Recently, a Roman Catholic devotee left a comment in response to my YouTube video, The Roman Catholic Takeover of America Part 3, saying that praying to Mary and to dead saints is not wrong.  I replied that the practice of talking to the dead is called necromancy and is forbidden by God in Deuteronomy 18:11.  In praying to Mary, I said, Roman Catholics are practicing necromancy, which is witchcraft.

To get a deeper understanding of the word, I went to Strong’s Concordance of the Bible, but was surprised to discover that there was no citation number listed for necromancer:

The version of Strong’s I used was The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (hereafter referred to as The New Strong’s), 1990 edition, published by Thomas Nelson.  In the Instructions To The Reader, the publishers have this to say regarding words with no numbers:

“If no number appears, the word may have been supplied by the translators to clarify the meaning, even though no specific Hebrew or Greek word was used to express it.  In other instances, more than one word in the original language was included in the English translations.”

The Bible I used is the 2003 Large Print King James Reference Bible, published by Thomas Nelson.  This Bible uses italics to signify words that did not appear in the original manuscripts and were added by the translators.  The word necromancer does not appear in italics, which means that it was in the original manuscripts and was not added by the translators.  Because The New Strong’s did not include citation numbers for this word, I gathered there was possibly more than one word used for this word in the original manuscripts.  

Because The New Strong’s was the first and only Bible concordance I had ever used, I wondered whether this was done in all versions.  So I went online to look for a version of Strong’s Concordance published before 1990 and not by Thomas Nelson.  I ultimately found a 1977 printing of the first edition of the original Strong’s Concordance of the Bible (hereafter referred to as Strong’s) published in 1894 by Abingdon Press.

Phrases, groups or combinations of words (not printed as compounds in ordinary Bibles) will be found under each of their words separately.”

 

This was the case with necromancer, for which Strong’s lists two numbers: 1875 and 4191:

Original Strong’s entry for necromancer.

Original Strong’s Title Page

The New Strong’s omits the Comparative Concordance:

Because the newer bible versions include words that are not found in the Received Text, the original manuscripts on which the King James Bible is based, Strong’s included the Comparative Concordance so that readers of the newer versions could use it.  But whereas Strong’s endeavored to keep the inspired words pure, by publishing the Comparative Concordance as a separate section, The New Strong’s cross-references words from the modern bible versions into the body of the main concordance right alongside words from the inspired text. 

Thomas Nelson provides this explanation in this statement from the Publisher’s Preface:

“Variant spellings of proper names from modern versions have been crossed-referenced into the body of the concordance.  This is done so that readers of these versions might be able to use Strong’s while searching for references to words that do not appear in the King James Version. 

Thus, the person who uses the Revised Standard Version, the New International Version, or the New American Standard Bible, for instance, and looks up the word Abronah—which appears in these versions—will be directed to Ebronah—the King James Version spelling.”

While this may not seem like much of an issue, it actually is.  The original Strong’s provided the Comparative Concordance for readers of the modern bible versions, while the main concordance was reserved for readers of the Authorized Version.  Many believe that the King James was translated from the inspired Received Text, while the modern versions were translated from the corrupted Alexandrian texts.  In cross-referencing words from the modern versions with those from the King James, The New Strong’s essentially mixes truth with error.

To its credit, The New Strong’s uses computerized typesetting, which makes looking up words easier, and they include several study helps, such as a topical index.  But, given a choice, I would prefer accuracy and completeness over ease of use and the additional helps.

Why did Thomas Nelson do this? you may ask. Thomas Nelson one of the oldest bible publishers in the world and publishes not only the King James, but 18 other versions as well, including the New King James Version and the Voice.  So it would be reasonable to assume that Thomas Nelson’s motive for modifying Strong’s Concordance was to ensure that it would be compatible with the other bible versions they publish. 

But there may  be something else to consider.  The Roman Catholic lady I discussed earlier explained that Roman Catholics don’t believe that praying to the dead is wrong, because the dead and living Catholics are all one body.  She added that Roman Catholics believe that prayer is merely a form of communication, and, that it is therefore no more wrong for a Roman Catholic to pray to a dead saint than it is for him to talk with a living person.  Is it possible that Thomas Nelson omitted the citation numbers for necromancer to avoid offending Roman Catholics?  It’s certainly worth considering.

This case is eerily reminiscent of that of Webster’s Dictionary, which we discuss in our article on bipolar disorder, the politically correct term for schizophrenia or manic depressive disorder.  In the article, we explain how Webster’s Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, omits the meanings of the roots schizo (split) and -phrenia (brain) from its definition of schizophrenia, while including the meanings of schaden and freude in its definition of schadenfreude.  Political correctness strikes again.

Ultimately, it is up to you: the individual truth-seeker, to decide whether The New Strong’s is better, stronger, and faster than the original Strong’s.  While it is certainly a valuable resource, The New Strong’s is neither more accurate nor more complete than it’s predecessor.

Be encouraged and look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.

The Still Man