Morton Smith
Författare till Jesus the Magician
Om författaren
Särskiljningsinformation:
(eng) #1 is Morton Smith who taught ancient history at Columbia. (See Wikipedia link).
#2 is Morton H. Smith the Presbyterian theologian.
#3 is Mike Smith
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Verk av Morton Smith
Associerade verk
The Greeks and the Persians from the Sixth to the Fourth Centuries (1965) — Författare — 92 exemplar
Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (1970) — Bidragsgivare — 4 exemplar
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Statistik
- Verk
- 18
- Även av
- 3
- Medlemmar
- 624
- Popularitet
- #40,357
- Betyg
- 3.7
- Recensioner
- 10
- ISBN
- 30
- Språk
- 3
- Favoritmärkt
- 1
If the book has any weakness, it is that it never answers the questions of whether or not Jesus was a magician or, more importantly, of what the difference between magic and religion is, precisely. The reader, however, will be in a better position to answer this question for himself when he has read it.
A bonus to reading this book is that Smith has done two very illuminating things. He has explained a great deal about what magic is in general, and he has reconstructed the world of magic in Jesus' era in particular. There was, for example, a social hierarchy among magicians. The magi whom Matthew tells us came to see the new-born Jesus represented the highest class of magicians. The "go-es" or itinerant street magician, was what Jesus was accused of being, and it was truly an insult.
My favorite insight from reading this book is that I understood for the first time why a magic spell can take a very long time or a very short time. It is because there are two stages to a magic spell, preparation and execution. A magic spell is like a computer program. Setting up a spell is like writing the code for the computer. Once the spell has been "encoded," a word or phrase can now set it in motion, just as a single key stroke, or combination of a few strokes, can be used to set off an elaborate computer program.… (mer)