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Jesus the Magician: A Renowned Historian Reveals How Jesus was Viewed by People of His Time Paperback – August 27, 2014

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 56 ratings

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"A twentieth-century classic, uncannily smart, incredibly learned."--from the foreword by Bart Ehrman

This book challenges traditional Christian teaching about Jesus. While his followers may have seen him as a man from heaven, preaching the good news and working miracles, Smith asserts that the truth about Jesus is more interesting and rather unsettling.

The real Jesus, only barely glimpsed because of a campaign of disinformation, obfuscation, and censorship by religious authorities, was not Jesus the Son of God. In actuality he was Jesus the Magician. Smith marshals all the available evidence including, but not limited to, the Gospels. He succeeds in describing just what was said of Jesus by "outsiders," those who did not believe him.

He deals in fascinating detail with the inevitable questions. What was the nature of magic? What did people at that time mean by the term "magician"? Who were the other magicians, and how did their magic compare with Jesus' works? What facts led to the general assumption that Jesus practiced magic? And, most important, was that assumption correct?

The ramifications of Jesus the Magician give new meaning to the word controversial. This book recovers a vision of Jesus that two thousand years of suppression and polemic could not erase. And--what may be the central point of the debate--Jesus the Magician strips away the myths and legends that have obscured Jesus, the man who lived.

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Editorial Reviews

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"An altogether fascinating work. I marvel at Dr. Smith's exact and delicate scholariship." -Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford University ― Reviews

"Enthralling. Throws an unfamiliar, vivid light upon the scene in which Jesus' career and fame took place." -Michael Grant, author of The Myths of the Greeks and the Romans ―
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About the Author


Morton Smith (1915-1991) was Professor of ancient history at Columbia University. He was the author of a number of books and scholarly articles, and is best known for discovering the Mar Saba letter, containing excerpts of The Secret Gospel of Mark.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 157174715X
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hampton Roads Publishing (August 27, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781571747150
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1571747150
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.02 x 0.66 x 8.98 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 56 ratings

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4.4 out of 5 stars
56 global ratings

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Great scholarship, terrible footnoting
3 out of 5 stars
Great scholarship, terrible footnoting
This is a meticulously researched and carefully documented study of the concepts of “miracle worker,” “magician,” “divine man,” “magus,” “exorcist,” “vagrant performer,” “doer of evil,” “prophet” and “itinerant healer” in the centuries surrounding Jesus time. It turns out that the actual terms applied to any given magic worker (such as Apollonius or Simon Magus) totally depends on whose side you’re on. However, as Smith says, "the popularity of such men is not edible. " "The survival of such a traveling company (a dozen men, with numerous hangers on) implies they had something to sell—an act of some sort that could be relied on to bring in contributions…So what was the act of Jesus’ company? If we can trust the gospels, it was Jesus’ miracles. Everything centered on him, the others were stage hands (185)."Smith goes on to point out that the disciples were essentially an advance team, esp. useful in magic work like Jesus knowing someone’s name before he had set eyes on him, as in Lk.10:1 with Zacchaeus. Luke says disciples had been “sent out before him into every town and village” (185). Prediction was the most valued function of the magician (161). Smith severely underplays the demonstrable literary borrowings from the OT saying that “these account for only a few of the miracle stories” (197). However, this may be a result of its 1978 publication date and may not take account of more recent scholarship. The section describing the account of Jesus by the 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity, Celsus, is particularly interesting (79-83). All thesis points aside there is major academic SNAFU: the footnotes system—a key element of any academic project—are simply an academic disaster here. Trying to use them will probably double your reading time. The problem is that there is no reference in the text to any footnote. The 65-pp footnote section (which is at least divided into chapters) simply has a few capitalized words referring to the text. This means that you need to flip back and forth continually to see if a particular item happens to have been sourced or if Smith has a scholarly comment or read the footnotes section first and then mentally note the trigger phrases…essentially reading the book in backwards fashion: footnotes then text. (The author has actually touted this in his preface as a way of avoiding footnote numbers in the text, but, c'mon on, if you're going to purport to academic principles, go ahead and gives us the footnotes.) It turns out to be nearly impossible to match up the footnotes with the referenced text. (see image) Compounding the difficulty is total lack of any kind of index. So, for example, if you wanted to reference “Herodians” or “Antipas” or “Anas” you’d need to comb through the hundreds of pages of text or the 65 pages of notes and hope to find what you’re looking for. One other textual note. Although we give academics some leeway in developing complex ideas, there’s really no excuse for 30- and 40-line paragraphs and 100-word sentences (e.g., p204).
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2015
    Although considered controversial at the time, Jesus the Magician, published in 1978 by R. Morton Smith, a professor at Columbia University, is old news. Smith's basic claim--that Jesus was known both by his Jewish contemporaries and pagan critics as a magician--had been preceded by articles in scholarly journals dating back to the 1930's and at least one book-length treatment (Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, 1974) that made essentially the same claim. In the years following the release of Jesus the Magician, scores of articles and books have appeared that note the close similarities between Jesus' exorcisms, healing, and other miracles and the spells of the Greek magical papyri as well as the reported wonders of such figures as Apollonius of Tyana. Hostile Jewish and Roman sources (Julian, Celsus, Porphyry, etc) openly accused Jesus and early Christians of sorcery. At this late date only a stranger to the scholarly writing on Jesus and early Christianity or a biblical literalist would find the claim that Jesus practiced magic surprising, much less scandalous. In short, Smith's analysis of Jesus' miracle working has received extensive support from many scholars in the years that followed the publication of Jesus the Magician and additional articles, essays and books in Hebrew and the major European languages that link early Jewish and Christian practices with magic continue to appear.

    That said, the choice of Dr. Ehrman to write an introduction seems somewhat...well, odd. Smith was also the discoverer of the "Secret" gospel of Mark, actually an excerpt of a putative letter of Clement of Alexandria, a 2nd century theologian, that quotes two passages from a variant edition of the gospel of Mark. The gospel fragments, or rather Smith's interpretation of them, provoked a firestorm of invective from Catholic and evangelical quarters including accusations that Smith had forged the letter of Clement to discredit Christianity. Dr. Ehrman, who I respect as a serious and productive New Testament scholar, has argued that Smith had the ability and presumably a motive to forge the Clement letter although he has never actually claimed that Smith did it. Although I believe the Clement letter and gospel fragments it quotes are almost certainly genuine, as far as I know, Dr. Ehrman is still of the opinion that Morton Smith had the ability, motive and opportunity to produce one of the 20th century's greatest forgeries.
    30 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2021
    “A miracle worker is not necessarily a magician.” So writes Morton Smith on page 198 of his book, Jesus The Magician. While I wholeheartedly agree with that assertion, Smith’s book goes to great pains to portray Jesus as just the opposite, namely a goes, a shaman (sic), a magician. Drawing upon his vast knowledge of ancient magical papyri, Smith conflates ancient magical practices with the healings and miracles of Jesus recorded in the gospels. His birth, the events of his so-called initiation during his 40 days sojourn in the desert, his apparently supernatural feats, his institution of the eucharist, and even his death and resurrection are strikingly similar to the magical operations of the practitioners in ancient (and present) world.

    While Smith’s scholarship is impressive to say the least, he makes a fundamental error that Jesus’ own opponents made, namely, being unable to discern the difference between magical and spiritual practices. Smith wrote this book at a time in which almost all manifestations of unseen energy could be lumped into magical practices. Some examples might help. It was only in 1997, that the ancient energy healing practice of acupuncture was acknowledged as having legitimate merit for treating a variety of illnesses including psychosomatic disorders. Prior to that, it had a nebulous reputation that was greeted with skepticism by both professional and lay persons alike.

    Similarly, the energy healing practice of Reiki that came to the western world from Japan has gained slow acceptance by physicians, nurses and even hospitals for the after care following surgery. When it first appeared in the United States, Reiki was greeted as the latest “juju” and even many Christian voices considered it “dark energy” and many still do. When energy is misunderstood, the common recourse is to classify it as “magical” meaning sinister or evil, the work of the devil.

    In the milieu in which Jesus lived, healing, which is energy work, was not understood in the way healing is being understood today. In that pre-scientific milieu, Jesus healings and miracles would have been received with fear and superstition by his opponents. “Jesus was just another magus who had an evil spirit.” Smith’s inability to understand the nature of energy and how quantum physics has altered even our Newtonian world view is the underlying liability of this book. What Smith’s book does is to make the same argument of Jesus opponents while bypassing the kerygma or the proclamation of Jesus of the Gospels. I recommend the book, however, for its historical scholarship and insights, but the conclusion that Jesus was a magician cannot be sustained.
    14 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2018
    Morton Smith has always approached things from a different perspective, interesting, although I didn't find his arguments entirely convincing, yet some were plausible.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2024
    Another academic book one can read through and learn nothing about the subject matter. The religious scholars are highly learned in their specialties, unfortunately have nothing of any material value to say about it. This was a much talked about book in its day (the reason I finally got around to getting a copy and reading it), but it left me empty. In academic circles, this is known as “Publish or Perish”, though that normally applies to scholarly articles in respected journals, not books for public consumption. I like books that actually tell me something, not written just to advance some theory that has but vapors to support it -- but they got to write about some stuff.

    (Note: The author of this book, Morton Smith, while a leading scholar of note, is suspected of possibly perpetrating a fraud and/or forgery known as ‘secret Mark’. I do not know if he was actually guilty of such misconduct, but rumors to that effect have been in circulation for years in the academic community and his reputation is somewhat clouded because of it. He is now deceased and in no position to defend himself.)

Top reviews from other countries

  • Jimmy Mello
    5.0 out of 5 stars The history from other perspective!
    Reviewed in Brazil on October 1, 2018
    Fantastic from the first to the last page, the only word I could say is: it’s amazing!
  • The Magic Reviewer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2016
    As a post graduate qualified academic theologian and historian, I have to say this is a very interesting and well researched book. It is written in a very readable style which will have appeal to those who struggle with academic reading. My only slight criticism about the new edition is there have been developments that may have been included in this book, for example discussion of earliest Christian artwork found in the catacombs, which depict Jesus holding a magic wand / baton, but also styled like a philosopher. Aside from the lack of update, this book presents a credible argument and evidence to suggest that Jesus may not have been regarded as being a God by early Christians before the doctrine of the trinity was established.
    One person found this helpful
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  • H Van-Deemter
    5.0 out of 5 stars Iconic
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2018
    I first read this book over 30 years ago and was delighted when it became available again in print. It is a must read for all research into the analogies between Christian stories and the contemporary cultures
    One person found this helpful
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  • J. Edwards
    5.0 out of 5 stars As ordered
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 31, 2021
    Er -reading?