Antiquitopia

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 ...

Just saw this today (via Invocatio ):  it is a Latin composition class that is quite creative.  Instead of composing boring prose, students learn how to compose magical spells.  Moreover, the entire class is based upon role-playing games; so, everyone takes on the identity of an ancient person and works on their Latin through the different developments in the game each week.  And when one reaches a new "level" in the game and score points, it affects one's grade. Perhaps something fun and educational to think about for any language teacher out there; might be interesting to apply to other types of classes, too.  Maybe in a Gospels class, everyone takes on a character in Gospel literature, see how that character develops each week in new readings?  If someone is, for example, Matthew/Levi, they would, furthermore, learn more in-depthly about ancient tax systems, tax farming, etc.?  Just thinking out loud.

I have just heard of the passing of Marvin Meyer from a melanoma.  He was an influential scholar on those religious movements that so often fall through the cracks of history (most notably "Gnosticism" and "magic"), popularizing and publicizing them to make them more widely known in several scholarly and trade publications.  Several people more intimate with Marvin Meyer have noted his passing.  Please see their comments here , here , and, here . 

In an earlier post , I had noted Moses' importance in Greco-Egyptian magic, riffing off of a statement that John Gager made.  I wrote: The Moses of the magical papyri provides another piece of the puzzle of what Jews, Christians, and others on the ground thought, what they did, and, again, reasons for his exaltation and, just as often, suppression.  It is a clear example, here, of exaltation.  I wonder, what Christians did with this view of Moses as magician?  Does his exaltation here mirror his exaltation in contemporary Christian sources of the mid-second to fourth centuries?  How does it compare with contemporary Egyptian Christian sources of different opposing parties of the hierarchy, the monks, and the traditions of Nag Hammadi?  Indeed, it is fascinating territory into which the magical Moses takes us.  It is a messy, difficult terrain, but ultimately a fruitful one. In this post, I would like to delve a little deeper in the Mose...

I have been fascinated with the traditions of Moses in the first to fourth centuries CE lately.  In connection with my "Christian Moses" project, I have been reading up on how his reputation developed in contemporary sources.  For this, there are many important scholarly works, but perhaps one of the most helpful ones in considering his broader significance in the ancient world is John Gager's Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism .  Of any figure from the Jewish tradition, Moses was the best-known to outsiders.  And while many erudite Greeks and Romans (and Egyptians) tended to refer to Moses as a lawgiver (usually as one inferior to Plato, among others), perhaps the most widespread view of Moses was that of a magician.  He is invoked among the Greek and Demotic magical papyri as an authority--sometimes works are written in his name (such as the much under-studied Eighth Book of Moses) or his name is invoked in surviving amulets because it was thought to have power in ...

One of the things I have emphasized as one of the major common threads in ancient literature is the power of speech. Words are strange things, and their power is highly ambivalent. They can build up or tear down. They can deceive or enlighten. They can find great resource in ambiguity and double-speak. People can manipulate speech and manipulate by speech for a multitude of ends, whether positive or negative (or even determine what is positive or negative). One type of speech among these is the speech-act. The speech-act emphasizes that speech DOES something. In particular, speech can be tranformative. Often, or in fact usually, this speech-act is highly formulaic, the formulae based upon particular social developments or contexts. The transformative speech-act based upon formulae is recognized in so-called "magic." In this case, for the speech--the spell--to have effect, to have efficacy, it must be said just right. Again, its power is ambivalent--such a speech-a...

Ok...so I doubt it was used for coffee, but that is how I use cups that look like this. So, some people appear to be interested in this new find off the coast of Alexandria in an area that had fallen into the Mediterranean Sea. Underwater archaeological search has found many interesting finds in the area of Alexandria that has slid into the sea. This find is a fairly well-preserved cup that dates sometime between the second century BCE and the first century CE. April Deconick has recently posted on it at Forbidden Gospels here . She has further links to others' posts there. The cup says "diachrestou ogoistais." The "e" in the "diachrestou" is an "eta." One issue is how to divide the words. The first side is pretty easy: "dia chrestou." The second side is not so sure. But I tend to think it is "o goistais." Other word divisions are definitely possible, but I am not sure at the moment what they would be. The reason, now, t...