Jesus the Magician

Jesus the Magician PDF Author: Smith, Morton
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 157174715X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
"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.

Jesus the Magician

Jesus the Magician PDF Author: Smith, Morton
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 157174715X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
"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.

Jesus and Magic

Jesus and Magic PDF Author: Richard A. Horsley
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498201725
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
It has become standard in modern interpretation to say that Jesus performed miracles, and even mainline scholarly interpreters classify Jesus's healings and exorcisms as miracles. Some highly regarded scholars have argued, more provocatively, that the healings and exorcisms were magic, and that Jesus was a magician. As Richard Horsley points out, if we make a critical comparison between modern interpretation of Jesus's healing and exorcism, on the one hand, and the Gospel stories and other ancient texts, on the other hand, it becomes clear that the miracle and magic are modern concepts, products of Enlightenment thinking. Jesus and Magic asserts that Gospel stories do not have the concepts of miracle and magic. What scholars constructed as magic turns out to have been ritual practices such as songs (incantations), medicines (potions), and appeals to higher powers for protection. Horsley offers a critical reading of the healing and exorcism episodes in the Gospel stories. This reading reveals a dynamic relationship between Jesus the healer, the trust of those coming for healing, and their support networks in local communities. Horsley's reading of the Gospel stories gives little or no indication of divine intervention. Rather, the healing and exorcism stories portray healings and exorcisms.

Jesus and the Magic Mushroom

Jesus and the Magic Mushroom PDF Author: Sean Williams
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0578020726
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description
This book points out the undeniable similarities between the teachings of Jesus via the Gospel of Thomas, the psychedelic experience, mysticism, and the near death experience, to guide us down the road of life toward our ultimate destination, spiritual consciousness. The knowledge within this book can help you achieve for yourself what a lifetime of religion will fail to do for you.

Magic in Christianity

Magic in Christianity PDF Author: Robert P. Conner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781906958619
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
The world of Jesus and the early Christians swarmed with prophets and exorcists, holy men and healers, who invoked angels and demons, gods and ghosts. Magic in Christianity: From Jesus to the Gnostics explores that world through the surviving texts of the first Christians and their pagan and Jewish contemporaries. Ecstatic spirit possession, handing opponents over to Satan, sending demons into swine, striking others dead on the spot by pronouncing curses, using articles of clothing and parts of corpses to perform magical healing and exorcism, invoking ghosts and angels for protection-these are all ancient Christian practices described in the New Testament, explained in detail by early Christian writers, and preserved by Christian amulets. Pagans and Jews accused Jesus and his followers of practicing magic and Christians accused one another of sorcery. Both pagan and early orthodox writers describe the rituals of the Gnostic sects in detail, including the magical passwords required to cross through the gates of the lower heavens. Magic in Christianity: From Jesus to the Gnostics examines evidence from the New Testament, the first Christian apologists, early apocryphal works, curse tablets and amulets to reconstruct the apocalyptic magical world of Jesus and the first Christians.

Jesus from Outer Space

Jesus from Outer Space PDF Author: Richard Carrier
Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA)
ISBN: 1634312082
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The earliest Christians believed Jesus was an ancient celestial being who put on a bodysuit of flesh, died at the hands of dark forces, and then rose from the dead and ascended back into the heavens. But the writing we have today from that first generation of Christians never says where they thought he landed, where he lived, or where he died. The idea that Jesus toured Galilee and visited Jerusalem arose only a lifetime later, in unsourced legends written in a foreign land and language. Many sources repeat those legends, but none corroborate them. Why? What exactly was the original belief about Jesus, and how did this belief change over time? In Jesus from Outer Space, noted philosopher and historian Richard Carrier summarizes for a popular audience the scholarly research on these and related questions, revealing in turn how modern attempts to conceal, misrepresent, or avoid the actual evidence calls into question the entire field of Jesus studies--and present-day beliefs about how Christianity began.

Magic in the New Testament

Magic in the New Testament PDF Author: Robert Conner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781906958275
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Early Christians were accused of practising magic by Jews, Pagans, and other Christians. Magic in the New Testament examines magical praxis common to the New Testament, the magical papyri, the Sepher Ha-Razim, the Book of Enoch, the apocryphal Acts and the pre-Nicene church fathers and surveys the professional literature on early Christian magic from 1927 to 2009. Additional topics include: Magic, family and sexuality; The Old Testament background of early Christian magic; The relationship between magic and apocalypticism; Veneration of relics and necromantic sorcery; Resurrection, ghost stories and polymorphism; Magic and mystery cult in early Christianity; The Question of Sources/The Holy Family/The Looming Apocalypse/The Final Confrontation/Resurrection or Ghost Story?/Magical Palestine/Jesus the Magician/A Darker Sorcery/Christian Necromancy/Cults of Possession/Spirit Versus Spirit/The Christian Mysteries/The Son of Horus/ Last Rites.

Jesus the Magician

Jesus the Magician PDF Author: Morton Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781566192859
Category : Magic
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description


Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity

Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity PDF Author: Chris Keith
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0567499553
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This volume discusses the new approaches regarding the criteria of authenticity and their relevance in the quest for the historical Jesus studies.

Jesus and the Disinherited

Jesus and the Disinherited PDF Author: Howard Thurman
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807024031
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
“No other publication in the twentieth century has upended antiquated theological notions, truncated political ideas, and socially constructed racial fallacies like Jesus and the Disinherited. Thurman’s work keeps showing up on the desk of anti-apartheid activists, South American human rights workers, civil rights champions, and now Black Lives Matter advocates.” –Rev. Otis Moss III, author of Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World and senior pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ A commemorative edition of the work that inspired Martin Luther King Jr. and helped shape the civil rights movement In this beautiful gift edition of the classic theological treatise, complete with a place-marker ribbon and silver gilded edges, celebrated theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1899–1981) revolutionizes the way we read the gospel. Thurman lifts Jesus up as a partner in the pain of the oppressed and reveals the gospel as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. In this view, the example of Jesus’s life shows us that hatred does not empower—it decays. Only by recognizing fear, deception, contempt, and love of one another can God’s justice prevail. With a new foreword by acclaimed womanist theologian Kelly Brown Douglas, this edition of Jesus and the Disinherited is a timeless testimony of faith that demonstrates how to thrive and flourish in a world that attempts to destroy one’s humanity from the inside out. Having witnessed firsthand the depths of white supremacy and the heights of human civility, Thurman reiterates the inherent dignity of all of God’s children.

Apparitions of Jesus

Apparitions of Jesus PDF Author: Robert Conner
Publisher: Tellectual Press
ISBN: 9781942897163
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Could the folklore of ancient ghost stories be the basis for the resurrection accounts of the New Testament? Recent scholarship surveyed in Apparitions of Jesus suggests that early Christians poured their heady new wine--a man saved the world by rising from the dead--into the old wineskins of familiar legend. Combining his own research with the insights of publications past and present, Conner leads us down haunted hallways of Greco-Roman ghost lore to illuminate neglected corners of the gospels. Along the way, finding yet another human side to the beloved old tales, we understand how ghostly apparitions were spoken about for much the same reason modern-day people still see them: a psychological response vividly experienced by those suffering great loss.