Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Kindle Edition

I've read the book (unlike so many of the "reviewers" who gave it one star) and here are some points.

1) This is a popularization of recent (late 20th-early 21st century) reputable scholarship regarding Jesus. There's nothing in this book that would surprise a person (like myself) who has read pretty much all of the accessible scholarship on Jesus published in the last 30 or so years. Just going through the (extensive!) notes and bibliography at the end indicates to me that Aslan has done his homework.

2) Aslan takes the position that Jesus was a zealot for God and God's Temple, but (and this is repeated several times in the book) he was not a member of the Zealot Party, which wouldn't arise until over 30 years after Jesus' death. In this, Jesus was just one of a number of people who arose in the period from the reign of Herod the Great to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and his fate was like those others. In short, Jesus was killed for his zealotry, which was perceived as a threat to the Roman authorities and particularly to the Jewish sycophants who ran the Temple (and profited nicely from it). This is not a position shared by many members of the religious scholarship fraternity, who have attempted to carve out a position for Jesus where he's a religious figure who did not delve at all into politics. It's an interesting argument that I can't do justice in a few short sentences. If you're interested, you'll have to read the book yourself and decide if Aslan makes his case.

3) Aslan doesn't stop with the death of Jesus, and, as someone writing history, not hagiography, he carefully notes that he can't pass judgment on whether Jesus' resurrection occurred, because it is not a historical event but an event of faith. He then pushes on to a discussion of the earliest Christians and, in particular, the conflict between James the Just, described as the brother of Jesus and the head of the Jerusalem Christians, and Paul of Tarsus, the evangelizer of the Gentile world. This part is definitely worth the read, because it brings out the fact that the early Christians were not "in one accord" but were in fact fractiously divided over what Jesus taught and what it all meant.

4) My only serious factual gripe about the book comes from the first paragraph of Chapter 15, where Aslan describes James the Just as follows: "He himself owned nothing, not even the clothes he wore--simple garments made of linen, not wool." The problem is that historically linen was an elite fabric, not the fabric of the poor. (For example, Luke 16:19 points out that the rich man in Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus wore purple and fine linen and all four gospels are agreed that Jesus was buried in linen.) Making linen from flax took a lot of preparation as compared to wool, which can be spun practically straight from the sheep. But getting back to James the Just: The sources, by putting James in linen, were more likely comparing James to the Temple High Priest, who would have worn linen for the sacrifices.

5) I'm knocking off one star for not being footnoted. Granted, there is an extensive set of chapter-based endnotes (and I strongly suggest reading them, they're as engaging as the book itself), but the lack of footnotes is a serious flaw. Even if the book is intended for a popular audience, it should have been footnoted.

6) As for the assertion that the book is fatally flawed because it's influenced by Aslan's Muslim background: That is flatly false. Let me state again that there is nothing in this book that can't be read in the scholarship done by *Christians* published over the past several decades. Moreover, if Aslan was pushing Islam, you'd think that he'd make a point of saying, "Well, Islam considers Jesus a prophet," but he doesn't. Not at all. The reviews which make the assertion that the book is terrible, horrible and awful because of "OOOOH EVIL ISLAM!!!!" appear to have been influenced by Fox News' promotion of a screed by John Dickerson. As a former journalist for Phoenix New Times, Dickerson should know better, but perhaps that's why Dickerson is no longer a journalist but now pastors a church in Prescott, AZ and churning out inaccurate and inflammatory junk for the fearful faithful.

Reza Aslan book is a readable defense of the Schweitzerian theory of Jesus (so called because it was popularized by Albert Schweitzer in his "Quest for the Historical Jesus"). Seeing ancient Palestine as a hot bed of revolutionary activity, he finds the most plausible explanation of the historical Jesus as one which sees Jesus as revolutionary who was ultimately crucified for his anti-roman views. The position is fairly common in Biblical Studies and a form of this argument is held by people like Bart Ehrman, N.T. Wright, John Meier, E.P. Sanders and many others. Aslan's version of it plays up the political aspect of it more than some others, but all agree that Jesus is best understood as an apocalyptic prophet. Aslan makes the argument in fairly traditional ways, beginning with the idea that crucifixion is a Roman punishment for treason and building the argument on the twin pillars of Jesus as a original follower of John the Baptist (who is also understood as an apocalyptic preacher) and the cleansing of the temple (understood as a prophetic act signifying the coming apocalypse). These two events are considered firmly historically established and when connected with the crucifixion draws a picture of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet. I would again note that there is actually nothing particularly new is what Aslan does here. His emphasis on the political ramifications of apocalypticism is a important gloss, but the crux of the argument is found in many other scholars' work. Additionally, there is nothing particularly "Muslim" about Aslan's reading, even if he is himself a muslim. Many Christian and non-Christian scholars read the texts the same way.

The real problem with Aslan's work (and this holds true I believe for other scholars who are in the Schweitzerian tradition), is a lack of clear method. Aslan challenges this or that saying or text as being late creations and thus not relevant to the historical Jesus, but methodologically he is all over the map. Occasionally he uses multiple attestation to support the authenticity of passage, but he is certainly willing to use a singly attested passage if it suits his image of Jesus. Occasionally likewise he will use dissimilarity, but this method he also will abandon as necessary. Essentially, the problem in dealing with the sayings tradition is that you can't know the answer before you work with it. But those in the Schweitzerian tradition have discovered the answer through those three "Certain facts" and then they evaluate the sayings tradition in light of that. This makes for a haphazard and problematic method which cannot be replicated. But of course, by not starting with the sayings tradition first and applying a method to it (as say Dominic Crossan does) you ultimately sort the sayings tradition subjectively based on what fits your image and what does not. This is what Aslan ends up with, but again he is not alone among Biblical Scholars in this regard.

The reader might ask if I have such strong criticisms of Aslan, why I rated it so highly. The answer lies in its readability and its presentation of the history starting around 300 years before Christ. I used this book in my "Life and Teachings of Jesus" class at a public university, and students were impressed with Aslan's accessibility and information. While I think in the end the book has methodological issues which is rampant among all scholars in the Schweitzerian tradition, much of its history is informative and engaging. Additionally, I think the emphasis on the political ramifications of Jesus is something that is important to consider and often gets lost in those with a more "cynic-like" Jesus. For those reasons I think this book should be read though I would suggest it be read in dialog with John Dominic Crossan's "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography" for a different and more methodologically sound approach to the Historical Jesus.