The Bible’s Most Misunderstood Villain? The Witch of Endor Reexamined

Let’s explore the woman that Sunday School teachers probably either skipped entirely or simplified down to “witches bad.”  

She has no name. Just a title - The witch of Endor - and a reputation that has haunted her for centuries in sermons and stories, not to mention scholarly finger-pointing. She is the kind of character people reference with a nervous half-smile as if she doesn’t really belong in the Bible, but somehow slipped past the editors.  

But here’s the twist: she is not what you think.  

She doesn’t cackle. She doesn’t curse. She doesn't fly on anything.  

What she does is talk to a broken, desperate king who comes asking for a message from the dead. A king, Saul, who had once banned every medium and necromancer in Israel and now finds himself knocking on the doors of the very shadows he vowed to purge.

Let’s take a moment and think about this question: What is there is more to her story that the Bible didn't care to mention? 

The woman of Endor does not summon spirits of her own volition. As the narrative goes, events unfold around her—something happens via her agency. When the prophet Samuel shows up from the beyond (which shocks everyone), she screams. This isn’t some egotistical, power-drunk sorceress. This is a person entangled in a web larger than her individual life.

My book Endor - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FFMXRYLM/ - takes the simple passage from 1 Samuel 28 in the Old Testament and creates a world around it to help flesh out this woman and give a fictional, yet entirely plausible, version of her story.