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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Matt" data-source="post: 541842" data-attributes="member: 1213">A note on magic:The Bible doesn't say arcane magic doesnt work....It does...And people in the middle ages believed that it did, too.  They just considered it evil.An xtian campaign could very easily involve the good guys using divine magic and the bad guys using arcane magic.Oh, and a note on the diatic relationship between G-D and the devil.  This is a concept borrowed from Zoroastrianism (which believes in two gods, a good on and an evil one, constantly at war) that got integrated to varying degrees into Judeo-Christian thought. It is not a native tenet per se.  Many sects of both put little emphasis on the devil.Satan, as he orgionally appeared in the Bible, is the prosecuting angel.  His name literally means "Accuser." For instance, the premise of the book of Job was that Satan claimed that Job was not in fact as faithful to G-d as he appeared, but rather would abandon Him as soon as the going got rough.  Thus, G-D caused bad things to happen to Job to prove Satan wrong.  That is in fact how he is viewed in almost all forms of non-Kabbalistic Judaism and in a decent portion of Christianity.  For instance, in the case of the "Devil's Advocate" in the Catholic Church, said individual is supposed to work on behalf of Satan to accuse potential saints of wrongdoing...this is again the prosecutorial role.The role of tempter is an outgrowth of that.  He can tempt mortals into sinning to prove that they really are not so good in the first place.  The whole root of all evil or even enemy of G-D thing was a combination of outside influences, the often diadic nature of human psychology and allegences, and various developments over time.And about evildoers and divine magic...In deuteronomy there was a mercenary sorceror names Balaam who derived his powers from G-D.  Apparently, his powers did indeed work.  However, G-D coerced him into disobeying his employer when he was hired to curse the Israelites.  Thus, it seems that the standards for some of those already empowered are not THAT stringent.  Then again, it could be argued that his powers and existance were due only to the fact taht his destiny was to be unable to curse the Iraelites, as a show of power by G-D to prove that sorcerors cannot harm his chosen people (altohugh they apparently can smack down everyone else).EDIT:  Acutally, I realized that the contents of the belssing that Balaam is compelled to give instead of a curse state (or perhaps establish though its divinely-derived power) that the Israelites do not (cannot?) practice sorcery, but are also immune to its effects.</blockquote>

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