Zealot
by Reza Aslan
Some people have made a lot of hoopla about Aslan being a Muslim, as if this detracts from his scholarly work. (I don't think it does) When it comes to books about Jesus (and especially about the "historical" Jesus), bias and preconceived notions are everything. No scholar--whether liberal or conservative--approaches the subject of Jesus from a neutral standpoint. We should get over ourselves and enjoy what Aslan brings to the table.
In Part One of the book, Aslan charts the rise of revolutionary sentiment among the Jewish peoples, focusing on the various revolutionary groups who spent as much time fighting one another as they did the Roman overlords. Aslan's portrait of Israel as a hotbed of revolutionary activity, culminating in war with Rome and the absolute destruction of Jerusalem, is superb. While no one quite captures the fall of Jerusalem as well as Adrian Goldsworthy did in his book In the Name of Rome (Goldsworthy approaches the event from the Roman perspective, whereas most histories approach the event from the Jewish P.O.V.), Aslan's history of the turbulent times shatters any preconceived notions that the Israel of Jesus' day was a quiet, peaceful, fun place to live. It was on the verge of outright rebellion, and blood was already being spilled in the days of Jesus' ministry.
In Part Two, Aslan presents Jesus as a renegade disciple of John the Baptist, taking the Baptist's message, tweaking it a bit here and there, and going on a wider circuit. Jesus performed "miracles" by the use of magic, and his anti-priestly and anti-Temple sentiments landed him in hot water with the priests and, especially, the high priest Caiaphas. Jesus understood himself as Messiah, the King of the Jews, and the culmination of his career of prophecy, condemnation on the priestly elite, and healings throughout Israel was being crucified by the Romans as an insurrectionist. According to Aslan, the story of Jesus ends here; Part Three looks at how Jesus, an obviously failed revolutionary, became the messiah, the Christ, in the growth of the church into the wider Gentile world.
In Part Three, Aslan begins with the question of the resurrection. While acknowledging that something must've happened to give birth to the messianic movement in the wake of Jesus' death, Aslan dodges the question by saying it's a matter of faith and not of history. That's a classic dodge of the question, since historians have been trying since around AD 30 to explain Jesus' resurrection in a way that does more justice to the evidence than the claim that he actually rose from the dead. As N.T. Wright shows in The Resurrection of the Son of God, the resurrection is an historical event that can be approached from an historical standpoint; but because no historians have presented a theory that makes sense of the evidence better than orthodox Christianity's claims, the resurrection has been sidelined (read: done away with) into "faith" rather than "history." Aslan knows Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead because, as we all know, dead people don't rise from the grave. He must find another way to explain the rise of the church, and building upon the works of famous "Jesus scholars" down the ages, he presents a portrait of the early church that begins with a city-wide evangelistic effort aimed at the Diaspora Jews who're in town for Passover. Aslan's "rise of Christianity" goes something like this: the church finds its beginnings in Jerusalem and adheres to the Mosaic Law while supplementing that Law with faith in Jesus; it isn't until a renegade heretic named Paul gets his hands on the Jesus Message that we begin finding Jesus seen as divine. Aslan portrays Paul as an arrogant, self-serving bastard poaching off the Jerusalem church and preaching a message they don't agree with. Aslan goes so far as to say that the Judaizers whom Paul deals with in many of his letters, and that the "false apostles" of the Corinthian communities, were none other than missionaries sent by Peter, James, and John to correct Paul's Greek-inspired errors. Paul the Pseudo-Apostle and James the real Apostle are at odds with each other throughout their various careers; the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and the subsequent ruining of the Jerusalem church, opened the gates for Christianity to be dominated by Gentiles, and thus Paul's writings gained more credence and became more authoritarian than anything James wrote (like the Epistle of James). It reads like a fun story, but Aslan chooses those texts that best fit his purposes while ignoring those that contradict him, and he presents early church history in a way that doesn't do justice to the complex issues. His treatment of the writings of Paul and James is rudimentary at best, something that wouldn't even get a passing grade in college courses. His attempt to provide a better "working story" for the emergence of the church has its merits, but it has more holes than sustenance.
My major criticism of this book is that he tends to take controversial subjects within gospel studies and consider them settled. For instance: in order for his theory regarding Jesus to work, he has to date the gospels sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This in itself isn't unique; liberal scholars tend to go in that direction, because to put Jesus' prophecies regarding the fall of Jerusalem before the fall of Jerusalem would be problematic. Despite good arguments that the gospel texts were written prior to A.D. 70, this simply will not do. Aslan sidesteps the tricky debates and considers it a matter of historical fact that the gospels were written after A.D. 70. Furthermore, Aslan relies on the Q hypothesis to build much of his argument about how the gospels evolved to deal with different issues facing the early church. The Q Hypothesis, while popular, doesn't have a shred of historical evidence in its favor; it's a theory to explain some of the differences and similarities between the synoptic gospels. The Q Hypothesis is just one of many explanations, but Aslan writes as if it's established fact. Because he theorizes that the early church added Jesus' pacificism into the gospels to distance themselves from the zealots who garnished a bad reputation during the Jewish Revolt, the Q Hypothesis gives him an excuse to prioritize those gospel texts favorable to his theories and to discard those that stand against his theories. This "picking and choosing" in and of itself isn't a mark of a bad scholar; my criticism is that he does this matter-of-factly and treats his arguments as if they are the end of every argument.
Although I disagree with Aslan's proposal that Jesus was a "zealot before his time", his historical study on the sociopolitical climate of Israel in the first century A.D. is excellent. This history, which he presents in a very readable prose, illuminates countless gospel texts, forcing us to think about them anew; that's something that thrills me to the bone. You don't have to agree with Aslan's conclusions to find value in the history he presents.
In Part Three, Aslan begins with the question of the resurrection. While acknowledging that something must've happened to give birth to the messianic movement in the wake of Jesus' death, Aslan dodges the question by saying it's a matter of faith and not of history. That's a classic dodge of the question, since historians have been trying since around AD 30 to explain Jesus' resurrection in a way that does more justice to the evidence than the claim that he actually rose from the dead. As N.T. Wright shows in The Resurrection of the Son of God, the resurrection is an historical event that can be approached from an historical standpoint; but because no historians have presented a theory that makes sense of the evidence better than orthodox Christianity's claims, the resurrection has been sidelined (read: done away with) into "faith" rather than "history." Aslan knows Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead because, as we all know, dead people don't rise from the grave. He must find another way to explain the rise of the church, and building upon the works of famous "Jesus scholars" down the ages, he presents a portrait of the early church that begins with a city-wide evangelistic effort aimed at the Diaspora Jews who're in town for Passover. Aslan's "rise of Christianity" goes something like this: the church finds its beginnings in Jerusalem and adheres to the Mosaic Law while supplementing that Law with faith in Jesus; it isn't until a renegade heretic named Paul gets his hands on the Jesus Message that we begin finding Jesus seen as divine. Aslan portrays Paul as an arrogant, self-serving bastard poaching off the Jerusalem church and preaching a message they don't agree with. Aslan goes so far as to say that the Judaizers whom Paul deals with in many of his letters, and that the "false apostles" of the Corinthian communities, were none other than missionaries sent by Peter, James, and John to correct Paul's Greek-inspired errors. Paul the Pseudo-Apostle and James the real Apostle are at odds with each other throughout their various careers; the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and the subsequent ruining of the Jerusalem church, opened the gates for Christianity to be dominated by Gentiles, and thus Paul's writings gained more credence and became more authoritarian than anything James wrote (like the Epistle of James). It reads like a fun story, but Aslan chooses those texts that best fit his purposes while ignoring those that contradict him, and he presents early church history in a way that doesn't do justice to the complex issues. His treatment of the writings of Paul and James is rudimentary at best, something that wouldn't even get a passing grade in college courses. His attempt to provide a better "working story" for the emergence of the church has its merits, but it has more holes than sustenance.
My major criticism of this book is that he tends to take controversial subjects within gospel studies and consider them settled. For instance: in order for his theory regarding Jesus to work, he has to date the gospels sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This in itself isn't unique; liberal scholars tend to go in that direction, because to put Jesus' prophecies regarding the fall of Jerusalem before the fall of Jerusalem would be problematic. Despite good arguments that the gospel texts were written prior to A.D. 70, this simply will not do. Aslan sidesteps the tricky debates and considers it a matter of historical fact that the gospels were written after A.D. 70. Furthermore, Aslan relies on the Q hypothesis to build much of his argument about how the gospels evolved to deal with different issues facing the early church. The Q Hypothesis, while popular, doesn't have a shred of historical evidence in its favor; it's a theory to explain some of the differences and similarities between the synoptic gospels. The Q Hypothesis is just one of many explanations, but Aslan writes as if it's established fact. Because he theorizes that the early church added Jesus' pacificism into the gospels to distance themselves from the zealots who garnished a bad reputation during the Jewish Revolt, the Q Hypothesis gives him an excuse to prioritize those gospel texts favorable to his theories and to discard those that stand against his theories. This "picking and choosing" in and of itself isn't a mark of a bad scholar; my criticism is that he does this matter-of-factly and treats his arguments as if they are the end of every argument.
Although I disagree with Aslan's proposal that Jesus was a "zealot before his time", his historical study on the sociopolitical climate of Israel in the first century A.D. is excellent. This history, which he presents in a very readable prose, illuminates countless gospel texts, forcing us to think about them anew; that's something that thrills me to the bone. You don't have to agree with Aslan's conclusions to find value in the history he presents.
2 comments:
I'm glad to see that you finally read the book. I pretty much agree with what you have to say about it.
Did you read the notes section? I think that's one of the best parts of the book. But I think I may be the only person who reads those haha
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