Reddit reviews Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?
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Used Book in Good Condition
Two relevant books that I haven't read yet (they're on my very long list):
Jesus the Magician - Morton Smith
Jesus the Sorcerer - Robert Conner
Religion and magic are two sides of the same coin. I found this book compelling, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? The author Morton Smith was a renowned historian at Columbia University.
A few things I recall:
Jesus used magic words that were never translated from their original Aramaic. They would lose their power.
Jesus for the first 300 years was depicted using a magic wand.
Exorcisms and spirit possessions were all part of this magical world view.
Old reddit thread on this topic
I am not claiming that the isolation and circumscribing of the ego out of the tribal happened solely because of or only with/through Yahweh.
It is more likely that this was simply a Trans-local phenomenon peculiar to the axial age.
The ego may be the "gift" of the axial age, perhaps the big takeaway.
Buddhism identifies and deals with the "I"while Judaism/abrahamicism (is that a word? I hope so) shall we say "employs" it.
I am sure this axial event can be found in other cultures before or after this example, I'm just wondering if this seemingly correlative idea has been explored in Judaism specifically.
Ultimately it is nothing more than the knower and the known seeing each other most clearly.
Who knows, Moses may have actually been a "true bicameral" schizophrenic who really "heard" or even "saw" God and was simply reporting his findings to his peeps. If Jesus the magician would have been around he would have likely "exorcised" the daemon Yahweh out of Moses. Perhaps this is what Jesus was trying to do all along?
Jesus contra Yahweh?
Pfft. Lighting a small fire and asking the spirits or gods for help is probably humanity's oldest spiritual act - whether its Freya or the Virgin Mary you're asking it makes no difference. How many churches have racks of votive candles for this very purpose? And there's a huge body of knowledge involving using the Bible for hoodoo-like spells and charms anyway. Tell 'em to go piss up a rope. :-P
You might appreciate the book 'Jesus the Magician' by Morton Smith if you haven't read it already.