Paper short abstract:

Through a comparative analysis of thaumaturgical practices in Palestine in I AD and the miracles narrated in the Gospels, we try to understand if Jesus' thaumaturgical techniques can be integrated in 'common' sphere of magic and be functional to a precise construction and narration of the character.

Paper long abstract:

The talk will be an analysis of the thaumaturgical practices in Palestine in I cent. a.D. The narration of Jesus' miracles in the Gospels will become a parameter for structuring a comparative analysis, aimed to understand if and how the techniques used by Jesus can be integrated in the 'common' sphere of magic.

If different scholars have defined Christ as a myth (e.g. Onfray) or as a simple man who performed no miracles (e.g. Ehrman), certain literature defines him as a magician (e.g. Smith) and it seems possible to delineate a use of both magical and thaumaturgical rituals already through an initial reading of the Gospels: we know that Jesus was able to cast out demons but mainly to heal the sick and raise the dead, sometimes with the laying of hands or, more often, with a ritual order expressed in words.

On the one hand, the comparative analysis will allow us to understand whether Jesus' practices can be inscribed within the horizon of the best-known thaumaturgical practices (e.g. the healing powers attributed to the god Asclepius), reminding that the sources themselves mark the groove between the thaumaturge Jesus and the innumerable goes/magoi of his time (e.g. Apollonius of Tyana), because Jesus declares himself to be the son of God and therefore proposes himself as an agent in function of a specific divine dynamis.

On the other hand, we can try to understand whether the creation of a real 'magic world' around the figure of Jesus can be intended as a deliberate act, functional to a specific construction and narration of the character. Could Jesus therefore have built a "scaffolding" useful for the definition of his divine component - inextricably linked to the human one - precisely through thaumaturgy, thus going beyond the line of the magos sic et simpliciter?