Were Prophets Moses and Aaron magicians?
Upvote:0
The author of Acts indirectly says that Moses was a magician.
Acts 7:22 (KJV) 22
And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
Acts 7:22 (NIV)
Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
This verse is clearly saying that Moses’ Egyptian education was responsible for his powerful words and miracles. ‘All the wisdom of the Egyptians’, includes magick.
Upvote:2
The verses that forbid the Israelites to practice magic prohibit acts, the power of which to do them has its source outside of the power of God. The difference between this and the verses you cite lies in the fact that the power in these verses sources from the power of the Almighty God. Because it is sourced from God, it is not magic.
Upvote:4
Scott B. Noegel's article Moses and Magic: Notes on the Book of Exodus, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society argues in great detail that Moses and Aaron's miracles are distinct from magic used by Pharaoh's magicians, and the nature of the miracles were challenges to the Egyptian understanding of magic.
In his conclusion, he writes:
While Moses and Aaron do not employ magic of any kind, the miracles they perform do have Egyptian analogs, suggesting that the Exodus writer made a deliberate effort to allude to Egyptian magical praxis in order to polemicize against it. Such allusiveness bespeaks the literary and polemical sophistication of the ancient author.
Noegel has made the full article available online, which is worth reading for anyone who is interested in understanding how Moses' miracles would have been perceived by contemporary Egyptians.
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