Answering Zealot by Reza Aslan (introduction)

Recently I had a friendly exchange with a former high school classmate who commented on a post I had shared by the inimitable Samuel Sey called If Silence is Violence, Jesus is a Sinner. In this particular historical moment there is an argument making the rounds that when it comes to issues of racism, silence is complicity. Not just complicity, in fact, but violence itself in that the silence allows violence to go unchecked. I don’t want to engage with this argument at length right now because it isn’t my purpose for writing this post. But I think I understand what’s at the root of the claim: nobody wants to be guilty of the Bystander Effect, which I believe we all saw happening before our eyes as the nation collectively recoiled at the horror of George Floyd’s death. So the argument goes, we are all bystanders, and when we see injustice being perpetrated we have a moral obligation to speak up or act. I agree with this latter premise. Jesus’s parable of The Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule, and the Second Greatest Commandment all make it abundantly clear: if you see someone in need, you are morally obligated to help them.

Samuel Sey’s argument posits that during his time on the earth, Jesus himself was not particularly vocal about the literal systemic oppression being visited upon the Jews at the hands of the occupying Romans. He had a different mission entirely- and so while he preached the good news that the Kingdom of God was at hand and called on sinners of every stripe to repent and believe, and while he broke bread with the tax collectors and prostitutes and healed the blind, the possessed, and the infirm, he did not launch a political revolution against the (very real, and sometimes very awful) oppressors of the day.

The issue at hand is that many individuals who would probably not self-identify as Christians yet perceive some authority in the teachings of the historical Jesus. This is made clear by a recent effort to use a select number of those teachings (taking them out of context) to support their personal views about the most morally acceptable way to respond to the current civil and political upheaval. If I’m being vague, it’s because that’s really not what I’m here to talk about today and I don’t want to get into it, but here’s just one example.

don’t make memes like this please

All of this introduction is to give some background to the discussion I had with my classmate. She recommended a book called Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. She asked me to read it with an open mind. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:

“From the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating, provocative end meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth. Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher from Galilee launched a revolutionary movement proclaiming the “Kingdom of God”, and threatened the established order of first-century Palestine. Defying both Imperial Rome and its collaborators in the Jewish religious hierarchy, he was captured, tortured and executed as a state criminal. Within decades, his followers would call him the Son of God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic figures by examining Jesus within the context of the times in which he lived: the age of zealotry, an era awash in apocalyptic fervor, when scores of Jewish prophets and would-be messiahs wandered the Holy Land bearing messages from God. They also espoused a fervent nationalism that made resistance to Roman occupation a sacred duty. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against historical sources, Aslan describes a complex gure: a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity secret; and the seditious ‘King of the Jews’, whose promise of liberation from Rome went unful lled in his lifetime. Aslan explores why the early Church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary, and grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself. Zealot provides a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told. The result is a thought provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel, and a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time and the birth of religion.”

He states in an FAQ provided on the page that “Regardless of whether you think of Jesus as a prophet, a teacher, or God incarnate, it is important to remember that he did not live in a vacuum. Whatever else Jesus was, he was, without question, a man of his time. This is true for all of us.” I agree wholeheartedly with this, and I’m intrigued by Aslan’s claim that although he was an “evangelical Christian” for several years and then deconverted and returned to Islam, he is himself zealous for the Jesus he has discovered in his studies (that is true of many who don’t hold to historic Christianity). I want to engage in good faith, although I confidently disagree with his assertions from the outset.

Who is able to come to the topic of the historical Jesus with a truly open mind? As the trilemma most famously popularized by C.S. Lewis in the book Mere Christianity puts it, you can believe that Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. He has not left us any other options. We all come with our biases. My bias is that I am a Christian who believes that Jesus was not simply an interesting historical person, but God in the flesh and the Savior of the world as well as the reigning King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

So I don’t know how much of an open mind I can promise, but after several days of thought I decided that I have been given a unique opportunity here to engage firsthand with an influential book that opposes my views, and I need to give the book a fair shake. I expect (hope) that others will engage with Christianity with genuine intellectual honesty, and so I’m going to make a concerted effort not to be a hypocrite and to go ahead and do the same. A little light golf-clap applause here would be appreciated.

I don’t expect much more readership than my mom (hi mom), but in case you’re inclined to follow my slow progress through Zealot, I’ll be taking notes on my Kindle app during the 30ish minutes it takes to get my daughter to go to sleep at night, and my goal is to share not just my own thoughts but also to research whatever questions the book raises for me.

I am not an expert in textual criticism, nor have I spent “two decades of rigorous academic research into the origins of Christianity” as Aslan (who has a baller last name of which I am very jealous) says he has. However, if I can’t personally go toe-to-toe with every grenade Aslan lobs against the orthodox Christian view of the historical Jesus, I think I know of some people, much smarter than I, who can, and I will be pulling from their expertise liberally.

I will jump into the actual introduction to the book (which I’ve already highlighted and notated quite a bit) in my next post because WOW, I’ve written nine paragraphs and not yet said anything.

Read the next part here.