Fascinating. ( )

A very interesting, surprisingly fast read, Aslan presents an incredibly concise yet readable synthesis of his original research. My knowledge of this period in history was deepened and extended, a few misconceptions picked up in high school and that had crept in from common culture were corrected, which is no small matter to be grateful for. It was fascinating to learn about the historical Jesus through what is known about how the people of Nazareth lived at the time and the complex political relationship between Rome and the tolerated, multi-faceted and conflicted Jewish society in the surrounding area.

I struggled over whether or not to give this book a 3 or a 4, just because I got a bit confused with some time frames and background context until the second part of the book. But, the illuminating juxtaposition of biblical passages and historical facts about society at that time bumped it up for me. ( )

Reza Aslan claims early in this book that the sacrifices in the first century Temple in Jerusalem smelled horrible. It turns out that animal sacrifice - which was practiced by most of the ancient religions and was not one of the things about ancient Judaism that seemed strange to pagans - always was meant to smell good. There would be the smell of cooked meat and when it burned, heavy incense was added to ensure that the smoke smelled good. After all, it was meant for God to enjoy, and one does not send stinky smoke to God.

Much of what Aslan says is just plain factually wrong. As R.B. Sheridan said: 1CThe honorable gentleman relies upon his imagination for his facts. 1D The book 19s Introduction starts with Jesus of Nazareth 19s arrival in first century Palestine: 1CThe itinerant preacher wandering from village to village clamoring about the end of the world 26 was a common sight in Jesus 19s time 26. 1D And 1Ccountless prophets, preachers, and messiahs tramped through the Holy Land delivering messages of God 19s imminent judgment. 1D

Aslan says that the sight of these itinerant preachers was so common 1Cthat it had become a kind of caricature among the Roman elite. In a farcical passage about just such a figure, the Greek philosopher Celsus imagines a Jewish holy man roaming the Galilean countryside, shouting to no one in particular: 18I am God, or the servant of God, or a divine spirit. But I am coming, for the world is already in the throes of destruction. And you will soon see me coming with the power of heaven 19. 1D

This passage fails to support the contention that first century 1CRoman elites 1D were contemptuous of messianism because it quotes a the late second century Greek named Celsus who lived well after Christianity had become a wide-spread and influential movement. Celsus while given to attacking Christianity in particular, was in this instance attacking all prophet-types and not necessarily Jewish ones and certainly not specifically Galileans! Trying to imply that Celsus was a sort of contemporary of Jesus rather than someone who knew of (and hotly opposed) the Christian faith as it was constituted in the second century after Jesus is plain intellectual dishonesty on the author 19s part. The material in Aslan 19s quotation marks was not actually a quote from Celsus; rather it is more of Aslan 19s creative writing, as if to say: this is sort of what Celsus said.

Aslan 19s contention that the kind of claim for divinity that was made on Jesus 19s behalf by his followers during the century after his crucifixion was commonplace in Jesus 19s time and place is untrue. Aslan is trying to muddy the waters by suggesting that others within the Jewish tradition made such claims of divinity for themselves. No, they often claimed messiahship and/or prophethood, but identification with God, no.

One doesn 19t get far into this book without finding other problems. Aslan says that Josephus 19s phrase 1Cthe one they call messiah 1D was 1Cclearly meant to express derision 1D except that not all scholars would agree that this is 1Cclear 1D; in fact, Aslan contradicts himself by suggesting that 1Ca specific appellation 1D was simply necessary in the context so that Josephus 19s readers would know whom he was talking about.

The meaning of 1Cmessiah 1D was originally that of a king chosen by God, like David who is always the model of the Messiah. (The gospels of Matthew and Luke take pains to link Jesus to David genealogically.) But the term 1Cmessiah 1D has gotten stretched to mean many different things from earthly king to spiritual leader/priest to only begotten son of God. Aslan does not let his readers understand this range of meaning so much as he confuses these different meanings.

Add to dishonesty the author 19s scholarly sloppiness, for example, in saying that the word 1Cgospel 1D is 1CGreek for 18good news 19. 1D Actually, 1Cgospel 1D is ENGLISH for 1Cgood news 1D (a wonderful example of how speakers of Old English translated Christian terms into Anglo-Saxon ones). The Greek for 1Cgood news 1D is 1CEuangelion, 1D which is the basis of the English word 1Cevangelist. 1D

Unlike other critics of Aslan, who come from more of a position of Christian apologetics, I have less disagreement with many the author 19s specific contentions such as that Jesus probably did not consider himself to be God and that he had what might be called a radical agenda, but I think that Aslan 19s notion that Jesus was a zealot or violent revolutionary does not fit the historical record. Rather, like most scholars and laymen who have studied Jesus over the past two thousand years, Aslan has remade Jesus in Aslan 19s own image. To understand Aslan 19s Jesus, one must look to Aslan 19s relationship with Islam (renewed) in general and jihad in particular. He has made it a theme of his work to downplay the role of violent jihad in Islam, but in this book he suggests that an analogue to violent jihad can be seen in first century Palestine and Jesus can be seen as one of its advocates.

Aslan seems not to be up on the latest research. He goes along with the myth, recently debunked by Prof. Bart Ehrman, that 1Cpseudepigrapha 1D or writings that are attributed to someone who was not the real author are not to be considered forgeries and that the practice was an accepted convention in ancient times. Ehrman has shown that falsely attributed works were always considered 1Cbastards 1D if it could be proven that they were not really authored by the name on the title page, and argues persuasively that the point of the pseudepigraphical writings in the New Testament was precisely to fool readers into thinking that the real author 19s views were endorsed by the putative author. (For example, the epistles attributed to Peter were obviously written by two different authors with conflicting points of view.) Indeed, contrary to Aslan 19s subsequent claim that crucifixion was reserved for crimes against the state, crucifixion could sometimes be the punishment for other crimes including forgery 14a crime that must have been recognized to have deserved such an extreme punishment.

Much of what Aslan has to say, though he has his own spin and admits that other scholars would disagree with this or that argument he makes, has already been said, and said much more carefully and credibly, by other scholars such as Ehrman (who actually does have a doctorate in New Testament studies instead of just claiming to have one). The difference seems to be that Ehrman only has to make his case fit his reconstruction of history as it was, while Aslan must make history fit not only the past but the present history of the Middle East, as Aslan sees it, through present day ideological spectacles. ( )

This book provides a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told: Jesus, within the context of the times in which he lived.

Reza Aslan takes on a pretty much impossible task in trying to write an account of the “historical Jesus”. At the outset, he acknowledges that there is pretty much only one historical source that even refers to Jesus - Josephus - and even then only parenthetically. This forces him to rely on the Gospels and Acts for much of his source material.

The problem is that he repeatedly acknowledges that these sources are contradictory, known to have been massaged for political purposes and frequently contain errors of fact. And he doesn’t tend to rely on them in the instances where this is the case. However, in other cases, he pretty much accepts whatever the canonical sources have to say as fact, despite their unreliability; he doesn’t really have much choice.

I sense that this is compounded by Aslan’s own religious beliefs; he treats events like Jesus’ miracles and Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus in a fashion that is far too credulous for any real historian. This extends further into his discussion of other events in Judea. Referring to earlier “messiahs”, on one occasion he writes “he even raised a girl from the dead”. Not “he is said to have raised”; Aslan states this as fact.

Aslan sometimes confuses matters by losing what I would call the chain of evidence. At one point he says that Paul contradicts Jesus. Paul never met Jesus. What really happened is that whomever wrote Paul’s letter contradicts what whomever wrote Matthew’s gospel says Jesus said. This is very shaky history.

In the end the book founders on its own internal contradictions. Aslan wants to write a history, but he is forced to rely on ahistorical sources. The book is very interesting in terms of the “and Times” part of it; events leading up to and following Jesus’ life are really well covered. Unfortunately the kernel of what Aslan seeks to write - the “Life” of the “historical Jesus” is a chimera lost in time, a fact that he acknowledges at the end.

If Aslan had stuck to writing a historical account of the early days of Christianity, he would have had a much better book, because the sources are better. In this case, he has bitten off more than he can chew.




(P.S. Am I the only person who couldn’t stop thinking about Narnia when reading this book?) ( )