Antiquitopia

I am reviewing (looking over, not writing an official review) of Morton Smith's book, Jesus the Magician, for a project on Magic, Popular Religion, and the New Testament I am working on.  Whatever you think of Smith, you have to admit that he can be a hoot to read. Commenting on a saying attributed to Jesus by the Rabbis ("From filth they came and to filth they shall return"), Smith writes, "The saying may be early--it resembles many of the Q sayings in being antithetical, vague, and pompous...." (Smith, Jesus the Magician , 46) If anyone wanted a primer on what Morton Smith thought of Q, one could not be any more succinct!

Morton Smith wrote a controversial book on Jesus:   Jesus the Magician .  I don't want to go into the details of his argument, which, ultimately, teaches one a lot of interesting and important things about the terminology of magic, and how magic was perceived and understood in the ancient world, though perhaps rarely discussed anymore for "historical Jesus" studies.  Perhaps it is more important for understanding the nachleben of stories of Jesus, how Jesus was perceived by friends and enemies in the second century onwards in Jewish, Christian, and other sources (such as the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri, etc.), though Smith wouldn't see it the same way.   Anyway, to get to an insightful quote about Jesus in ancient Galilee, and the quests for the historical Jesus that divide the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith, and place all of the "mythological material"--not just myths about Christ, but mythological presuppositions that Jesus may make in ...