Was Jesus A Magician Or A Miracle-Worker?

Maybe the sleight of hand here isn’t having to do anything with Jesus, maybe it’s seen within the calculated misdirection from various scholars…

The actual miracle is not seen within the works in which the religious elite might deem as “magic.”

The actual miracle is seen within a man who resisted leveraging his power for his own benefit but instead leveraged his power for the benefit of others.

In my own opinion, what made Jesus so significant wasn’t his magic or miracles; what made Jesus so significant was the fact that he deflected the spotlight onto those who were cast out and into the shadows… and, in doing so, he dignified the undignified and gave significance to those society deemed as “insignificant.”

He took a narrative the religious elite handed him and redefined it to benefit the disenfranchised person; i.e. the very people it wasn’t meant to benefit.

Regardless of these acts being magic or miracles, they were in fact acts of love and kindness; a social protest and resistance of sorts, all of them within a very broken and aggressively oppressive system.

Which is why, to me, it doesn’t matter whether or not Jesus was a magician or a miracle-worker.

It was his “magic” that healed the sick; it was his magic that rose the dead; it was his magic that allowed the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the oppressed person to be heard and feel, however briefly, that they mattered.

So, was Jesus a magician or a miracle-worker?