(Heb. nabi) like Moses in every generation (vv. 15-22). Although some of the forbidden practices are straightforward (e.g., the work of mediums and necromancers), others are obscure. In the latter case we have only a vague sense of what the Hebrew words mean, and it is unlikely that the modern connotations attached to words like soothsayer, augur, sorcerer, and wizard are what the Hebrew words meant to biblical authors and audiences. Whatever their original meaning, however, the listings of these practices in Deuteronomy 18:10-14 and elsewhere (Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27; 1 Sam 15:23; 2 Kgs 21:6; Isa 44:25; Hos 4:12; Zech 10:2) are unambiguous in their antago- nism toward divination. According to these texts it was something that had no place within the religion of ancient Israel. Twenty-sided die (icosahedron) with faces inscribed with Greek letters, from the 2nd century BCE- 4th century CE. Divination seems to be the most likely purpose for the Dakhleh die: the polyhedron might have been thrown in order to determine a god who might assist the practitioner. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. UU a This article has explored the mixed biblical evidence for the relationshi between prophecy and divination. On the one hand there are biblical tex ike Deuteronomy 18 that insist on their opposition, but on the other han here are texts that take for granted their coexistence and similarity. Modern scholarship leans toward the latter view and sees prophecy as a ype of divination rather than its antithesis. The mixed biblical perspecti oroduce some tension but, importantly, each perspective makes sense in oarticular context. Deuteronomy 18, for example, may seem like an outli¢ or the hard line it draws between prophecy and divination, but when it situated in the larger context of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History its presentation of them as opposites fits into the overall theo- ogical and literary aims of its authors.
