Mysterious object found in religious art that shows Jesus was truly magical

The Bible describes in detail how Jesus brought a man back from the dead using his voice. But ancient artwork may show that Christ used a little magic in the process.

A fourth-century painting discovered in Rome shows Jesus holding a magic wand, which some archaeologists claim is a magic wand.

Other paintings from the same period depict Christ with a magic wand in his hand, performing famous miracles such as multiplying loaves of bread and healing the sick.

However, some scholars have suggested that these masterpieces actually depict Jesus holding a staff. This was probably done to connect him with the prophet Moses, who was more famous at the time.

In any case, historians believe that the early Christians saw their Lord and Savior as a magician.

According to the Bible, Jesus performed miracles by the power of God. His ability to heal people and raise them from the dead, while producing food and drink, placed him above the Roman gods in the eyes of Christians.

These fantastic feats may have led some people to turn to the superstition that Jesus was a magician to explain his actions.

“I mean, here’s this group that gets together in the morning, drinks wine and says it’s blood and eats bread and says it’s meat,” said Lee Jefferson, chairman of the religion program at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Living science for 2020.

‘You can probably imagine that people thought it was superstition.’

Experts explain that the belief that Jesus was a magician may have been translated into paintings from the early third century that depict Christ with a magic wand.

One of the first recorded uses of wands dates back to the 9th century BC. People who practiced ancient Zoroastrianism used wand-like objects made of small rods or sticks during sacred rituals.

One of the most frequently mentioned works of art is a painting from the fourth century AD, found in the Via Anapo catacomb in Rome, which shows Jesus multiplying seven loaves of bread.

In a painting, Jesus holds a magic wand over the corpse of Lazarus before performing the miracle of raising him from the dead. This image was painted in the fourth century, although the exact date is unknown, and was found in the Catacomb of Via Latina in Rome

On the door of the Church of Santa Sabina in Rome is a carving showing Jesus using a magic wand to raise Lazarus from the dead and turning water into wine. The carving was made in 432 AD on a wooden door and can be seen in the Church of Santa Sabina in Rome

In the painting, discovered in 1578, he appears to be waving a magic wand over the bread and pointing it at the objects.

In the catacomb on the Via Latina, another painting from the fourth century was found depicting Jesus with a thin magic wand in front of a shrine containing the body of Lazarus.

According to tradition, this is one of the most popular scenes depicted in early Christian funerary art. Biblical archaeology.

In John 11:4 we have the story of Lazarus getting sick and dying. But when his sister Mary asked Jesus to heal his friend, he told his disciples, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Jesus chose not to heal Lazarus, but to let him die, so that he could later raise him from the grave. Through the miracle, his disciples would believe that he was the son of God.

A similar carving was also seen on a wooden door of the Santa Sabina church in Rome. It shows 18 scenes from the Old and New Testaments.

The door was made in 432 AD and shows Jesus using a long object to perform miracles, such as raising Lazarus from the dead and turning water into wine.

Despite the images, evidence shows that most of Jesus’ followers did not view his actions as magic, but rather as miracles performed by God.

“You don’t want your demigod to be called a magician, because that would make him less powerful,” Jefferson told Live Science.

Christian figures such as the third-century scholar Origen, who headed a Christian university in Alexandria, defended Jesus against the philosopher Celsus, who was an outspoken critic of Christianity and accused him of being a magician.

Origen “wasted a lot of ink saying that Jesus’ miraculous acts were not magic because they were aimed at things like moral reform and salvation rather than the kind of parlor tricks that magicians performed in the marketplace,” Dr. Shaily Patel, professor of early Christianity at Virginia Tech, told the Daily Beast.

However, experts say it is likely that the artwork does not depict a magic wand at all, but a staff that references other notable figures.

Moses was one such person who parted the Red Sea with a staff, and later used the staff to provide drinking water for the Israelites during their escape from Egypt.

Experts explain that people at the time were familiar with Moses, but did not necessarily know who Jesus was.

To counter this, paintings may have been made of him performing miracles with some kind of staff, to bring him into contact with the prophet.

“He’s kind of the new Moses,” Jefferson told Live Science.

A staff was seen as a symbol of power, similar to the way a scroll was associated with someone who was wise or well-read.

“They see that person holding the object and they understand,” Felicity Harley-McGowan, an art historian at Yale Divinity School, told the newspaper.

‘The staff is a sign of (Jesus’) authority.’