Radak (Shmuel 1 28:24) The act of necromancy is nonsense, lies, and ridiculous…the story of Samuel and Saul never was real, and Samuel never rose from his grave. The woman did it all through trickery…" This is the commentary of the gaon Rav Shmuel the son of Chofni, and he said this even though it can be implied from the words of the sages in the Gemara that the woman truly did revive Samuel. He did not accept what was written there, for there are those who use reason to deny it.”
There are a few solutions to this.
ReplyDelete1. In Tanakh times there were such powers, along with nevuah.
In rishonim era it's gone.
2. Tanakh is speaking about what appeared to them, but the explanation might be different.
Rambam says all miracles can be explained scientifically.
3. There may be another function to what Rambam is saying. Even though the Torah implies that communicating with the dead is possible - that might be a rare phenomenon, and for majority of cases it is all deception. So the function of the halacha is to keep us away from all the nonsense and fraud involved this necromancy.
DeleteOne opinion in Chazal synthesizes the two positions. The witch of Endor (which would later host the 2nd Death Star but I digress) was a fraud and used trickery. That evening God decided to actually give her the power just once and she was able to raise Shmuel HaRo'eh. And Chazal say that she was the most surprised of the bunch.
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