more powerful in the area of magic and miracle than in any other area of life in the Ancient Near East. Although disputes about whether healing was miraculous or magical were commoner in Graeco-Roman than in earlier times,62 it is salutary to realise that a discussion on differentiating magic and religion would have been incomprehensible to a first-century pagan, since magic was entrenched in all religions.63 These problems from the first century are more obvious now, since modern biblical scholars