{"id":604,"date":"2015-03-16T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=604"},"modified":"2015-02-26T05:03:07","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T05:03:07","slug":"matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 9:27-34; Jesus Heals the Blind and Mute (Historical Backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Was Jesus Christ really just a shaman, a secretive sorcerer healing people with magic tricks and demonic help? That\u2019s what many of his enemies believed, and continued to believe for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n

In ancient Jewish society, demons were credited as the \u201ccauses of various ailments, such as blindness, deafness (and muteness), and a host of other maladies.\u201d It\u2019s no surprise, then, that Matthew 9:27-34 lumps together accounts of Jesus giving sight to the blind and healing a deaf-mute along with the exorcising of demons. None of Jesus\u2019 enemies could deny that these things had happened\u2014the evidence of empirical and obvious.<\/p>\n

Rather than accept the evidence for what it was\u2014and what it meant in regard to the deity of Jesus\u2014they searched for another, more plausible explanation. And so they accused Christ of sorcery, which meant being a trickster in league with the devil (Matthew 9:34). This accusation stuck around for centuries.<\/p>\n

Later rabbinic literature tried to discredit Christ\u2019s healing miracles by saying, \u201cJesus the Nazarene practiced magic, and led astray and deceived Israel.\u201d A second-century critic name Celsus also preached that Jesus was a phony and a sorcerer, saying, \u201cIt was by magic that he [Jesus] was able to do the miracles that he appeared to have done\u2026He was brought up in secret and hired himself out as a workman in Egypt, and having tried his hand at certain magical powers he returned from these, and on account of those powers gave himself the title of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

The historical evidence doesn\u2019t bear out any of these absurd claims. In fact, there\u2019s no evidence at all that Jesus practiced magic\u2014he never used incantations or spells or called on any power other than himself to heal. This hearsay appears to be a case of Christ\u2019s enemies deliberately deceiving themselves in order to justify their presupposed disbelief. Very sad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[BKB, 200-201, 247]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n

About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n

About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Was Jesus Christ really just a shaman, a secretive sorcerer healing people with magic tricks and demonic help? That\u2019s what many of his enemies believed, and continued to believe for hundreds of years. In ancient Jewish society, demons were credited as the \u201ccauses of various ailments, such as blindness, deafness (and muteness), and a host…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[16,264,77,265],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-jesus","tag-magic","tag-miracles","tag-sorcery"],"yoast_head":"\nMatthew 9:27-34; Jesus Heals the Blind and Mute (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 9:27-34; Jesus Heals the Blind and Mute (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Was Jesus Christ really just a shaman, a secretive sorcerer healing people with magic tricks and demonic help? That\u2019s what many of his enemies believed, and continued to believe for hundreds of years. In ancient Jewish society, demons were credited as the \u201ccauses of various ailments, such as blindness, deafness (and muteness), and a host…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-16T12:00:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-26T05:03:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 9:27-34; Jesus Heals the Blind and Mute (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 9:27-34; Jesus Heals the Blind and Mute (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"Was Jesus Christ really just a shaman, a secretive sorcerer healing people with magic tricks and demonic help? That\u2019s what many of his enemies believed, and continued to believe for hundreds of years. In ancient Jewish society, demons were credited as the \u201ccauses of various ailments, such as blindness, deafness (and muteness), and a host…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2015-03-16T12:00:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-26T05:03:07+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html","name":"Matthew 9:27-34; Jesus Heals the Blind and Mute (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-03-16T12:00:56+00:00","dateModified":"2015-02-26T05:03:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/matthew-927-34-jesus-heals-the-blind-and-mute-historical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 9:27-34; Jesus Heals the Blind and Mute (Historical Backgrounds)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}