Abstract:
This thesis is developed based on the following hypothesis: similar to all other cultures
around the world and in all periods, Ancient Israel cultivated beliefs in apparitions. From this
hypothesis stems a central question: did the Jewish Bible retain vestiges of these beliefs? The
research elaborates an answer in three chapters. In the first it establishes a general definition
of apparition to, following, apply it to some texts of the Jewish Bible in the form of two basic
categories: demons and phantoms. In this sense, seven apparitions are especially commented
on `
a
zā zēl, Lîlîṯ, the ś
e
`îrîm, Ma ḥîṯ, the phantasmagoric hand , Bēs and the ś
e
rāpîm of the
temple of Jerusalem which, while at the same time fitting into the prior categories, they are
also grouped in a typology based on elements which establish affinities among them:
apparitions of desert places, unwholesome or deadly apparitions, ominous apparitions and
benevolent apparitions. In the second chapter, utilizing the methodology of historical-critical
exegesis, an analysis of Ex. 4:24-26 is proposed. The goal is to investigate the possibility of
the existence of a more ancient version of this text, according to which the son of Zipporah,
and not Moses, was attacked in the overnight place by a demon. Confronted with the threat,
the mother of the boy carried out the circumcision and pronounced a saying, two acts which
could be understood as being part of an exorcism ritual. A monotheistic reading would be
responsible for three basic modifications: a) substitution of the demon with YHWH;
b) inclusion of Moses in the story, probable cause of the confusion of the masculine personal
pronouns and c) reinterpretation of circumcision, which went from being a procedure of
exorcism to a sign of belonging to the people of YHWH in the context of the narrative of the
exodus of Israel from Egypt (Ex. 1-15). In the third chapter, once again the historical-critical
methodology of exegesis is used to analyze 1 Sam. 28:3-25. In comparing with other texts of
Deuteronomic character, probable redactional additions were identified which could suggest
that there was, in a more ancient stage, a narrative which told of how an anonymous dead
ancestor announced the death of Saul at the hands of the Philistines. One does not necessarily
perceive a censorship of the practice of consulting the dead, only the exposition of various
ways of consulting an oracle. Later, the Deuteronomic work on this literary piece would have
transformed Saul into a persecutor of that art, making him, simultaneously, guilty of resorting
to that which he himself had forbidden. Beyond this, the original anonymous ancestor evoked
by the woman of En-Dor was substituted by the prophet Samuel, whose word is fulfilled
precisely because he, according to the Deuteronomic perspective, is an authorized
spokesperson of YHWH. Therefore, one can consider Ex. 4: 24-26 and 1 Sam. 28:3-25 as two
examples of stories of apparitions in the Jewish Bible.
