What’s the difference between miracles and Witchcraft in the New Testament if any? Stay tuned to find out.

Hello everyone I’m Angela and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a university lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Shamanism, Paganism and all things Esoteric really.

Today we’re trying to explore whether there is indeed a difference between Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery and the idea of miracles regarding the wondrous acts of Jesus as narrated by the Christian Testament also known as the New Testament by Christians. The answer I offer here is drawn from a book called “Jesus and Magic” by Professor Richard Horsley. The popular understanding of miracles is founded on two pillars. The first: is that a miracle is supernatural as opposed to something natural and the second: is that miracles occur through the interception of a deity. This interpretation is often endorsed by Christians who, trying to explain the extraordinary healing and exorcisms performed by Jesus in the Gospels, that wish to distinguish them from any other kind of Sorcery or Witchcraft and to highlight the godly nature of these acts. Thus one may beg the question did the Israelites, Romans, and Greeks of the time, share the concept of a miracle, as we understand it today and is there a difference clearly stated in the gospels between an act of Witchcraft and a miracle? Well, the answer to both questions is no.

As Horsley highlights; the Gospels have no concept that corresponds to the modern concept of a miracle. What we now understand as a miracle does not really appear in the Gospel accounts of Jesus. And its application to the accounts of his healings and exorcisms may also be quite questionable. Horsely explains here Hellenistic-Roman cultural elite had no concept that corresponds to the modern Western idea of a miracle. There is no correspondent term to be found neither in Josephus’ histories nor in Greek or Latin texts of the time. Similar terms that were used at the time, refer to wonders, omens, portents, prodigies, or signs, as well as ominous events or other strange occurrences which would bring either fortune or misfortune to public figures or to the community. Terms used to refer to such events were sometimes attributed to divine interference and sometimes not.

The emergence of the Latin term miraculum in late antiquity provides the link to the later Christian and then the modern interpretation of miracle. In early usage, miraculum was used to describe something that aroused wonder. However, by the second century CE, it began to be used to denote wondrous events attributed to a deity, as it happens in the “Metamorphoses” by Apuleius. And yet, healings were not prominent among such “wonders” possibly because they were not deemed as all that extraordinary.

While the term and idea of miracle had no such meaning at the time of Jesus himself, however, by late antiquity Christians came to use the term for the wonders Jesus worked, as well as for the acts of the martyrs.

Differently from post-enlightenment intellectuals, thinkers of the first centuries of the Common Era did not make a sharp distinction between divine causation and reason or nature, between the supernatural (miraculous) and the natural.’ The divine was – in fact – deemed rational and natural, the gods an integral part of nature and the cosmos. In Judean and Hellenistic cultures, it was accepted that certain people might exude special and unusual powers. But there was no special classification of miracles or the supernatural. There was perhaps more of a distinction between clean or pure versus unclean or impure practices and spirits rather than sorcery versus miracles.

Also, the Gospels do not really explain the cause or nature of the acts of Jesus, they focus more on the figure of Jesus and the interactions between Jesus and the healed persons as well as the effect that those healing caused. There is no demarcation drawn between witchcraft and miracles but just an emphasis on the acts of Jesus and how they affected people around him.

To sum it up, the Gospels do not draw any distinction between miracles and witchcraft and the idea that the first is sourced by God whereas the second is connected to evil entities can be ascribed to a later Christian interpretation. Equally, the idea of the miraculous being ‘supernatural’ is a modern conceptualisation of the term ‘miracle’ that builds upon the post-Enlightenment idea of a dichotomy between natural and supernatural linked to its new and I’d add – scientistic worldview.

Now, I wonder… what do you think? Do you agree or disagree with this take? Let’s open a discussion in the comment section and don’t forget to mention your sources! As, here, on Angela’s Symposium, we’re all about sound arguments and well-referenced contributions!

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Can we distinguish between witchcraft and miracles? Were the wonders that Jesus performed 2000 years ago comparable to today’s witchcraft? We know that the word miracle, as applied to the healings and exorcism’s Jesus performed, came many years after his time on earth. Also the idea that the natural and supernatural were separate came only during the very recent Enlightenment. The only difference that New Testament Christians could distinguish between the wonders of Jesus or any Magus of the time was the source of the magical power; God or other magical entities. It truly was an enchanted world back then.

Summary

REFERENCES
‘Jesus and Magic’ by Richard A. Horsley

First uploaded 1 Mar 2021