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Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?

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Morton Smith, the author of this book, died while I was pursuing coursework in earliest Christianity at Brown University, so I saw firsthand the effect of his passing on (a set of) his peers, most of whom, it turns out, are believers. Although Smith's views are frightening and sometimes even repugnant to the faithful, his work commands a real (and not always grudging) respect among Christian scholars. Smith's method is heavily comparative, analyzing the four Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus in terms of choice of language and expositional technique, and comparing them to contemporaneous rabbinical and Hellenic writing. Granting a very few premises - such as, that Jesus and his followers did not conceive of themselves as representative of a wholly new historical paradigm, but rather as a part of their own cultural context, a premise quite consistent with the decisions they made in describing themselves and Jesus - the resulting historical account is virtually unassailable, and powerfully compelling. The most controversial aspect of Smith's results is the theory that Jesus thought of himself as a "magician", in the sense that that word was used 2000 years ago in the Levant, in addition to - but very much overlapping with - his roles as a religious teacher and political revolutionary. In conclusion, I can say with confidence that this is one of those books of history which come along only once in a very great while - Guns, Germs, and Steel; Plagues and Peoples; Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs - which leave the reader unshakeably certain that this is how it *must* have been.

For centuries The Secret Gospel of Mark has been a pink elephant in studies of reconstructing the gospel. Without the plethora of strong denials of this document's existence, there would be no reason to suppose it exists, but with these denials one could be led to a "the lady doth protest too much" conclusion. In the 1960's Morton Smith discovered a letter from Saint Clement of Alexandria to one of his followers, regarding the Secret Gospel of Mark. In this letter he corrects certain comments the follower had heard but instructs him not to reveal the existence of this document. What's interesting about these few passages we have from the longer version of Mark is that all of them revolve around quasi-magical practices. In other words was Mark part of a longer work, and the magical material censored out? Since Morton Smith was unlikely to trip over gold again and find more of this lost book, he begins investigating the nature of magical practice in 1st century Palestine using texts like the magical papyri. What did people mean by magic? From this study we are able to understand much more clearly what verses like, Matt 9:34, "It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons ", meant to the speaker which as it turns out is quite different than what they mean to a modern audience. A very good book, I wouldn't recommend it as a first "true life of Jesus" but it makes an excellent contrast to the Crossen, E.P. Sanders school which tries to place Jesus in a fully Jewish context by ignoring everything that doesn't fit.

Jesus the Magician is a thoroughly documented and fascinating account of the multiple parallels of ancient Pagan Magic practices and how these practices are woven into the "Gospels", or "gods spells" and the "magical spells of Jesus the Magician". Morton Smith's care to show "what makes a magician", to then showing how Jesus was a magician is well done and logically presented. Only the lack of information available to the author from a larger historical base prevents this story from really jumping out at the reader.

Such is hardly the fault of the author.

For those who seek to understand the personality cult that has become known as "Christianity", Morton Smith's exhaustive research is a great primer as Mr. Smith fully exposes the source documents of the "mythos" behind this ancient Jewish fabricated personality cult whose roots lie in Pagan philosophies.

Jesus the Magician provides a great deal of cross reference material for the serious scholar as well as the weekend historian who wishes to have a greater understanding of the enigma which came to be known as Jesus.

Morton Smith was a brilliant historian, and a brilliant thinker with a mordant wit. A tremendous scholar whose knowledge of the ancient near east was unrivaled. If you had to debate him, it would be best to wear red clothes so that your wounds wouldn't show. This book was intended for a lay audiance, not the scholarly elite, which some take as a methodolgical weakness in his arguments. He did not suffer fools gladly, and made a lot of enemies in the field of religious academia. His big weakness was the obvious joy in which he went about provoking others with his unorthodox views, which has led some to suspect his motives.

There are almost as many views of the historical Jesus as there are authors of books about the topic. After awhile many of them they tend to blend into one homogeneous view; one that acknowledges that indeed he was a Jew, and a reformer, and a healer, etc. The debate is still out on his Zealot propensities, but apart from that, the field seems so bland. But read this 1978 book by Morton Smith and you will discover a Jesus not dreamt of by Smith's contemporaries, nor by anyone since. Smith goes through the gospels and the ancient texts to demonstrate that underneath everything else, Jesus was primarily a magician. No, not the David Copperfield type, but a true magician whose powers came from his divine spark. Smith's analysis of the ancient evidence is masterful, and his case is very convincing. No matter what your position is on the historical Jesus, you need to read Smith's perspective.

Did you ever wonder what people believed about Jesus when he was alive? This book is not for the timid. It presents Jesus the man, a case for his being a magician (and what that means), and what it meant to be called "a son of God". A great read for students seeking to better understand the man who is called the Christ. The book is completely non-denominational and requires a dictionary at hand. It reads like a well documented college paper with the author stating theories then proving or disproving them with the historical documentation available. Do you want to know more about the "real" Jesus, Jesus the man? Feeling brave? Then go for it!

Almost twenty years ago, during a personal quest to find the historical Jesus, I read this book. It portrayed a much different Jesus from the one I learned about in Sunday School. After having read this and a number of other literary quests for the historical Jesus (Including Albert Schweitzer's original "Quest for the Historical Jesus"), I have come to the conclusion that whosoever questeth after the historical Jesus findeth the Jesus he is looking for. Smith set out to find a magician, and lo and behold, that's what he found. In "The Passover Plot", Hugh Schonfield set out to find a pious fraud, and, wonder of wonders, that's exactly what he found. There are a myriad of scholarly quests for the historical Jesus, and each one finds the Jesus that the scholar goes looking for. Each one, however, can add texture to the student's own personal understanding of Jesus. "Jesus the Magician" is well written, well researched, and well argued. It doesn't carry the day in persuading the reader that Jesus was nothing more than a magician, but it does help the reader to understand how and why Jesus did some of the things he did.

As Schweizer observed around 90 years ago, reconstructions of the historical Jesus by liberal theologians tend to be self-portraits. Not so Morton Smith! True, he had an axe to grind. True, he let his speculations outrun his evidence. True, he was one-sided. But his portrait is not merely a face at the bottom of the well.

He sought to reconstruct the image of Jesus according to early pagan and jewish opponents and the image they give is consistently that of a magician. *None* disputed the accounts of miracles. (Let all contemporary advocates of "Jesus the Great Humanistic Teacher of Ethics" take note.)

Morton Smith was an *advocatus diabolis" in the best sense of the word. It is petty for some to criticize his approach, when he almost alone sought to take seriously the miraculous aspects of the Gospels without merely taking them at face value. True he moves from merely presenting the pagan/jewish case for "Jesus as magician" to asserting it as the *true* picture. And he undercuts his own argument against the distinction between magic and religion as false by then basically arguing that "Jesus was *really* a magician" (and by implication not really a religious figure).

Aside from his suggestions of homosexuality (*one* accusation, never leveled by pagan and jewish critics) there is much ammunition for conservatives to use against the "Jesus Seminar" types. From suggestions that Paul *might* have known the historical Jesus to the seriousness Smith gives to the narrative Gospels (including John!) Smith is no mere "demythologizer."

Morton Smith seems to spark controversy at every turn, yet his stature as one of the most erudite scholars of the 20th century is undeniable. Curiously, the controversy surrounding "Jesus the Magician" was as much that Smith suggested that Jesus really did perform acts understood to be miraculous, as that he suggested that Jesus fit into the ancient type 'magician.' I've read this little book two or three times. It's a great example of a top scholar presenting a fascinating thesis to an educated lay readership in an engrossing and understandable way. Highly recommended. It'll give you a new perspective on Jesus and the world he lived in. (Get it from interlibrary loan.)

Professor Smith wisely realizes that if you want to have an accurate historical picture of a man such as Jesus you must consider all sides, not just what his faithfull followers wrote. Unfortunately Smith's "evidence" rarely holds up under scrutiny. For example, he tells the reader that John said that Jesus had been charged with practicing magic. The line citation given is, John 18:30, which reads, "'If he were not a criminal' they replied, 'we would not have handed him over to you.'" Apparently Professor Smith assumes that the crime was magic, but that no one was willing to say it out loud. Such an assumption is fine for a private theory, but to publish it as fact is not. I assure you that this is just one small example out of countless many. This book is very important in that it encourages us to keep an open mind about who or what the man named Jesus of Nazareth was. However to blindly accept its statements as fact would be very dangerous.

PS. I think it is important for anyone reading this to know that I am not on a religious crusade to stop this book. I myself am an atheist, and I read this book thinking how interesting it would be if it could be proved that Jesus was a Magician. This book utterly failed to convince me of any such thing.