Ghosts

Ghosts · Bible and Fantasy (quora) · CMI is Bad on Church History · Responding to Keith Nester's Mars / Venus Video, First Half with Time to Give Charles S a Separate Post

Are Ghosts Real?
29.I.2020 | Creation Ministries International
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MUxkuiz6J8

I

5:04 There seem to be in the Old Testament 13 hits on "host of heaven".

I am using the search function on Douay Rheims.

Deuteronomy 17:3,
4 Kings (2 Kings) 17:16, 4 Kings (2 Kings) 21:3, 4 Kings (2 Kings) 21:5, 4 Kings (2 Kings) 23:4, 4 Kings (2 Kings) 23:5, 2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 33:3, 2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 33:5, Jeremias (Jeremiah) 8:2, Jeremias (Jeremiah) 19:13, Sophonias (Zephaniah) 1:5 - on breaches against first (including one direct allusion to the host of heaven being part of the punishment), and then:
2 Esdras (Nehemiah) 9:6

So, acknowledging that the host of heaven adores God is not forbidden.

I only searched for OT hits, and limited myself to the hits to 100% = full phrase "host of heaven".

II

8:14 "The disciples weren't bastions of Biblical knowledge at the time"

Arguably, after 3 and a half years with Our Lord, as good as any Pharisee, Levite or Cohen on OT text and some basic exegesis.

The words of Our Lord that are in the Gospels would hardly be everything He said between calling Andrew and Peter and James and John and a few more from among the disciples of John the Baptist who was a Cohen, and remember one of the 12 was a Levite.

If Pharisees referred to Him as "rabbi", His disciples cannot have been incompetent in OT - they were simply, as direct heirs to the OT and not yet fully given the Spirit of Truth on Pentecost, sometimes bungling on issues the NT significance of the OT texts.

As to Christ correcting His disciples many times, He didn't correct them on the idea that there are such things as phantasma or pneuma. He corrected them in His recorded words, on applying it to Him. When He actually was a deceased spirit (as well as a deceased body in the grave) he appeared to Adam and Eve and to the good robber, not to people still regularly walking on earth. But that only lasted "3 days" (whether it means 3*24 hours or 3 part or full of a calendar day).

And, "many times" - if He only corrected them as many times as the Gospel records*, in 3 and a half years, they were having a very fine relationship of master and disciples, if it had been employer and employee they would not have lost the job with most employers and if it had been student on a scholarship, they would not have lost the scholarship.

* As the Gospels record, but some of the records in different Gospels would be same occasions ...

III

10:04 "the witch herself was surprised"

Well, I did hear one claiming she was afraid bec of Saul's presence, afraid of a "bonfire" or in OT terms stoning ...

A rare exception. Well, yes, when Catholics say some ghosts are real as opposed to demonic, we also consider this as rare exceptions. Most ghosts in purgatory can't get up to ask for intercessions, and most ghosts in hell can't get up to warn of damnation (or death danger, to such who would be damned if dying that moment). But in some cases, God does allow an exception.

Now, these exceptions even are not the same as Samuel, since he was in the good part of Sheol - the souls who went there are now in Heaven. And a spirit from heaven appearing looks very different and is called "saint" rather than "ghost". Also, it was a one timer, "I bet", that the real exception passed through a forbidden medium.

IV

10:12 Checking with Douay-Rheims and the Challoner comment.

And Saul understood that it was Samuel, and he bowed himself with his face to the ground, and adored. And Samuel said to Saul:

Yes, text says it was Samuel. Challoner comments:

[14] "Understood that it was Samuel": It is the more common opinion of the holy fathers, and interpreters, that the soul of Samuel appeared indeed: and not, as some have imagined, an evil spirit in his shape. Not that the power of her magic could bring him thither, but that God was pleased for the punishment of Saul, that Samuel himself should denounce unto him the evils that were falling upon him. See Eccli. 46. 23.