This is something I have wondered for a while now. First, does the New Testament endorse magick (modern practitioners spell it with a k to distinguish it from sleight of hand)? Consider the Magi. They came bearing gifts for the infant Jesus (cf. Matt. 2:1-13). According to my dictionary, they were a Persian priestly caste, and practitioners of the occult (astrology, alchemy and the like). In fact, our word Magic(k) is derived from the Magi. And Joseph and Mary and the rest (Jesus too) apparently welcomed them. Their gifts weren’t thrown to the ground and they weren’t told to “Get out!” Think about it.
Secondly, does the New Testament condemn war? I first heard this interesting theory with a teacher I had in community college named Mr. S----. He was a Jew-turned-Christian (and a former-Democrat activist too interestingly). He delighted in telling us things we didn’t know of our own religion. He referred to Matt. 26: 52 which says:
Again, is this so? Is all war bad according to Jesus? (BTW, I am only a nominal Christian now. But I do still derive moral inspiration from things like the Sermon on the Mount, etc.)
I can see a couple of different ways to interpret that passage. For one thing, Peter draws the sword when there’s a peaceful resolution available: meek surrender to the lawful temporal authorities. In other words, people whose first resort is violence are going to have violent deaths. It’s not necessarily a denunciation of wars of self-defense, or to oppose tyranny.
Regarding the magi, it seems that the better translations of the bible give it as “wise men”. No supernatural attributes are implied to them, just that they were following a star in the sky, which would place them in a learned class, an elite and wealthy upper crust of their respective societies. And even saying they were Persians is pure speculation, since the bible doesn’t contain this information. Also, note that the Hebrew diaspora began ~600 years before the story of Jesus, so the wise men could’ve been Jews also.
And the anti war stance: yes. Have you not heard of concentious objectors? The entire Christian moral scheme is anti violence.
Depends. Some of the Gospels, Matthew and Mark, esp. are centered a lot around Jesus as a “white magician”. They emphasize Jesus’ power as an exorcist, a simple command and the demon departs. There is even a passage about Jesus’ enemies muttering that Jesus must be in league with demons, to be an officer in their army, to have such authority.
Then you have the example of disciples reporting to Jesus that some non-Christian exorcists were using Jesus name as a “spell” to cast out demons, and how they scolded them for appropriating what was not theirs. And Jesus said “Rebuke them not, for he that is not against us is with us.”
So, yeah, there’s a lot of magick in some of the earlier Gospels. But that kind of stuff was a tough sell to a sophisticated Hellenistic crowd. Kinda low rent, Aramaic trailer trash. For Paul and like minded, Jesus needed to be dressed up a bit, clean up his act. More like the ideal, more like a sophisticated Greek philosopher than some scruffy Jewish saint.
And as to the Magi, supposing we grant that they were ritual magicians, all they did was turn up, hand over gifts in a spirit of “Hail, he who is greater than all”, and go away again. Nothing wrong with that. If they’d been saying “Where’s the King? We’ve come to be his court wizards” or “Where’s the King? We’ve come to show him what real magic is, and don’t you forget it” matters might have been different.
That’s the part that always got me about Moses and the Pharaoh: they do the stick-to-snake magic, and Pharaoh’s guys do it right back; water into blood, likewise; sand into lice, that one they can’t do. So what’s the point, exactly? If you see a miracle worker, you should say, “I know that’s magic, but can you turn sand into lice?”
I’ve wondered before whether The Magi were incorporated into Matthew because it was an existing legend at the time, that Jesus was so special that he was visited by wise men at his birth, or that the writer of Matthew invented them as a plot device because he was trying to blend together the idea of Jesus as the new Moses, and placing his birth in Bethlehem even though everyone knew he was from Nazareth.
I suspect it was just to give Jesus a nod of recognition from the other big political power that existed at the time. We know how Rome reacted, the Gospel writers wanted to make it sound like elites in Persia thought he was a big deal too.
Christians differ on their attitudes toward war. There’s certainly a case to be made for Christian pacifism, but just the one verse the OP quotes doesn’t settle the matter, any more than “…and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one” can be simply taken as pro-violence.
Exodus 22:18 - “Suffer not the witch to live”. Seems the answer to your first question is pretty clear cut, at least within the framework of the laws of the tribe of Israel.
Nonsense. All forms of witchcraft, “magic”, and similar occult nonsense is inconsistent with the First Commandment. Just because Joseph and Mary accepted their generosity does not mean they endorse their ideas. If a National Bolshevist gave me a gift for example, I’d accept it certainly.
No, as Paul saids the government holds the sword so defensive wars and wars to protect innocents are perfectly justifiable.
How is *all *magic inconsistent with “No gods before me?”. I can see how it might preclude, for example, voodoo, but how is it inconsistent with ritual magic that makes no appeal to spirits or gods? For example, how is it inconsistent with astrology? Christians practiced astrology for millennia, justified by the assumption that Jehovah made the stars for a reason. How is that inconsistent with “no gods before me”?
How do you explain the fact that Jews and Christians have all practiced magic for millennia: walking in water, raising the dead, handling snakes, turning sticks into snakes. The list of magical acts performed by Jews and Christians is endless. Are you suggesting that none of them realised that what they were doing conflicted with the first commandment, to the point of actually writing about it n their scriptures? I find it implausible that 3, 000 years of Rabbis and Priests never spotted the inconsistency, and you did.
Might have been fine in Paul’s day when the government was a self-appointed Imperator. Blood’s on him, and he’d fuck you up if you didn’t render unto Caesar anyway.
But today there’s no such thing as “the government”. The government is you. You’re holding the sword. And using it to protect the innocent does not really mesh with Jesus, the most innocentest of them all (at least according to him :p), telling his buddies not to take up the sword in his defence.
I’m not even sure Jesus would have advocated taking the sword in one’s own defence. Turn the other cheek an dat. Not to mention the whole letting himself get crucified bit.
On the other hand, apparently ain’t nothing wrong with using a whip in anger, rather than a sword
And as an aside, what the hell is a national bolshevist ?
