By Steve Badger, PhD | Document last revised: February 23, 1997
The pastor was out of town, and the choir director was about to introduce the guest preacher, when a young man walked quickly to the front of the sanctuary and challenged the associate pastor. “Are you teaching the truth? Or are you lying?” he demanded.
Was this a charade or genuine confrontation? Alas, this was no skit. Immediately several men and women moved from their pews and surrounded him, praying aloud for him. Was he demon-possessed? Several people were positive he was. Everyone prayed for him as some tried to find out who he was and what he wanted. One person reached over the crowd and placed a Bible on the man’s head. It did not seem to have any immediate effect on the young man, whom we later learned had mental problems, was not taking his medication, and was under the influence of alcohol.
The image of the Bible being placed on that troubled young man’s head provoked me to reassemble some research I had done and to write this essay.
Many Christians are surprised to learn that even as Jesus was performing miracles, his detractors were accusing him of using magic./1/ Luke 11:14-15 provides a good example.
Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, "By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons." /2/
Later the Apostles were also accused of using magic: After Peter and John healed the paralytic, the Sanhedrin asked them: "By what power or what name did you do this?" (Acts 4:7). Implicit in this is a charge of using magic.
Later still, Simon apparently misunderstood what the Apostles were doing as magic and thought he could give "them money" so he could receive "this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:18-24). He was severely rebuked for this error.
Apparently Sceva’s sons also thought the Apostles were magicians and attempted to copy their incantation, but a formula could not control demons (Acts 19:13-18). Verse 19 provides the context for those who doubt Luke’s intent to connect this to contemporary magic: "A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly."
This accusation continued through the next few centuries. John Meier states that "the earliest extant documentation for the application of the precise word ’magician’ (magos) with Jesus is Justin Martyr’s First Apology (30.1) and his Dialogue with Trypho (69.7)." /3/ The arguments of Celsus (ca. A.D. 178) that Jesus was nothing more than a magician /4/ and the responses by Origen /5/ are commonly cited.
This accusation continues even today. The History-of-Religions school has long operated on the assumption that Christianity is largely a syncretistic amalgam of a first century messianic Jewish sect with Greco-Roman religious traditions. These scholars have discounted the Bible’s miracle accounts as nothing more than copies of contemporary mythical acts of magic-and therefore ahistorical and fictitious. John Meier claims that the charge continues today in the writings of several scholars. /6/
Luke provides the most insight into the conflict between New Testament miracle and pagan magic, so the Lucan corpus was selected for examination. In this essay I will assume that Luke’s works-including the supernatural events-are historically accurate accounts. Since different writers use different definitions of miracle, I will use a definition used in earlier research: "The text will have to reveal that people experienced something tangible that broke known physical laws. These will include healing, exorcism, prophecy, death, raised from death, jail breaks, visions, and other miraculous phenomena." /7/
Our sources of knowledge of Hellenistic magic–the tabellae defixionum (cursing tablets), amulets, ostraca (broken pottery), and various magical apparatuses–all generally agree with the description assembled from a study of the Greek Magical Papyri. In this study, I will compare the techniques of Hellenistic magic with Luke’s accounts of miracles. This will then be compared and contrasted to typical prayers patterns and practices of modern day Pentecostal Christians.
Are miracle and magic fundamentally different? Some think not. For instance, John Meier concludes, "From the viewpoint of the social sciences, there is no objective difference between what we commonly label miracle in the Gospels and what we commonly label magic in various Greco-Roman papyri, novels and historians." /8/ He also offers the opinions of several scholars who basically concur. This work challenges these conclusions.
What is magic? Clinton Arnold says that "the practice of magic presupposes a belief, indeed a fear, of hostile evil spirits bent on oppressing and bringing harm to people. The purpose of magic was simply a defense mechanism–to have some means of protection against these evil forces." /9/ John Hull provides an excellent description of ancient magic:
The basis of the system is a belief in non-human, superhuman, usually invisible powers, including the gods themselves, the angelic beings, demons of various orders and the soulsof heroes and men. But the distinctive development is a belief that these superhuman, supernatural entities are linked by invisible bonds of sympathy to visible and material things which are thus ’symbols’ of the power to which they adhere–plants, minerals, animals, times and seasons, human beings. . . . By knowledge of the powers, their sympathies and antipathies and their symbols, it is possible to influence the supernatural world. The art of magic is to collect such knowledge and apply it correctly so as to swing the enormous forces of the universe in the desired direction. /10/