{"id":3419,"date":"2008-10-06T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T12:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/jesus-the-magician\/"},"modified":"2008-10-06T12:41:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-06T12:41:00","slug":"jesus-the-magician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/jesus-the-magician.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus the Magician?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

I wonder how many people outside of New Testament scholarship will remember that there was a book by Morton Smith<\/a> some decades ago entitled Jesus the Magician<\/em>. It may get a second look, now that a magical bowl<\/a> has been found that supposedly refers to him (Jesus, that is, not Morton). <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

In fact, the bowl mentions \u201cChrestus\u201d, which is not the same as \u201cChristus\u201d (= Christ), although admittedly there is some confusion between and interchange of the two terms in ancient sources. Ben Witherington<\/a> has been following the story, including a round up by Wieland Williker<\/a>. There\u2019s also more at Forbidden Gospels<\/a>, Paleojudaica<\/a>, Antiquitopia<\/a>, Biblia Hebraica<\/a>, Jim West<\/a> and MSNBC<\/a>.\n

Of course, to really get to grips with the notion of Jesus as magician, we have to turn to Rowan Atkinson (HT First Things<\/a>):<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus the Magician?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/jesus-the-magician.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus the Magician?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/jesus-the-magician.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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