Wider Ancient Witness Archive · 4.3 Protective, Ritual, Magical, and Esoteric Witness Archive
Layer 4 — Wider Archive
Greek Magical Papyri with Biblical Divine Names
This text is included as a comparative, historical, philosophical, ritual, textual, or fragmentary witness. It is not presented as part of the Restored Bible.
Archive witness — presented for historical study only. Not doctrine and not recommended practice.
Greek Magical Papyri with Biblical Divine Names
[Archive witness: an ancient protective or ritual text, preserved as historical evidence — not doctrine, and not for practice.]
Among the Greek magical papyri are invocations that call upon the God of Israel by his names, set beside foreign words and signs. Representative lines, preserved as witnesses:
“I call upon you, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob; Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, the great God. [Line damaged] Guard this house and the one who dwells in it from every evil spirit.”
“Holy, holy, the Lord Sabaoth; you who set the heavens and founded the earth: deliver your servant from every sickness and from every assault of the adversary.”
[The papyri mingle these names with much that is foreign; here only the lines invoking the God of Israel are gathered, as witnesses to how his name was used.]