"Zealot": The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

[Galadriel]

So this book is hitting the charts at Amazon, and the author claims to be a religious scholar and the book a "biography" of Jesus--well, here are some things you need to know about Reza Aslan's "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth"


(From Jimmy Akin @ The National Catholic Register):



There’s a new best-seller out there which claims to give us “the real story” on Jesus.


It’s called Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, and it is one in a long line of books challenging the portrait of Jesus given in the gospels.
The author is giving interviews in the major media, promoting his book, and people are asking questions about it and how to respond.
Here are 14 things to know and share . . .

1) What is Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth?
It is a book authored by Reza Aslan and published by Random House in July of 2013.
With the power of the Random House marketing machine behind it, the book quickly shot to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.
The book is billed as a biography of Jesus of Nazareth.
In keeping with Aslan’s creative writing background (see below), much of it is written in a casual, narrative style that does not stop to cite sources, mount arguments, or consider alternative viewpoints.
It reads rather a lot like historical fiction, with Aslan inviting us to imagine the colors of the curtain of the Jerusalem temple, how scene at the temple would have sounded, and even how it would have smelled (rather putrid, according to Aslan).

2) Who is Reza Aslan?
Aslan is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside. He lives in Hollywood.
He was born in Tehran, Iran but raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.
His family background is Muslim, though not devout.
He himself experienced a conversion to Christianity in his teens but later lost his faith.
He has a doctorate in the sociology of religions from the University of California Santa Barbara.

3) Is Aslan trying to hide his Muslim background?
He has been accused of doing so in television interviews, but this seems unfounded.
He certainly does not hide it in the book. In fact, there is an “Author’s Note” at the beginning of Zealot that explains his religious background very forthrightly.
Aslan’s Muslim background is not very relevant to the views he proposes in Zealot, and given the dynamics of TV interviews, it wouldn’t make sense for Aslan to discuss this unless he were specifically asked about it.

4) Is Aslan giving us a Muslim re-reading of Jesus?
Aslan has similarly been accused of doing so, but this is also unfounded.
Muslims typically hold that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he was the Messiah, and that he was not crucified.
Aslan appears to reject all three of these positions.
· Early in the book he casts doubt on Mary’s virginity.
· He does not appear to regard Jesus as fulfilling the role of a divinely-authorized Messiah.
· And he believes that Jesus was crucified.
In fact, early in the book he states that Jesus’ crucifixion is one of only two “hard historical facts” about Jesus that can be relied upon (see below).
Rather than providing a Muslim re-reading of Jesus, Aslan offers a standard liberal-skeptical re-reading of Jesus.

5) What does he think we know about Jesus?
His bottom line summary is as follows:
In the end, there are only two hard historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth upon which we can confidently rely: the first is that Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement in Palestine at the beginning of the first century C.E.; the second is that Rome crucified him for doing so.

If Aslan were to stop with what he considers the only hard historical facts on which we may confidently rely, it would make for a rather short biography.
So he goes beyond these bare bones to offer an imaginative reconstruction of the life and times of Jesus based on his own thoughts about what most probably happened.

6) Is that the way biographies are normally written?
No. Biographies typically go beyond trying to offer imaginative reconstructions of a person’s life.
If you really think that you only know two things about a person then you can’t write a biography of more than a few sentences.
Providing a book-length exercise of imagination, however much detail from historical sources you include, puts you in the realm of historical fiction rather than biography.
One is tempted to say that Aslan’s Zealot is only a “biography” of Jesus of Nazareth the way that Robert Graves’s I, Claudius and Claudius the God are “biographies” of the Roman Emperor Claudius.
That is to say, all three are works of historical fiction written as if they were biographies.
The difference is that Graves has more literary style than Aslan and is more up-front about the fictional nature of what he is doing.

7) How does Aslan imaginatively reconstruct the figure of Jesus?
Drawing on the facts that Jesus led a popular movement in Palestine and that the Romans crucified him, Aslan adds a third supposed fact:
Crucifixion was a punishment that Rome reserved almost exclusively for the crime of sedition.

He then infers that Jesus must have been guilty of sedition and re-casts him in the role of one of the many political revolutionaries of the day who tried to throw off Roman rule, only to get squashed.
This is where the book gets its title—Zealot. The claim is that Jesus was just one of the many zealot-like revolutionaries of the time.
Aslan then cherry-picks the evidence of the gospels, accepting whatever agrees with his thesis and discarding everything that doesn’t.

8) How does he explain the fact that the gospels do not depict Jesus as a political revolutionary?
According to Aslan, the gospels were written long after the fact and are unreliable on these points.
However, they are apparently reliable whenever they say something that he can use to support his thesis.
According to Aslan, all of the Gospels were written after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. (He dates Matthew and Luke to between A.D. 90 and 100 and John to between A.D. 100 and 120!)
At these late dates, Aslan informs us, Christians wanted to de-couple their religion from the failed political messianism that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem, and so the gospels falsify their depiction of Jesus and make him a non-revolutionary.

Continued below...

 

[Galadriel]

Continued...

9) How widely received is this view in the scholarly community?

It’s certainly been proposed before, but it is far from the only view out there.

In fact, among the skeptical scholars who try to discern the truth about “the historical Jesus” (as opposed to “the Christ of faith”), the Jesus-as-failed-political-revolutionary view is not the dominant one.
There are rival conceptions in the present or “third” Quest for the Historical Jesus. Wikipedia (accurately) notes:

The mainstream profiles in the third quest may be grouped together based on their primary theme as apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish Messiah and prophet of social change. But there is little scholarly agreement on a single portrait, or the methods needed to construct it.

So Aslan’s view is neither original nor dominant, even among those who doubt the portrait of Jesus given in the gospels.

10) How might one respond to Aslan’s claims?

One line of response is to note the subjectivity which he himself attributes to it. He states:

Writing a biography of Jesus of Nazareth is not like writing a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The task is somewhat akin to putting together a massive puzzle with only a few of the pieces in hand; one has no choice but to fill in the rest of the puzzle based on the best, most educated guess of what the completed image should look like.
The great Christian theologian Rudolf Bultmann liked to say that the quest for the historical Jesus is ultimately an internal quest.
Scholars tend to see the Jesus they want to see.

Having told us that there are only two things about Jesus we can be really confident of, Aslan then promises only a portrait of Jesus based on “fill[ing] in the rest of the puzzle based on the best, most educated guess of what the complete image should look like.”

This does not give us reason to take his portrait of Jesus particularly seriously.

And his periodic mishandling of the evidence gives us further reason for caution.

11) Does Aslan make obvious mistakes in his book?

Yes. For example, at one point he writes:

Paul may have considered himself an apostle, but it seems that few if any of the other movement leaders agreed. Not even Luke, Paul’s sycophant, whose writings betray a deliberate, if ahistorical, attempt to elevate his mentor’s status in the founding of the church, refers to Paul as an apostle. As far as Luke is concerned, there are only twelve apostles, one for each tribe of Israel, just as Jesus had intended.

Even setting aside Aslan’s unwarranted and prejudicially-phrased statement on Luke . . . Um. Dude? Acts 14:14?

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out among the multitude.

This is beyond a mistake in interpretation, to which every scholar is entitled. It is a mistake of basic fact, which an actual scholar of this material would not make.

Aslan’s emphatic claim that Luke does not refer to Paul as an apostle betrays a fundamental lack of mastery of the material he is commenting on. He has, apparently, never even done a simple word study on the office of apostle, but he is making emphatic claims about it.

12) How accurate are the dates Aslan gives the gospels?

To support his cherry-picking, Aslan assigns very late dates to the gospels. In fact, he assigns dates that tend to be a decade later than most liberal scholars assign them.

Of special importance is that they be written after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, since this was (for the time being) a crushing blow to Jewish political messianism and would, on his theory, provide Christians with a reason to re-cast Jesus as a non-revolutionary.

But the evidence is that the gospels were written much earlier. In fact, the best evidence is that they were all penned before A.D. 70, since they record Jesus’ prediction that the temple would be destroyed but they do not record its fulfillment.

The evangelists would have loved to say, “And it all happened, just the way Jesus predicted.” It would be a mark of credibility. But they don’t say that. The most plausible explanation is that the fulfillment of his prediction had not yet happened.

Further, since the book of Acts cuts off suddenly in A.D. 60, and since the Gospel of Luke was written before Acts, we have reason to think that Luke dates to no later than A.D. 59 (just 26 years after the crucifixion), and perhaps even earlier.

13) What about his claim that the Romans reserved crucifixion for sedition?

It is not true that crucifixion was “reserved almost exclusively for the crime of sedition”—particularly if by “sedition” you mean political rebellion:

The Romans used crucifixion to bring mutinous troops under control, to break the will of conquered peoples, and to wear down rebellious cities under siege.

Dangerous and violent robbers could be crucified—often near or at the scene of their crimes. Quintilian (ca. 35–95 a.d.) approved of crucifixion as a penalty for such criminals, and thought that this form of execution had a better deterrent effect when the crosses were set up along the busiest roads. . . .

The Romans used crucifixion above all as the servile supplicium (“the slaves’ punishment”), a terrible form of execution typically inflicted on slaves [Yale Anchor Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Crucifixion”].

14) What is the most fundamental problem with the book?

The most fundamental problem is that Aslan’s central thesis can only be supported by cherry-picking the data—that is, accepting some of it and rejecting everything that doesn’t fit.

This is an unreliable and unscholarly method, because if you can jettison anything that doesn’t fit your theory then you can prove anything you want to.

With all the problems that beset Aslan’s imaginative reconstruction of Jesus, there is simply no reason to take Zealot as anything like a reliable account of his life.


Certainly not compared to those offered in the gospels.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimm...-know-about-the-new-book-zealot#ixzz2aXi3pypZ

 

[JaneBond007]

I put in my order at the public library for Aslan's book post that horrific #FAIL interview on Fox news...it was hilarious. But I'm not against a sociological presentation of Jesus at all. It's what is done in religion courses. A believer's take is going to cite so much more into the story. He's going by history much in the way Flavius Josephus recounted Jesus and other events and figures. I believe Aslan is being done a disservice and it's stemming from those who credit Jesus with supernatural and religiously based historicity versus those who recount the natural events of Him. I'm not sure if a sociological account will credit the early Church Fathers or the bible. It's a benign, areligious work, imho.

 

[Galadriel]

I put in my order at the public library for Aslan's book post that horrific #FAIL interview on Fox news...it was hilarious. But I'm not against a sociological presentation of Jesus at all. It's what is done in religion courses. A believer's take is going to cite so much more into the story. He's going by history much in the way Flavius Josephus recounted Jesus and other events and figures. I believe Aslan is being done a disservice and it's stemming from those who credit Jesus with supernatural and religiously based historicity versus those who recount the natural events of Him. I'm not sure if a sociological account will credit the early Church Fathers or the bible. It's a benign, areligious work, imho.

I disagree. "Zealot" is historical fiction at best being peddled as historical scholarly work.

The earliest Gospel was written around 30 years after the Resurrection--not 50 or 60. When people try to place the Gospels as being written in the AD 90's + it's because they want to promote the argument that the major claims and events in the Gospels were made-up and disconnected from Christ and the Apostles.

It looks like Aslan also doesn't address the fact that the early Church relied on the Apostles' oral tradition in addition to Scripture. So although the first gospel came 30 yrs. after the Resurrection, it doesn't mean that the CONTENT of the Gospels were not being taught during this time period--they were being orally taught and passed down by the Apostles and the Bishops.

I believe it's also erroneous to separate the Jesus of History from the Jesus of the Gospels. The Jesus of the Gospels IS the Jesus of History. You cannot separate the two. To say that the two are separate is to say the Apostles either lied or were deluded about what they saw and experienced.

What non-Christian historical sources (such as the Jew, Josephus) can re-affirm is the historical existence of Jesus and that He was crucified, but Josephus does not give us full insight into who Jesus was--the Apostles do.

Was Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah?
Did He truly rise from the dead?

These are the central questions upon which the message of the Apostles rest. These are questions of truth.

 

[MrsHaseeb]

It does sound like this person is a Muslim who is trying to say that Jesus is not God but was just a man who was later deified by his followers. That's exactly what Muslims believe and I know because I used to practice Islam for several years. My ex husband was a devout Muslim. I find this to be blasphemous and offensive to Christianity. They are basically calling Christians deluded idolaters... Following a man who is not God.

 

[JaneBond007]

It looks like Aslan also doesn't address the fact that the early Church relied on the Apostles' oral tradition in addition to Scripture. So although the first gospel came 30 yrs. after the Resurrection, it doesn't mean that the CONTENT of the Gospels were not being taught during this time period--they were being orally taught and passed down by the Apostles and the Bishops.

I believe it's also erroneous to separate the Jesus of History from the Jesus of the Gospels. The Jesus of the Gospels IS the Jesus of History. You cannot separate the two. To say that the two are separate is to say the Apostles either lied or were deluded about what they saw and experienced.

What non-Christian historical sources (such as the Jew, Josephus) can re-affirm is the historical existence of Jesus and that He was crucified, but Josephus does not give us full insight into who Jesus was--the Apostles do.

Was Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah?
Did He truly rise from the dead?

Granted. And it should be called historical fiction, but much of that crosses over into a system of "belief," such as if Jesus rose from the dead (though there were many witnesses) and if Jesus were the Jewish Messiah. BTW, "messiah" would have meant something different to a non-believer than to someone in the particular faith. Supernatural events. I'd heard for a long time that the people wanted a political leader and that Rome treated Jesus as a political figure.

As far as the gospels being excluded are concerned, I'll have to read the book first. But the very nature of the apostolic tradition being oral tradition was, even in that day, sacred tradition which fell under that particular belief system. That's what I meant about separating the supernatural from the "natural" events in the life of Jesus. What did the historians see themselves? What did the average person see or hear that didn't require an act of faith? I don't think the church is requiring Aslan to recount the gospels and prove the church's validity at all. I do like the more appropriate term, "historical fiction." And since there is so much to the bible in its entirety where we have to draw our own conclusions and questions for in-between the lines, I am not against his book as some sort of attack on Jesus and christians. Aslan is attempting to set the story for the events known in the natural order of things.

 

[Galadriel]

Ah, thanks for clarifying JaneBond007. I think I misunderstood earlier some of what you were saying.

Indeed, natural faith results from using our god-given reason and examination of the world to come to the conclusion that there is a Creator. Supernatural faith consists of direct divine revelation (e.g., that Jesus Christ is God, or that God exists as a Trinity. These things we cannot deduce on our own without God's revelation or instruction).

You were speaking of the historical record in terms of natural events. It took the Apostles' writing of the NT and their oral Tradition to pass on the supernatural events not all of which were public (for example, the entirety of Palestine were not witnesses of the Resurrection, or certain miracles, whereas a certain number of disciples were, and it takes their testimony and witness to fill in this area for us).

Let me know if I'm wrong in this assessment.

Granted. And it should be called historical fiction, but much of that crosses over into a system of "belief," such as if Jesus rose from the dead (though there were many witnesses) and if Jesus were the Jewish Messiah. BTW, "messiah" would have meant something different to a non-believer than to someone in the particular faith. Supernatural events. I'd heard for a long time that the people wanted a political leader and that Rome treated Jesus as a political figure.

As far as the gospels being excluded are concerned, I'll have to read the book first. But the very nature of the apostolic tradition being oral tradition was, even in that day, sacred tradition which fell under that particular belief system. That's what I meant about separating the supernatural from the "natural" events in the life of Jesus. What did the historians see themselves? What did the average person see or hear that didn't require an act of faith? I don't think the church is requiring Aslan to recount the gospels and prove the church's validity at all. I do like the more appropriate term, "historical fiction." And since there is so much to the bible in its entirety where we have to draw our own conclusions and questions for in-between the lines, I am not against his book as some sort of attack on Jesus and christians. Aslan is attempting to set the story for the events known in the natural order of things.

 

[Galadriel]

That's exactly what Muslims believe and I know because I used to practice Islam for several years.

MrsHaseeb what caused the change from Islam to Christianity (if you don't mind sharing)?

 

[MrsHaseeb]

MrsHaseeb what caused the change from Islam to Christianity (if you don't mind sharing)?

I grew up Baptist and became a Christian of my own free will around age 13/14. It was a VERY legalistic holiness/Pentecostal church
By legalistic I mean no pants, no earrings, no make up, no lip gloss, no hair dye, no going to movies, etc. I was sincere but I went back to doing the wrong things after dealing with some very serious issues and never finding freedom and deliverance. There was so much mess behind the scenes even though he preached so hard against sin. Well when I got older I had nothing to do with any church and I married a very strong, very devout Muslim. In my mind it was all the same so I joined him and began practicing it. He didn't force me to, I chose to because I felt I'd never go back to Christianity. After we divorced I still considered myself Muslim although I felt disconnected. The Lord actually drew me to himself at home alone one day. I repented and started going to a non-demominational church and never looked back to Islam. Muslims despise Jesus, despite the fact that they "respect" him verbally. After what Jesus delivered me from... I will never allow what happens in a church to rock my faith again. I have since left the non-denominational church but it was what I needed at the time.

 

[JaneBond007]

Galadriel

That's what I meant, about the supernatural events and those who were not witnesses nor believers of Rabbi Jesus lol.