The Bible details how Jesus brought a man back from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ using the sound of his voice, but ancient artwork may show that Christ used a little bit of magic.
A fourth-century painting of the story discovered in Rome shows Jesus holding what some archaeologists claimed is a magician’s wand.
Other paintings dating around the same time also depicts Christ holding a wand-like object while performing famous miracles like multiplying loaves of bread and healing the sick.
However, some researchers have suggested that these masterpieces actually depict Jesus holding a staff, which was likely portrayed as a way to connect him to the prophet Moses who was more well known at the time.
Regardless, historians believe early Christians saw their Lord and Savior as a magician.
According to the Bible, Jesus performed miracles through the power of God and his ability to heal people and bring them back from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ while also producing food and drink elevated him above Roman gods in the eyes of Christians.
The fantastical feats may have caused some people to turn to the supersтιтious belief that Jesus was a magician to explain his actions.
‘I mean, here’s this group that gets together in the morning and drinks wine and says it’s blood and eats bread and says it’s flesh,’ Lee Jefferson, the chair of the religion program at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky told Live Science in 2020.
‘You can probably understand why people thought it was supersтιтious.’
The belief that Jesus was a magician may have translated into paintings dating back to the early third century that depict Christ holding a wand, experts explained.
One of the earliest records of wands being used was in the 9th Century BC when people who practiced the ancient religion Zoroastrianism used wand-like objects made from small rods or sticks during sacred rituals.
One of the most referenced artworks was a fourth-century AD painting found in the Via Anapo catacomb in Rome, showing Jesus multiplying seven loaves of bread.