Hello, I'm Gary Stevens, and welcome to the History in the Bible podcast.

All the history, in all the books, in all the Bibles.

Thank you. Episode 1.22, The Death of Moses.

In the last episode, Moses was in the middle of a series of farewell speeches to his people before they crossed the Jordan to conquer the Canaanites.

He had just laid down the laws of war.

We pick up Moses with his views on soothsayers.

Euteronomy 1810

Let no one be found among you who consigns his son or daughter to the fire,

or who is an auger, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who

consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead.

Those nations that you are about to dispossess do indeed resort to soothsayers and augurs.

To you, however, Yava your God has not assigned the like.

End quote.

Now, I presume that means that Jews and Christians are forbidden

to consult astrologers and to psychics. Like all the other Middle Eastern law codes that we have,

Deuteronomy has a lot to say about family relations. Quote, Deuteronomy 2118, if a man has a lot to say about family relations. Quote, Deuteronomy 2118.

If a man has a wayward and defiant son,

who does not heed his father or mother,

and does not obey them even after they discipline him,

his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of the town

at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town,

this son of ours is disloyal and defiant. Thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep away

...