Sleight of hand magician or Merlin magician?
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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No, if he existed he was probably an apocalyptic prophet. Although his followers certainly were "magicians", as they created a mystery cult that endures to this day.
The mysteries included the sacraments that we still associate with Christianity: baptism and communion. These reenactments of various symbolic acts that the deity performed reflect the commitment of the adherent and grant them some kind of boonβ in this case everlasting life in heaven.
No, he was a freelance ritual specialist.
I always had this pet theory that Jesus was more like a group of dudes who had a similar message and that the guy existed and was executed by romans (thats as far as we got from roman records iirc is a guy who fit the bill existed and was executed) but that the jesus stories from the new testament were an amalgamation of different street preachers or philosophers and were incorporated into religion
But my heart also wants to believe he was a dude who was really fuckin good at pulling coins from behind someones ear
The clouding of historical vs mythological is interesting. I wonder if theres a bio of Jesus purely based off actual evidence and records that can be substantiated.
I actually stupidly chose Jesus as a historical figure to write a proper primary sources only paper thinking there would be a breadth of info on the guy... and found out the hard way that from a historically factual standpoint all we've got is he probably existed, was baptized, and was executed. Straight up all weve got is what roman records gave us and one painting.
Painting?
Substantiation is difficult because we're talking about a late Judaean prophet, but this piece explores Jesus in the context of Roman-occupied Judah, when there were many preachers predicting the end of the world and the salvation of the Jews; Jesus' movement outlasted his death.
Esoterica has an hour-long video on the historical Jesus, built on primary sources: link