Aslan’s Zealot—Recycled and Outdated Ideas Made for Today
review by Mike Robinson
Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of
Nazareth utilizes the old and negated theory that
Jesus Christ's life and
work are best defined within the context of the Second Temple Jewish movement
known as Zealots. Alslan is a engaging writer but offers nothing new. His
treatise is destined for the dark cave of discarded anti-biblical belvederes.
Reza Aslan claims that Jesus
was mainly a revolutionary. He makes
this brazen claim without proper rational and linguistic tools, since he is led
by his faulty presuppositions (influenced by J.D. Crossan and S. G. F. Brandon).
His view of Jesus is a misrepresentation that’s been around for a while, but
has spread like a virus over the past few years. It was concocted for
theoretical reasons: to boost the prejudices of the quasi-Islamic view of
Christ, to discount the Gospel narratives, and to simplify multifaceted truths
into fashionable religious tales. Many writers do this by isolating and
overemphasizing powerful truths while ignoring the full web of historical
actualities.
Another
distortion concerns a view that downplays the supernatural content of Christ’s
death as it plays up a semi-naturalistic view: Jesus was a good teacher, but
history cannot speak with authority regarding the atonement and resurrection.
An increasing number of modern writers assert that Jesus began and completed
his ministry to show men how to live a moral life (O’ Reilly). Christ’s
impressive moral ideas are taken as proof that He was a wise sage who offered
the world a new philosophy.
The
truth is more complicated.
In
reality, Christ preached ground-breaking spiritual truths but was not a
political revolutionary. Jesus delivered a major sermon that called men to turn
the other cheek, do good to those who mistreat you, and pray for those who
misuse you. Drastic and far-reaching yes, but not political.
So,
Jesus proclaimed a whole grid of potent moral truths, but His main goal was
securing the salvation of men through His atoning death (Matthew 26:2 & 28;
John 3:15-19). Thus, the radical nature of His ministry involved the redemption
of men and not merely offering the world wise ethical sayings.
Aslan’s
claim that Christ was a member of the Zealot political party is not possible
inasmuch as it was not formed for another 35 years after the resurrection of
Christ. Aslan asserts that the chief reason Pilate had Jesus crucified was for
political reasons. The priests did press the political aspect of Christ
kingship to the governor, but Pilate did not completely affirm this charge.
Pilate seemed to want to mollify the Jewish masses more than safe-guarding
Caesar’s authority since Rome’s throne was not directly challenged.
Aslan’s Numerous Errors
Aslan
makes a number of significant errors: use of Greek definitions not found in any
standard Greek lexicon; using the wrong Greek lexicon for the New Testament;
incorrect definition of the targumim;
unawareness of the evidence for high literacy in ancient Israel. … Aslan
repeatedly presents highly unlikely interpretations of passages in the New
Testament, makes little effort to defend those interpretations, then moves on
as if he has made his case. Suffice to say this, as others have said before:
there is something a little bizarre about using our only historical documents
about Jesus (the New Testament) to come to conclusions quite in opposition to
those documents[1].
Reza
Aslan is not an authority on Christianity, the New Testament, or Second Temple
Jewish life. Aslan was asked if Christ claimed that He was divine and he
answered, “Absolutely no. Such a thing
did not exist in Judaism. … the notion of a God-man is completely anathema to
everything Judaism stands for” (National Public Radio: July 14, 2013). Yet, as
recorded in the trial, the Jewish leadership adjudged Jesus for blasphemy—they
charged that He claimed to be God (the I AM: John 5:17-18, 8:58, 10:30; Mark 14:62; Luke
22:70-71). Jesus was crucified because
He taught what was considered “completely anathema to everything Judaism stands
for.” Additionally, Jesus forgave sins and healed on the Sabbath—actions
reserved for God.
In
opposition to Aslan’s views, Jesus Christ claimed to:
I.
Be God.[2]
II.
Be the Redeemer.
III.
Die for the sins of
humanity.
IV.
Rise from the dead.
V.
Sit at the right hand of
God.
VI.
Send the Holy Spirit.
Zealot
is yet another modern reconstruction of Jesus. It is not fresh and new, as it
claims to be, but reflects longstanding debate. That debate is between those
skeptical about the Gospels' portraits of Jesus and those who see them as
complementary pictures of Jesus as he was and is. … It's not at all clear,
however, that Aslan understands the history of Jesus better than the Gospel
writers did. … There are good reasons to suspect the Jesus of history was directly
responsible for being confessed as Christ. It was zeal for Jesus' person that
drove the earliest disciples to preach him as unique. This is something the
disciples not only thought about but also experienced—even to the point of
being willing to die for what they knew to be true. Zeal for Jesus arose from
his own claims about what God was accomplishing through him[3].
Aslan,
fixed to a semi-Islamic worldview, misses the essential element of redemption
in Christ’s death on the cross. Aslan stresses the idea that Jesus died because
He provoked violent political subversion. Jesus may have been considered a
threat, but His mission was centered on salvation, not political achievements. Christ
did not need to seek or encourage sedition for Pilate to have Him crucified.
Jesus was executed because He claimed to be God (Jewish) and He claimed to be a
spiritual king (Rome). Craig Evans observes: “There are numerous problems with Zealot, not least the fact that it
heavily relies on an outdated and discredited thesis. But it also introduces a
number of its own novel oddities and implausibilities. Aslan has canvassed much
of the responsible scholarship in the field, but he does not always choose his
options prudently. He often opts for extreme views and sometimes makes
breathtaking assertions. I cannot help but wonder if Aslan's penchant for
creative writing is part of the explanation. Indeed, Zealot often reads more like a novel than a work of historical
analysis.”
Aslan also affirms an
outmoded and unsound notion vis-à-vis Christological development. According to
that timeworn idea, Christ was a good teacher and an influential prophet, but
it took hundreds of years for the doctrine of His divinity to evolve. Aslan
envisions the Greek-leaning Paul and his Gentile disciples as the ones who
began the corruption that finally ends with the canonization of Jesus’s
divinity at Nicaea in the fourth century. Paul, Aslan thinks, gave us the idea
of Jesus as the “Christ” and later Nicaea gave us the idea of the “God-man.”
Nonetheless, Paul was a
Jewish contemporary of Jesus; he spoke the same language, walked the same
streets, and was immersed in the same traditions and culture as Christ. It only
seems to make sense to trust one submerged in the customs and language of Jesus
over an outsider 2000 years removed from the ethos and culture of Jesus. Paul's
association to Christianity can be traced back to a few years after Christ’s
crucifixion. In Paul’s writings (47-60 A.D.) we find him affirming that Christ
is God. I will reject an outsider’s opinion and take the opinion of Jewish man
who visited the same Temple, had the same dust on his feet, and drank from the
same streams as Jesus. I will trust Paul and not Aslan. I will trust the Gospels
and not O’Reilly. I trust God’s word and not the trendy critics seeking to make
money with impudent and unfounded claims about Jesus of Nazareth.
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And it’s good to know that I can reject every foolhardy scheme
that contradicts the biblical accounts of the life of Christ because in every examination of
Christ’s life, naturalistic presuppositions must give way to the underpinning
of intelligibly: God[4]. Naturalistic thought is, in principal, empty of any
genuine concept of truth. One needs the Christian worldview, which alone
provides the universal necessities required for historical investigation and
analysis.
In
this way, hyper-critical thought regarding Christ’s life are upended using
arguments from ultimate criteria (God vs. unaided human reason). The skeptic
accepts the reality of historical analysis, the necessary condition of which is
God. This problem is disabling for the critical program of Aslan. This is the
case not merely because of cynicism’s irresolute consistency, but because of
its ontological restraint—it is devoid of a basis that is airy and grandiose
enough to provide universal immutables utilized in historical analysis. Christ
died for the sins of humanity and rose again in triumph. If one’s worldview
lacks the resources to account for the universal operating features of reason,
as Aslan’s does, it is unqualified to underwrite a project that analyses such. The
book is fluid and fetching. Aslan is a winsome writer, but errors greatly when
he discusses the life of Christ. Perhaps he can stick to subjects that are
within his range of knowledge and ability.
Review
by Mike Robinson author of “Killing Christ: Contesting Trendy Critics Regarding
the Death and Resurrection of Jesus.” Available on Amazon.
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1.
Gary Manning: Good Book Blog, 8-4-13.
2.
John 8:24, 8:58, 10:30;
Mark 14:62; Matthew 26; Luke 22:67-71; etc.). In
Luke 22 Jesus agrees that He is the Son of God as well as God: the “I AM.” This
session is recorded in all four Gospels; the specifics of the interrogation are
mentioned by Luke. When asked if He was the Christ, He simply replied, “If I tell you, you will by no means
believe. And if I
also ask you, you will by no means answer Me or let Me go. Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the
right hand of the power of God” (Luke
22:67-69). This answer was not sufficient to obtain a verdict of blasphemy, so
they all cried out, "Are You then the Son of God?" To this He then
gave an affirmative answer, "You rightly say that I AM.” And they said,
“What further need have we of witnesses? For we ourselves have heard from his
own mouth" (Luke 22:70-71). Additionally, the elders accuse Jesus of
claiming divinity when He forgives sins as only God could do. Moreover, he was
tried for claiming to be God. Jesus
said: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, who
is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:7-8).
3.
Darrell Bock: TGC; 8-12-13.
4.
God furnishes all the a
priori essentials; the necessary epistemic equipment utilized in all
analytical pursuits. God has the ontic attributes of omniscience, immutability,
and omnipotence (He has universal reign) thus enabling Him to be the ground for
the universal and immutable laws of logic that are utilized in all thought and
analysis. Any position that rejects the true God, as the epistemic (knowledge)
base, not only leaves an unnerving fissure, but hopelessly fails too.
Consequently, whatever evidence one discovers must be discerned and processed
with the rational implements that arise from Christian theism and the worldview
that emanates from God. The immaterial, transcendent, and immutable God
supplies the indispensable pre-environment for the use of immaterial,
transcendent, universal, and immutable laws of logic. Atheistic thought,
because it rests upon mutable and non-universal ground, cannot furnish the
necessary preconditions for the immutable universal laws of logic; therefore it
results in futility because of its own internal weakness.
