FASS professor on the Miracles of Jesus

Kimberly Stratton, assistant professor of Humanities and Religion will be featured in a documentary, the Miracles of Jesus that will air this Christmas Eve. Stratton will appear in the latter half of the program on the Discovery Channel, Saturday, December 24, 2005 from 1-4 p.m.

The documentary places Jesus’ miracles within the social and historical context in which they occurred and also explores how his contemporaries might have interpreted them.

“I help situate Jesus’ miracles in the context of ancient religious competition and how much of what he does could have been considered magic rather than miracle by many observers,” said Stratton.

Stratton’s research focuses on magic in the ancient world and in particular on how in times of conflict or competition, accusations of magic could be used to isolate individuals or groups. In addition to Myth and Symbol and Foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, courses she offers through the College of Humanities, Stratton also teaches a fourth-year seminar, Violence and Religion.

Her research evolved out of an interest in mysticism and the occult, that her to study the evolution of magic in antiquity to occultism.

“What I found instead was an interesting contradiction between the material evidence for magical practices, that is spells that had been performed by people living in antiquity and which had been discovered buried in wells, graves, springs and even under the starting gate at ancient hippodromes, and the representation of magic in literature,” said Stratton.

While we associated magic and witchcraft predominantly with women, Stratton has found that historically most ancient spells were in fact dispatched by or on behalf of men. However, the practice of magic required literacy, which few women had, as formal education was the domain of men. Through her research, Stratton concluded the stereotype of women as purveyors of magic wasn’t historically accurate, but an outcome of “the ideological needs of writers in various cultures and contexts.”

“The way that stereotypes of magic change from context to context reveals a lot about what issues are at stake at that moment,” she adds.

Interpreted through this lens, the Miracles of Jesus might teach us more about the evolution of our own interpretations of magic and miracles.