Ghosts In The Bible
Does the Bible seem to indicate that ghosts can be real? A case can be made for saying that it does. Consider the following: we are commanded to not communicate with ghosts lest we be defiled by them (Lev 19:31, Tanakh and NEB). We are never to go to ghosts for help (Dt 18:10, GW cf. NJB). The voice of a ghost may call out to us from the ground (Isa 29:4 cf. EVD). King Saul had forbidden the people from seeking to ask help of ghosts (1 Sam 28:3, Tanakh). Anyone who serves as a medium for either a familiar spirit OR a ghost is to be put to death (Lev 20:27, Tanakh) because going to a medium for such help can lead to demonic bondage (Harrison, Leviticus, p 207). A medium who has a ghost or familiar spirit is known as a ‘ghostwife’ or ‘ghostmistress’ (McCarter, 1 Samuel, p 418). Saul seems to forbid making images of ghosts (or ancestral spirits) in 1 Sam 28:3 (Klein, 1 Samuel, p 270). To mention only one other passage, Jesus Himself, when He appeared to His disciples after being resurrected, told them that He wasn’t a ghost because a ghost doesn’t have a flesh-and-bones body as they could see was true of Jesus (Lk 24:39, Cassirer cf. Weymouth).
Why should any of this matter? There is a lot of experiential evidence for the belief that some spirits/ghosts don’t immediately leave earth after the person dies and that some people can have the spirit of another person (living or dead) inhabit and influence them. People like Gabriele Amorth (a chief exorcist for the Vatican) and Dr. Kenneth McAll offer some evidence suggesting this could be true. This insight, if valid, would seem to change how we deal with some spiritual situations.
Let us neither be hoodwinked by unreliable witnesses who assert a new truth based on experience, nor be so arrogant and unteachable that we reject what should be enough credible testimony to be open to a biblically-consistent spiritual insight.
Comforting others is costly but worth it.