test, “whether [the government] 'affirmatively placed the plaintiff in a position of danger.” In Currier v. Doran, 242 F.3d 905, the Tenth Circuit applied but-for causation to defendant’s actions and found that governments could be held liable if plaintiff would not be in increased danger of harm but-for the actions of defendant.
This vast, nation-wide case-law indicates but one thing: the Governor of Atlantic has abdicated their affirmative duty to protection by ordering the non-enforcement of firearm statutes, considering the academic support behind the specific statute’s harm-reduction capacities (Siegel et al. 2019; Siegel et al. 2019 (Journal of General Internal Medicine); Schell et al. (2020); Hemenway (2016); Liu et al. (2020), Irvin-Erickson et al. (2017)) The existence of an executive order requiring non-enforcement is an intentional action, it is deliberate indifference, and it affirmatively places the petitioner in a position of danger by increasing exposure to gun violence, however one wants to frame it.
From the above, petitioner claims that Section I, clause 1, including all subclauses; Section I, clause 4; Section II, clause 3; Section III, clause 1) & clause 1.a); as well as the entirety of Section V violate petitioner’s due process rights by increasing danger of harm and thereby depriving petitioner of liberty.

4. Federal Preemption.

Perhaps the simplest of petitioner’s challenges to E.O.2, Section II of the executive order impose blanket restrictions on cooperation and communication with the ATF, and further burdens on individual communication and cooperation by law enforcement agencies. In United States v. Central State, 101 M.S. Ct 104, the Supreme Court found that state “action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal Government, and a refusal to cooperate and share information is tantamount to creating those impediments when that refusal is as broad as written in this case” and that states “may neither rightfully nor appropriately refuse to share information or assistance in a blanket fashion barring a specific and appropriately limited circumstance to justify its refusal.” Unless the state can provide that they have passed the *Central State* test where any order of a State must have been “narrowly and appropriately tailored to the circumstances where the State may exercise authority in such a way that it does not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal Government”, we must accept the fact that the operations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is in fact constitutional, and that a blanket ban and placement of significant burden on cooperation and information-sharing constitutes a violation of the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2).

Conclusion and Summary.

For the above given reasons, petitioner asks the hon. Court to strike down the entirety of E.O.2 with the exception of Sec.4

Index

  1. Ibney00 v. thecloudcappedstar 19-15, in re: Executive Order 25—Marriage and Polygamy
  2. County of Oneida v. Berle, 398 N.Y.S.2d 600
  3. In re: Executive Order 002: Reforms to Immigration Agencies, 101 M.S.Ct. 118
  4. Fumarelli v. Marsam Dev., 703 N.E.2d 251, 680
  5. JacobinAustin v. _MyHouseIsOnFire_, (2020) Atl. 10
  6. UnorthodoxAmbassador v. _MyHouseIsOnFire_, (2020) Atl. 11
  7. Aubrion v. Parado-I, (2019)
  8. Shapiro v. City of New York, 296 N.E.2d 230
  9. Trump v. Chu, 489 N.Y.S.2d 455*,
  10. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137
  11. South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. 18 How. 396 396
  12. City of Chicago v. Sturges, 222 U.S. 313
  13. DeShaney v. Winnebago County, 489 U.S. 189
  14. Wood v. Ostrander, 879 F.2d, 583
  15. Davis v. Brady, 143 F.3d, 1026
  16. Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 335-36
  17. Davidson v.Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 348
  18. Munger v. Glasgow Police Department, 227 F.3d 1082
  19. Currier v. Doran, 242 F.3d 905
  20. United States v. Central State, 101 M.S. Ct 104

Constitutional Citations (Atlantic State.)

  1. Article III, Sec. 1
  2. Article IV. Sec.2

Constitutional Citations (United States)

  1. Article II. Sec.3 [Take-care clause]
  2. Amendment XIV. Sec.1, clause (3) [Due Process Clause]
  3. Article VI. clause (2) [Supremacy Clause]

Bibliography

  1. Siegel, M., Solomon, B., Knopov, A., Rothman, E. F., Cronin, S. W., Xuan, Z., & Hemenway, D. (2020). The Impact of State Firearm Laws on Homicide Rates in Suburban and Rural Areas Compared to Large Cities in the United States, 1991-2016. The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association, 36(2), 255–265. https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12387
  2. Siegel, M., Pahn, M., Xuan, Z. et al. The Impact of State Firearm Laws on Homicide and Suicide Deaths in the USA, 1991–2016: a Panel Study. J GEN INTERN MED 34, 2021–2028 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-019-04922-x
  3. Schell, Terry L., Matthew Cefalu, Beth Ann Griffin, Rosanna Smart, and Andrew R. Morral. “Changes in Firearm Mortality Following the Implementation of State Laws Regulating Firearm Access and Use.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 26 (2020): 14906–10. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1921965117.
  4. Hemenway, D. (2017). Reducing Firearm Violence. Crime and Justice, 46(1), 201-230. doi:10.1086/688460
  5. Liu, Ye, Michael Siegel, and Bisakha Sen. “Neighbors Do Matter: Between-State Firearm Laws and State Firearm-Related Deaths in the U.S., 2000–2017.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 59, no. 5 (2020): 648–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2020.06.022.
  6. Irvin-Erickson, Yasemin, Matthew Lynch, Annie Gurvis, Edward Mohr, and Bing Bai. “A Neighborhood-Level Analysis of the Economic Impact of Gun Violence.” urban.org, 2017. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/neighborhood-level-analysis-economic-impact-gun-violence.
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A complete guide to lichdom in 5th edition.

Requirements: Any humanoid creature of evil alignment that can cast 9th-level wizard spells.
You need to perform the following tasks:
Construction of the phylactery takes 10 days. Concocting the potion takes 3 days. The two items can't be crafted concurrently. When the beneficiary drinks the potion, he or she instantly transforms into a lich under the Dungeon Master’s control, altering the lich’s prepared spells as desired. Found within >! Curse of Strahd !<.
Personally if a player manages to get to 17th level+ and works incredibly hard to discover the secrets of lichdom I would allow the player to play a lich removing legendary resistances and legendary actions. Player lich template can be found down below. You could allow them to spend downtime to create a lair if that is something they desire.
Ways to Obtain the Secrets of Lichdom
Arguably the hardest part of the entire process is the actual discovery of the secrets. Although there exist some thoroughly evil shortcuts; the hardest part is the journey. One must be incredibly powerful to become a lich and one must risk many perilous adventures to even possibly obtain the secrets of the process. Be wary of misinformation; the fewer competition the better. Other liches may very well spread false rumors and misinformation to prevent others from achieving lichdom. Many would be liches delve into ancient ruins, using spells such as Speak with Dead, Contact Other Plane, and Legend Lore; some even attempt to contact ghosts of archmagi merely to glean fragments of information. Others might beseech Orcus or an Archdevil, swearing fealty to serve them in their un-life. It's even possible for others to learn the secrets directly from a lich but at what magnitudinous cost?
Although many liches are primarily self serving, if your prospective lich is content with swearing fealty to an Archdevil, an evil god, or Orcus, you can obtain the information through a dark pact. Use the Diabolical Deals section from Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus as reference for a deal with an Archdevil. Specifically: "A valuable piece of information that can't be acquired by any other means.". Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath, appears to be the most common method of attaining the secrets of lichdom and appears to be the most willing and lenient in regards to providing the information. Be wary, those who control the knowledge of the process always demand service and fealty in return!
The Phylactery
The phylactery cost 1,500gp per level of the character. Phylactery preparation is similar to the Imprisonment Spell. The phylactery must be a non magical inorganic container of high quality craftsmanship. A phylactery is traditionally an amulet in the shape of a small box, but it can take the form of any item possessing an interior space into which arcane sigils of naming, binding, immortality, and dark magic are scribed in silver. In older editions the most common form of a phylactery would be that of a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment bearing magical phrases. The phylactery can exist in other forms as well, though it must either contain or bear the arcane inscriptions used to bind the soul forevermore.
The phylactery is resilient beyond measure and nigh impervious to destruction. Destroying a phylactery is no easy task and during the process of crafting you must specify a specific condition such as a ritual, item, or weapon that can bring about it’s destruction. An example from >! Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage !< details that it is possible to learn of a phylacteries destruction by casting Legend Lore on the phylactery, >! “Destroying the lich's phylactery requires that it be struck by eight disintegrate spells at the same time. A legend lore spell cast on the box provides the following insight: "Seek out eight magi who possess the power of disintegration and bring them to common purpose. Their combined force can destroy the phylactery." Other reliable divination spells provide similar advice.” !<. It may very well be possible for someone to learn of the process to become a lich from a plethora of Legend Lore castings on a phylactery.
Phylactery Examples from the Libris Mortis:
Sample Phylacteries
  1. A hollow silver sphere hanging from a silver chain and containing strips of inscribed parchment
  2. A gold ring bearing arcane inscriptions on the inside of the band
  3. A hollow gold sphere containing strips of inscribed parchment, set atop a darkwood staff
  4. An ivory box bearing arcane sigils across all six sides
  5. A sealed clay jar containing strips of inscribed parchment
  6. A crystal cube with magical phrases carved on all six sides
  7. A hollow platinum circlet containing tiny strips of inscribed parchment rolled tightly inside
  8. A gold-plated skull with magical phrases engraved upon the teeth
  9. An iron flask containing strips of inscribed parchment
  10. A flawless diamond bearing tiny magical inscriptions, set into a golden crown
Potion Ingredients
The potion must be consumed under the light of a full moon and the soul of the person who’s heart is used in the potion is sacrificed to the phylactery either upon creation of the phylactery or before consuming the potion of transformation.
Possible Archlich/Good Lich Altered Ingredients
Lichdom Notes
The Lich Template
Lichdom. Your spellcasting ability and racial features remain what they were in life.
Arcane Meditation. Liches do not sleep. Instead they lightly meditate, remaining conscious, for 4 hours. Once 4 hours of uninterrupted meditation is met, they gain the benefits of a long rest.
Arcane Mind. You gain plus 1 bonus to ability checks and saving throws. Subtract 1 point from your spell attack bonus and add 1 point to your spell save DC.
Armor of Undeath. You have natural armor of AC 17.
Undead Nature. A lich doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.
Resilient Form. You gain proficiency in Constitution saving throws. Your hit dice per wizard level becomes 1d8.
Damage Resistances Cold, Lightning, Necrotic
Damage Immunities Poison; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks.
Condition Immunities Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralyzed, Poisoned
Senses Truesight 120 ft
Rejuvenation. If it has a phylactery, a destroyed lich gains a new body in 1d10 days, regaining all its hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears within 5 feet of the phylactery.
Turn Resistance. The lich has advantage on saving throws against any effect that turns undead.
Paralyzing Touch: Melee Spell Attack, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: (3d6) cold damage. The target must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution saving throw or be Paralyzed for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Variant Lich Abilities
Some lich’s possess variant abilities. One recurring ability from older editions which can be found in 5e is the ability to create an illusory living version of the lich. It is unclear exactly how some liches attain this power but it is important to inform people that it exists. The lich >! Valindra Shadowmantle !< in >! Tomb of Annihilation !< has the special “Mask” ability. Other liches such as Azalin Rex have been known to use this power as well.
Mask. As a bonus Action, you can mask your shriveled flesh and appear to be a living version of yourself. This magical Illusion lasts until you end it as a bonus action or until you use your Frightening Gaze. The effect also ends if you drop to 30hp or fewer, or if dispel magic is cast on you.
Sources
Curse of Strahd by Wizards RPG Team. 5e.
Construction of the phylactery takes 10 days. Concocting the potion takes 3 days. The two items can't be crafted concurrently. When the beneficiary drinks the potion, he or she instantly transforms into a lich under the Dungeon Master's control (use the stat.block in the Monster Manual, altering the Lich's prepared spells as desired). The beneficiary of this dark gift gains the following flaw: "All I care about is acquiring new magic and arcane knowledge."’
Encyclopedia Magica vol. 1 by Doug Stewart. AD&D 2e.
Encyclopedia Magica vol. 3 by Doug Stewart. AD&D 2e.
Libris Mortis by Andy Collins and Bruce R. Cordell. 3e.
Lost Ships by Ed Greenwood. AD&D 2e.
Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun by James Wyatt and Ryan Heinsoo. 3e.
Monster Manual by Wizards RPG Team. 5e.
Princes of the Apocalypse by Wizards RPG Team. 5e
Tomb of Annihilation by Wizards RPG Team. 5e.
Van Richten’s Guide to the Lich by Eric Haddock. AD&D 2e.
Waterdeep-Dungeon of the Mad Mage by Wizards RPG Team. 5e.
EDIT- Thank you guys for the awards!!!!!
EDIT- Decided to turn my sources into a poor quality bibliography.
EDIT- Added "Ways to obtain the secrets of lichdom"
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what must a bibliography include video

Creating a Bibliography with Zotero - YouTube How to Export a Bibliography from EndNote - YouTube Adding In-Text Citations & A Bibliography - YouTube How to write a bibliography - YouTube What's an annotated bibliography? - YouTube YouTube Copyright & Fair Use Policies - How YouTube Works Annotated Bibliography APA Style Formatting and Helpful ... How to write a good essay: Paraphrasing the question - YouTube

With Chicago style format, you must include a bibliography (in alphabetical order) in addition to footnotes/endnotes, which often detail the same information. Example of a Chicago citation in a bibliography: Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. London, Eng: Cornerstone, 1989. This is a complete guide to APA (American Psychological Association) in-text and reference list citations. This easy-to-use, comprehensive guide makes citing any source easy. Check out our other citation guides on MLA 8 and Harvard referencing. Be alphabetically by name of first author (or title if A bibliography is a list of all of the sources you have used (whether referenced or not) in the process of researching your work. In general, a bibliography should include: the authors' names; the titles of the works; the names and locations of the companies that published your copies of the sources; the dates your copies were published In Harvard style, the bibliography or reference list provides full references for the sources you used in your writing. A reference list consists of entries corresponding to your in-text citations. A bibliography sometimes also lists sources that you consulted for background research, but did not cite in your text. We now have to include the biblatex package and use the \autocite and \printbibliography command. It is crucial to move the \bibliography{lesson7a1} statement to the preamble of our document: \documentclass{article} \usepackage[backend=bibtex,style=verbose-trad2]{biblatex} \bibliography{lesson7a1} \begin{document} Random citation \autocite[1]{DUMMY:1} embeddeed in text. That is why each source you use must be listed in a detailed bibliography with enough information for someone to go and find it by themselves. Your bibliography should include a minimum of three written sources of information about your topic from books, encyclopedias, and periodicals. You may have additional information from the Web if appropriate. References: In addition (i.e., not included in the word or page count for the report itself) you must include a bibliography in which you list the sources you have used in gathering the information on a cultural practice in another society that you present in your report. N.B. A Chicago style bibliography lists the sources cited in your text. Each bibliography entry begins with the author’s name and the title of the source, followed by relevant publication details. The bibliography is alphabetized by authors’ last names. A bibliography is required if you have cited your sources with short notes. The term "bibliography" can mean a few things. In a single paper, it is all of the sources you have consulted to become informed about your topic (in contrast to listing only the sources you actually cite). As a generic term, bibliography can also refer to a very big list of recommended sources on a particular topic. A Bibliography, meanwhile, lists all the material you have consulted in preparing your essay, whether you have actually referred to and cited the work or not. This includes all sources that you have used in order to do any research. Bibliographies are often used in Chicago and Turabian citation styles.

what must a bibliography include top

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Creating a Bibliography with Zotero - YouTube

Learn how to export a formatted bibliography from EndNote into Microsoft Word! Versions used in this tutorial: EndNote X7 and Microsoft Word 2010 Dr Dan describes how an Annotated Bibliography is formatted in APA Style, the reason for creating an Annotated Bibliography, and some helpful advice regardin... In Part 2, we define the three parts of an annotation: summary, evaluation, usage. Depending on your assignment, your annotation may or may not contain all t... This screencast will walk you through how to use Zotero and Word (on either a PC or a Mac) together to insert in-text citations and to create a bibliography. YouTube Search How our search tool can help you find content you'll love Recommended videos How we recommend content we think you'll want to watch News and information How we provide context for ... Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. -- Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/ . Make your own animated videos and animated presentations for free. PowToon is a free ... Do you sometimes struggle to begin writing an essay when taking an exam? Good news! There is an important writing skill that will help you improve your essay... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... Full Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLALQuK1NDrh9HgAQ22wep8X18Fvvcm8R--Watch more How to Write Essays and Research Papers videos: http://ww...

what must a bibliography include

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