I wonder how many people outside of New Testament scholarship will remember that there was a book by Morton Smith some decades ago entitled Jesus the Magician. It may get a second look, now that a magical bowl has been found that supposedly refers to him (Jesus, that is, not Morton).
In fact, the bowl mentions “Chrestus”, which is not the same as “Christus” (= Christ), although admittedly there is some confusion between and interchange of the two terms in ancient sources. Ben Witherington has been following the story, including a round up by Wieland Williker. There’s also more at Forbidden Gospels, Paleojudaica, Antiquitopia, Biblia Hebraica, Jim West and MSNBC.
Of course, to really get to grips with the notion of Jesus as magician, we have to turn to Rowan Atkinson (HT First Things):
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In