Customer Reviews

Jesus the magician

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Whether you agree with him or not, Morton Smith has something to say. In this book you might learn not only about what Jesus contemporaries probably thought of him, but also about the concept of magic and how ancient people understood it. For example, why do magicians sometimes seem to cast a spell by a long and time-consuming procedure while at other times they do it with a single word? Smith answers this question. (Hint: why do computer programmers sometimes write code for hours while at other times they launch a program with one key stroke? Basically the same answer to both quetstions.)

My only major criticism of this book is that Smith never answers the question "what, if any, difference is there between religion and magic?" Even though he must have an answer to this, he never makes it clear.

This is a very valuable book, not an easy read, but worth it. Professor Smith focuses on what Jesus' enemies were saying about him. Not that Smith agrees with Jesus' enemies; he doesn't, but knowing what they were saying at the time the gospels were being written helps us understand much that appears in the gospels. The gospel writers said some things in defense of Jesus that we today are likely to find puzzling, if we don't know about the criticism that prompted the defense. For example, the genealogies offered by Matthew and Luke were likely in part to be intended to refute the accusation that Jesus was fathered by Pantera, a Roman soldier.

The book gets its title, Jesus the Magician, from a charge that was frequently (falsely) levelled at Jesus, namely that he was a magician, not a Divine Healer. Magicians were believed to get their power from demons, especially Beelzebul, supposedly the ruler of the demons, and Jesus was so accused. That is why a defense against that accusation appears in the gospels.

Others believed that Jesus was possessed by the spirit of John the Baptizer, another charge against which the gospel writers try to set the record straight.

Smith's work is a bit dated (copyright 1978; he didn't, for example, have a copy of The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the AUTHENTIC Words of Jesus to refer to) and it obviously was not edited and revised by Isaac Asimov. But if you have the perseverence to read thru it, you will greatly enhance your understanding of the melieu in which the gospels were written.

For further knowledge and understanding of the roots of Christianity, read Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The New Testament by Isaac Asimov, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes by John Shelby Spong, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the AUTHENTIC Words of Jesus and The Once and Future Jesus by Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, and Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth by Burton Mack

watziznaym@gmail.com