By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

In 1978 Dr. Morton Smith charged that Jesus had used a “magical formula” at the time of the “raising of Jairus’ daughter” (Jesus The Magician, page 95). In his attempt to excuse Joseph Smith for the role he played in the magic arts, Dr. D. Michael Quinn [BYU professor] tries to link Jesus to the occult. On August 25, 1985, the Salt Lake Tribune reported:

Professor Quinn stated that the teachings of the occult have long been present to religion and have not been completely rejected by it. . . . He sees in Jesus’ words to the daughter of Jairus in the Gospel of Mark, “Talltha, cumi,” a magical formula.

To those who are looking for magical formulas, the words talitha cumi (or talitha koum in some versions of the Greek text) may seem to have a mysterious sound. Below is a photograph of the Greek text of Mark 5:41 from The Greek New Testament. The two important words have been circled.

To understand the problem here a person must realize that while the Gospels were written in Greek, Aramaic was the language Jesus and his disciples used most frequently. While Mark 5:41 is written entirely in Greek characters, the words talitha cumi are not Greek words. They are actually Aramaic words transliterated into Greek characters. The words mean, “Little girl, arise” (Wycliffe Bible Commentary, page 999; also Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible). The words talitha cumi are certainly not secret magic words for Mark himself tells us that they are “translated” as “Little girl, I say to you, arise” (Mark 5:41). Luke relates the same story but does not use the Aramaic words talitha cumi. He merely says that Jesus took hold of the girl’s hand and said, “Little girl, arise” (Luke 8:54). Mark uses the Greek word korasion for “little girl,” while Luke uses pais. Either word, however, can be properly rendered as child, maid or little girl.

Since Jesus spoke Aramaic, it is not surprising that Mark would leave some of the words in that original language. He also did this on other occasions. When Jesus healed the deaf man, Mark quoted Him as saying, “Ephphatha, that is, be opened” (Mark 7:34). In Mark 14:36 we read: “And he said, Abba, Father . . .” Again, in Mark 15:22 we find the following: “And they bring him into the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted, the place of a skull.” Finally, in Mark 15:34 we read: “. . . Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

In order to prove that Jesus was reciting a magic formula when he said talitha cumi, one would have to produce some evidence contemporary with Jesus. In his discussion of the matter in Jesus The Magician, Morton Smith fails to bring forth any such evidence. Smith does, however, try to link Mark 5:41 with Acts 9:36-40:

. . . talitha koum . . . became the basis of another phrase—if not an entire story—preserved in Acts 9:36ff. where Peter raises a dead woman conveniently named Tabitha by saying to her in Greek, “Tabitha, get up.” (Tabitha is a mispronunciation of talitha, which the storyteller mistook for a proper name.) (Jesus The Magician, page 95)

While there is a similarity between the words Tabitha and talitha (Tabitha contains the Greek letter beta, while talitha has the letter lambda) koum (or cumi) bears no resemblance to the Greek word translated “arise” or “get up” in Acts 9:40. This word is anastethi. Furthermore, there is no evidence that “Tabitha is a mispronunciation of talitha.” In fact, there is convincing evidence from the original languages that it is not a mistake. Acts 9:36 says that the woman was named “Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorkas: . . .” Tabitha is “An Aramaic word meaning gazelle” (The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, page 1142). Dorkas is a Greek word which also means gazelle (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible). This all makes perfect sense. Peter is calling the woman by name and is telling her to “arise.” Morton Smith’s explanation, however, does not fit any of these facts. He would have us believe that it all arose through a misunderstanding.

In any case, the fact that some Aramaic words were preserved in Mark’s Gospel does not make them a “magic formula.” Even Morton Smith has preserved foreign words in his translation of ancient texts. For instance, on page 70 of Jesus The Magician, he translated from Plato’s writings but when he came to the word goeteia he merely transliterated it into English letters: “. . . in sacrifices and initiations and spells, and all prophecy and goeteia.”

Although Morton Smith, whose work is now used by a number of Mormon scholars who believe that Jesus was a magician, rejected the deity of Jesus, he did maintain that He did perform some “cures” through natural means:

He was born in Palestine, probably within eight or ten years of the beginning of the present era. He grew up in Galilee, was baptized by John the Baptist, formed a band of his own followers, and went about with them mainly in Galilee, but at least once visited Jerusalem and there was arrested and crucified—on these matters the gospels agree; we have no reason to question their reports.

Nor is there any reason to question their unanimous report that Jesus attracted attention as a miracle worker. Rationalists long assumed that miracles do not occur and that the gospel stories of Jesus’ miracles were legendary . . . Jesus’ “exorcisms” and “cures” are now commonly thought to have resulted from the sudden cessation of hysterical symptoms and cognate psychological disorders. . . .

Thus the external framework of Jesus’ life—the what, when, and where—is reasonably certain. Beyond these facts lie difficulties. For instance, some of his disciples thought he rose from the dead. (Ibid., pages 8 and 17)

Morton Smith argued that Jesus was actually a magician who “Initiated his disciples and bound them to himself by magical rites unknown to the prophets, . . . (Ibid., page 163). He also maintained that “Jesus’ exorcisms were accompanied by abnormal behavior on his part. Magicians who want to make demons obey often scream their spells, gesticulate, and match the mad in fury” (Ibid., page 32). Dr. Smith seemed to give some credence to the following:

The rabbinic report that in Egypt Jesus was tattooed with magic spells . . . The antiquity of the source, type of citation, connection with the report that he was in Egypt, and agreement with Egyptian magical practices are considerable arguments in its favor.

Another consideration in its favor is its close connection with the rabbinic report that he was “a madman”—that is, occasionally manic or hysterical. (Ibid., pages 150-151)

On page 47 of Jesus The Magician, Morton Smith argued that the following rabbinic report probably refers to Jesus coming out of Egypt with magic spells tattooed upon his body:

Rabbi Eliezer declared him guilty, but most scholars innocent. Rabbi Eliezer said to them, “But is it not [the case that] Ben Stada brought magic spells from Egypt in the scratches on his flesh?” They said to him, “He was a madman and you cannot base laws on [the actions of] madmen.” Was he then the son of Stada? Surely he was the son of Pandira? Rabbi Hisda [a third-century Babylonian] said, “The husband was Stada, the paramour was Pandira.” [But was not] the husband Pappos ben Judah? His mother was Stada. [But was not] his mother Miriam [Mary] the hairdresser? [Yes, but she was nicknamed Stada]—as we say in Pumbeditha, ‘s’tat da [i.e., this one has turned away] from her husband.”

Although Morton Smith links “the son of Pandira” with another rabbinic story about “Jesus the son of Panteri” (Ibid., page 46), he admits that the reference is confusing. He even states that the original Ben Stada was not Jesus:

. . . the rabbis are generally ignorant of chronology and constantly guilty of absurd anachronisms. . . . The original Ben Stada seems to have been a Jew who advocated some cult involving the worship of deities other than Yahweh. He was entrapped by Jews in Lydda, condemned by a rabbinic court, and stoned. Since Jesus also was accused of introducing the worship of other gods—notably himself —he was nicknamed Ben Stada. Hence it is often difficult to tell to whom the passages on “Ben Stada” refer. (Ibid., page 47)

While the Bible does mention the fact that Jesus was in Egypt, Matthew 2:20 says that he was only a “young child” (paidion) when he was brought back to Israel.

Morton Smith tries to convince his readers that the Apostle Paul also had magic tattoos on his body: “Moreover, Paul claimed to be tattooed or branded with ‘the marks of Jesus,’ Gal. 6:17—most likely, the same marks that Jesus had carried” (Ibid., page 48). The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, page 1298, presents a far more reasonable explanation. It states that the marks which Paul had were “the marks of persecution which he bore in his body, scars suffered for the sake of the Lord Jesus, . . .” Support for this interpretation is found in 2 Corinthians 11:24-25, where Paul himself commented: “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, . . .”

In his book Jesus The Magician, Dr. Smith seems willing to go to great lengths to prove his case that Jesus was linked to the occult. For instance, he gives this translation of Matthew 27:62-63:

. . . the high priests and the Pharisees met with Pilate, saying . . . “That magician said, while [he was] yet alive, ‘After three days I shall arise.’ ”

The word Dr. Smith translates as “magician” is planos. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible gives the meaning as, “roving (as a tramp), i. e. (by impl.) an imposter or misleader:—deceiver, seducing.” (Greek Word No. 4108) While it is true that a magician is a “deceiver,” there are many deceivers who are not magicians. Dr. Smith seems to be forcing his own opinion into his translation. Actually, the New Testament has a word for a magician or sorcerer. That word is magos. It is used, for instance, in Acts 13:6 and 8. On page 69 of his book, Morton Smith says that “The common Greek word for ‘magician’ in Jesus’ time was goes (plural goetes).” The word goetes is found in 2 Timothy 3:13 and is translated as “seducers” in the King James Version: “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, . . .” This same word, however, can be translated as “wizard,” “wailer” or “enchanter.” That Matthew used planos instead of magos or goes seems to destroy Morton Smith’s argument.

Dr. Smith made his own translations of most of the documents used in his book. It is hard to have a great deal of confidence in these translations after we see how he rendered planos from the Greek text of Matthew. On page 50 of Jesus The Magician, Smith translated some material from the historian Suetonius who wrote about the Christians around 120 A.D:—”Suetonius is brief: ‘Penalties were imposed on the Christians, a kind of men [holding] a new superstition [that involved the practice] of magic’ . . .” Martin A. Larson, who was convinced that Christianity had its roots in paganism, also quoted Suetonius. The reader will notice, however, that the word “magic” is not mentioned: “Suetonius, after detailing the enormities of which Nero was guilty, lists among his good works that he ‘inflicted punishment on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition’ ” (The Religion of the Occident, page 308).

Tacitus, the famous Roman historian, wrote concerning the Christian religion in the early part of the second century. He referred to the Romans charging the Christians with “hating all mankind.” Although Dr. Smith could not find a direct charge of magic in the writings of Tacitus, this did not deter him from implying that this is what the Romans had in mind: “. . . hatred of the human race is a charge appropriate to magicians as popular imagination conceived them” (Jesus The Magician, page 52).

About 165 A.D. a pagan by the name of Lucian wrote concerning Christianity. There appears to be nothing in Lucian’s writings to support Morton Smith’s thesis. In fact, Smith himself concedes that “Nothing is said of miracles or magic” (Ibid., page 56).

Before the turn of the third century, Celsus wrote concerning Christianity. Although no copies of his work have survived, about 247 A.D. a Christian writer by the name of Origen “quoted a good deal of it, almost sentence by sentence.” Celsus does give support to the idea that Jesus was a sorcerer, but since he wrote about a century and a half after Jesus’ death, his words do not have the same weight as they would have if they were written by Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius or Pliny. Furthermore, even Dr. Smith had to admit that Celsus “drew his material from both sides and that he must be used with caution” (Ibid., page 58).

One of the main sources Morton Smith uses to try to prove that Jesus was a magician is magical papyri which were penned many years after the crucifixion of Jesus. While Dr. Smith suggests that “some” of the papyri may have been originally written “at least as early as the gospels,” there is no way to know for certain, and in an article on “Magic in Early Christianity” David E. Aune informs us that “most of the magical papyri come from the third through the fifth centuries A.D. . . .” Morton Smith feels there are many important parallels between the magical papyri and the story of Jesus in the New Testament. If he could show that the papyri predated the lifetime of Jesus his parallels would be more impressive. Although Dr. Smith claims the papyri are basically pagan documents, it is clear that the Bible (either directly or indirectly) had an influence on the authors of these documents. Dr. Smith concedes that there are “references to Jesus in the papyri” (Jesus The Magician, Preface viii), and on page 69 of the same book, he says: “The Jews’ god, Yahweh . . . was particularly famous for his usefulness in magic. In the magical papyri (which contains a sprinkling of Jewish spells, but are mainly pagan documents) his name outnumbers that of any other deity by more than three to one.”

On page 109 of his book, Morton Smith wrote:

Chapter VI showed that the primary characteristic of a magician was to do miracles. In this Jesus evidently excelled. Through all antiquity no other man is credited with so many. The gospels contain well over 200 items about Jesus that directly involve something miraculous . . .

We certainly agree that many miracles are attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. If a person believes that all miracle workers are magicians, then Jesus would have to be described as a “magician.” However, anyone who has done any serious study of the rituals used by magicians knows that they are strikingly different than what we find in the New Testament. They are filled with mysterious names. For example, we find these statements in some of the magical papyri cited in Morton Smith’s book:

“I conjure you by the god of the Hebrews, Jesus, laba, tae, Abraoth, Aia, Thoth,” etc. (page 63)

Spell said to the cup. Say seven [times], “You are wine; you are not wine but the head of Athena. You are wine; you are not wine but the entrails of Osiris, the entrails of Iso Pakerbeth, Eternal Sun o o o . . . i a a a”—To make it compulsive [add] “Abianathanalba akrammachamarei e e e, the [angel] put in charge of compulsion, Jacob la lao Sabaoth Adonai Abrasax”. . . (page 111)

Adonai, Abrasax, Pinouti and Sabaos [sic], fire the soul and heart of him, Amonios, whom Helen bore, for him, Serapiacus, whom Threpta bore, now, now quick, quick! (page 124)

These complicated and mysterious rituals should be contrasted with stories in the New Testament where Jesus cast out demons:

And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. (Mark 1:25)

For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. (Mark 5:5)

When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. (Mark 9:25)

The absence of all the hocus-pocus of magic is evident in these passages. Dr. Smith tries to explain away the lack of magical ritual by saying it was suppressed. Speaking of the report of Jesus’ baptism, he said:

No gospel says anything of any ritual, though the baptism must have been accompanied by prayers and thanksgivings (possibly also by hymns) and effected with some regular form of actions and formula of words. The omission of such elements here—in spite of their importance to the event—should warn us that elsewhere the absence of reference to ritual does not prove that none was used. We have seen that rituals and formulae were apt to be taken as evidence of magic, and therefore to be deleted . . . (Jesus The Magician, page 96)

In discussing the story of the descent of the spirit we showed that its closest parallels are found in accounts of magical rites. Indeed it seems to be an abbreviated version of such a magical account— abbreviated to eliminate the magical traits. (Ibid., page 145)

Dr. Smith gives no manuscript evidence to support his serious accusations. He knows that the New Testament as we have it does not provide the support he needs to prove Jesus was a magician. Therefore, he claims that much of the magic material has been deleted. He seems to feel that even the original authors of the Gospels strove to remove magical elements out of Jesus’ life:

Sometimes it is clear that stories have been revised to get rid of magical details. The exorcism in Mk. 5 is a good example. According to Mark, Jesus makes the demon tell his name. This was standard magical practice; once you knew the name you could use it to order the demon out. But in Mark the exorcism proper has been deleted, so the question is useless. Even that was too much for Matthew; he deleted the question as well (8.29f.). Matthew’s consistent deletion of magical traits has been demonstrated by Hull, Hellenistic Magic, 116ff. Such censorship left most references to magical procedure in the gospels scattered and isolated, one term here, another there. (Ibid., page 145)

On page 131, Dr. Smith even spoke of Matthew’s “dislike of magical traits.”

Morton Smith observed:

One of the commonest forms of exorcism was to order the demon out “by the name of” some more powerful being, usually a god whose “true name” or “true” title or function the magician knew. (Ibid., page 35)

David E. Aune, however, pointed out that although Jesus’ disciples used his name to cast out devils “there is no evidence to suggest that Jesus himself invoked the name of God or any other powerful names in the rituals which he used to effect exorcisms and healings, . . .”

Although it would be hard to deny that magic had some influence on the Israelites, the Bible condemns its practice in many places. In the Old Testament we read:

When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to, do after the abominations of those nations.

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.

For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. (Deuteronomy 18:9-14)

In the New Testament witchcraft is listed among the evil “works of the flesh”:

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

Acts 19:19 informs us concerning some people who “used curious arts” before they were converted. At the time they confessed the Lord, however, they “brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.”

Jesus and Joseph

While Morton Smith would have us believe that Jesus was a magician, the evidence he presents is very weak. It is interesting to compare this evidence with that which has come to light concerning Joseph Smith. To begin with, Dr. Smith has to use a dubious translation of Matthew 27:63 to support his claim that the Jews told Pilate that Jesus was a “magician.”

In Joseph Smith’s case, however, we have an original document which proves that he was a “glass looker” and that he was arrested, tried and found guilty by a justice of the peace in Bainbridge, N. Y. in 1826. This document is Justice Albert Neeley’s bill showing the costs involved in several trials held in 1826. The fifth item from the top mentions the trial of “Joseph Smith The Glass Looker.”

According to the court record, which was first printed in Fraser’s Magazine in 1873, Joseph Smith himself confessed that “he had a certain stone which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold mines were a distance under ground, . . . and . . . had occasionally been in the habit of looking through this stone to find lost property for three years, . . .” (Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? page 32). The 1826 trial proves beyond all doubt that Joseph Smith used a stone which he placed in his hat to try to locate buried treasures. This was, of course, a common practice by magicians and those who were involved in the occult.

In Mormonism, Magic and Masonry, pages 3-17, we have a photograph of a magic talisman which was owned by Joseph Smith and photographs of magic parchments which were owned by his brother Hyrum. Furthermore, we have a revelation which Joseph Smith published in which he endorsed the use of a divining rod. While Morton Smith is unable to find any evidence written during Jesus’ lifetime that would support his claim that He was a sorcerer, we have an abundance of affidavits and statements by people who personally knew Joseph Smith and witnessed his participation in magical activities (see our publications Mormonism, Magic and Masonry and Joseph Smith and Money-Digging).

Morton Smith had to resort to a great deal of speculation and wishful thinking in his attempt to prove that Jesus was a magician. The case against Joseph Smith, however, is built on contemporary documents and testimony which appears to be irrefutable.

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