The setting of Reza Alsan’s controversial history, Zealot: The Life and Times Of Jesus of Nazareth, parallels the situation in Israel/Palestine today. Then as now there was an occupation. Then as now this occupation bred anger that resulted in extreme violence. Other scholars attempting to place Jesus in historical context have previously discussed the unrest, rebellions, and assassinations that troubled the region during Jesus‘ time. Aslan happens to belong to the camp of researchers who believes Jesus was one of the many rebel messiahs encouraging Jews to rise up against their Roman occupiers. Zealot stands out, however, because it’s author has a gift for presenting dry academic material in popular blockbuster format. He succeeds brilliantly in dramatizing history for the non-expert without seriously compromising the scholarly nature of his enterprise.
The book advances the theory that the pacifist Jesus we all know is a fabrication by early Christian writers to stay out of trouble with Rome and to extend the appeal of the new faith to non-Jews. The real Jesus, Aslan says, didn’t intend to encourage pacifism in the face of the Roman occupation and certainly didn’t mean to address all of humanity, just fellow Jews. This thesis strikes at the heart of Christian belief and has led some--most famously FOX News--to question whether Aslan’s motive is more religiopolitical than scholarly.
The notion that Aslan’s thesis is influenced by his Muslim faith can’t be sustained because Islam venerates Jesus as a true prophet. But whether or not Zealot contains a political message can be reasonably debated. The parallel to the modern day occupation of Palestine by what the Arab natives regard as European occupiers is too close. Jews in the time of Jesus occasionally erupted into violent insurrections against their occupiers just as Hamas does today. The book itself never draws this parallel, but it is a similarity that is easy for the reader to see. For example, Professor Allan Nadler asks in The Jewish Review of Books,
“…is Aslan’s insistence on the essential “Jewishness” of both Jesus and his zealous political program not also a way of suggesting that Judaism and Jesus, no less than Islam and Mohammed, are religions and prophets that share a similarly sordid history of political violence; that the messianic peasant-zealot from Nazareth was a man no more literate and no less violent than the prophet Mohammed?”
However, regardless of what can be read into the book, what can be read directly from the book often puts the reader through rigorous intellectual workouts, as any good book should. A particularly enticing chapter includes Aslan’s novel interpretation of the “render unto Caesar” passage in the New Testament. As the story goes, someone in the crowd asks Jesus whether Jews should pay taxes to Rome. This is a tense scene where the hostile questioner is attempting to provoke Jesus into publicly making an inflammatory statement against Rome. The wrong answer means the death sentence. By standard interpretation, Jesus cleverly sidesteps entrapment by famously separating church and state. He takes a coin and asks whose name is on it? The crowd replies, Caesar‘s. So Jesus says, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are Gods.” But Aslan maintains that far from trying to avoid the trap Jesus welcomed the opportunity to deliver his revolutionary message. In Aslan’s reading of the Greek original, Jesus said, “Well, then, give back to Caesar the property that belongs to Caesar, and give back to God the property that belongs to God.” Which “property that belongs to God“ could Jesus possibly mean except the land He gave His people? With this tiny and plausible adjustment in translation Aslan transforms the cautiously diplomatic Jesus into an angry rebel knowingly inviting martyrdom! By this time Aslan has masterfully showcased historical evidence of a turbulent Palestine under the Roman boot so that his unorthodox translation is not only believable but appears as the most reasonable take on the famous New Testament story.
Zealot is a fast and engaging read. It is packed with enough material to stock book clubs with hours of socializing and to keep class discussions going long after the bell. It’s weakness isn’t part of the book per se but in the author’s note where Aslan opens a can of worms by discussing his personal religious beliefs. The issue of the Author abandoning his Christian faith to become a Muslim is too complex to fit in a four page note. The question of why Islam and not Christianity is big enough to be a distraction. On the other hand this untidiness in mixing the personal with the academic may be part of what makes Aslan so interesting to best-seller readers. He may have wisely sacrificed form to bring intimacy to his voice and add emotional substance to his book. After all, when a writer alienates a large number of Christians, Jews, and atheists and still makes it to the number one spot on the New York Times Best Seller list, it’s hard to argue with his form.
First published on Iranian.com
Challenging the core values of Christianity, the most popular religion in the world, may be a perilous business and politically incorrect. Dr. Aslan, however, has done just that. Although controversial, the book is quite informative and replete with heavy doses of research. Dr. Aslan, a well-respected, internationally renowned religious scholar, has embarked on a venturesome expedition, challenging what more than one billion Christians believe regarding who Jesus was. He maintains that his meticulous research of multiple non-canonical textual sources provides “a vastly different perspective on the life of Jesus of Nazareth” and portrays quite a different person from Jesus Christ, the messiah gospel writers and Christian theologians have constructed. In summary, the author believes that Jesus of Nazareth was a man of profound contradictions who was shaped by his historical time and world, a man who organized a popular Jewish uprising and contemplated the restoration of the Kingdom of God on Earth. He was, consequently, arrested and crucified by Roman authorities, along with a few of his disciples. “The Jesus that is uncovered in the [historical research] process may not be the Jesus we expect; he certainly will not be the Jesus that most modern Christians would recognize. But in the end, he is the only Jesus that we access by historical means. Everything else is a matter of faith.”
We certainly revere or even worship our historical religious figures intensely and bequeath upon them the highest heavenly attributes. “Scholars tend to see the Jesus they want to see,” writes Dr. Aslan. “Too often they see themselves—their own reflection—in the image of Jesus they have constructed.” Because of this, these historical religious figures may not really be whoever we are told they were. Arduously and courageously, Dr. Aslan has raised this issue and tries to shed some light on it, relying on his deep research and his vast training in religious history.
In the future, I do hope he applies the same intense scrutiny and questioning to the life and times of the Prophet Muhammad. I look forward to eventually reading a similar treatise about the Muhammad of Mecca and the Muhammad of Medina; in which case, it would be wise for him, to plan on hiring a few heavily armed bodyguards!
I'm not a big fan of some Reza Aslan's political views, but I don't mind him on a personal level. I think that he's an intelligent person with a good sense of humor. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm planning to do so when I'm done with the couple of books that I'm reading now. Your review has encouraged me to do so even more. Thanks for sharing.
"The real Jesus, Aslan says, didn’t intend to encourage pacifism in the face of the Roman occupation and certainly didn’t mean to address all of humanity, just fellow Jews".
There is nothing new there, that's historical Jesus. The rest is the construct. Like the Jewish exodus from Egypt that has never taken place, it seems.
Haven't read the book yet, but will.
I have not read the book and most likely will not but I do enjoy the review and the discussion here.
So thank you for that
Mehrdad
What is important to me is that the reaction of Jesus followers to a different view point has been overwhelmingly civil, nothing like the reaction to Salman Rushdie or the Danish Cartoons or several other non-conventional views of Islam.
That in a nutshell explains the difference between Islam and Christianity today.
Mr. Aslan has an undeniable right(s) to critique or scrutenize anyone or anything, either positively or otherwise. Yet, one should not forget that objectivity is the mother of credibility and authors without credibility might enjoy a one night stand and not more!
Let's hope that he is as objective and as even handed, or as critical, writing about Mohammad as he was of Jesus!
In my humble opinion Jesus could not have been as passive, peaceful or as innocent as Christians would like us to believe or portraying him, in order to demonize others...after all he was a human being. Someone that peaceful would not even have a pulse and could not have defeated Rome, and just by kindness and gentility...he must have been a strong willed revolutionary with a stronger sense of justice, seeking judicial equilibrium for ALL even the down trodden and slaves at that important juncture of time and history, somewhat similar to Abe Lincoln. HE, without a doubt, left his GREAT marks on human history.