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Summary: Biblical Influence On Puritan Reasoning

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It is stated in the Bible, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’’ (Exodus 22:18 King James). This is presumably the reason that the town of Salem first thought of the idea of witchcraft when the girls were ill. Salem was a very religious town, following the Bible in every way they could, so when there was talk of witchcraft, they followed what they were taught and what they believed in which was not allowing a witch to live.
Nowhere in Exodus 22:18 does it say anything about torturing! But according to The University of Chicago, Giles Corey was. He was never put on trial for being a witch but in order to get information out of him, they sentenced him to the “peine forte et dure” which means that they laid him down on the ground and placed rock after rock upon his stomach. Mr. Corey was convinced that witchcraft was nonsense and when they got towards the end he still had not told them a thing so they placed more rocks on him and he was tortured to …show more content…

In this, the word ‘wives’ is used. However, in Salem, having more than one wife was frowned upon. This is contradicting the fact that they were taking the Bible literally for the idea of witches. In The Crucible, John Proctor has an affair with Abigail Williams even though it did not happen in the real life period. He is thought of as a horrible man and his wife starts to hate him because of what he did, even though in the Bible it talks about “wives”. The town is being hypocritical on it’s decisions because they go through the witch trials by following the Bible but on the other hand they totally disregard another part of the Bible about another completely different topic. Sometimes people that considered themselves mediums were also known as witches, which was not always

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