This is not a book review because I have not yet read Reza Aslan’s Zealot. Allan Nadler is no inerrentist, but he shows quite well many of Aslan’s intellectual shortcomings–though I might quibble with Nadler later on. What I want to do in this post is equip people, whether Christians or unbelievers, on how to talk and think about “the historical Jesus” so they aren’t taken in by pretenders by Aslan.
The basic historical question about Jesus is this:
WHY DO WE REMEMBER HIM?
That question can be asked in many different ways, but the bottom line is, even if he was only a genius at PR, or even if only he had some highly influential follower who promoted him, something has to explain the fact that, out of all the people who lived in Palestine at that time, his name is known to us.
When people do historical research, they don’t want to conclude that something “just happened.” They want to provide intellectually satisfying explanations. So any theory of how Jesus arose in history has to meet that challenge. Otherwise, it only amounts to the guess that Jesus somehow got lucky.
Furthermore, when people research a historical figure who stirred up followers and/or enemies in his own time period, we need to understand what those people found so compelling or challenging. Jesus, as a Palestinian Jew, had a message and/or did things to which his contemporary fellow Jews responded.
This means, for example, that we can be pretty sure Jesus did not preach generic abstract lectures about peace and love. He was not a roving hippy (though some have tried to import the alleged role of “Cynic” from the Greek world into Palestine in order to get him as close as possible). He wasn’t a roving systematic theologian either. If he had gone around the country declaring himself “the Second Person of the Trinity” the only fact that would be explained in the Gospels would be his family’s conviction that he was insane. But crowds do not gather to hear incomprehensible word strings. I fully believe Jesus is God incarnate, and that Trinitarian theology is the only way to integrate the truths of Scripture, including Jesus’ words in the Gospel. But we need to distinguish between our overarching views and what Jesus was dealing with in his own context.
Christians are quite capable of tracking context in some cases, but they have trained themselves to be comfortable with inconsistency. When a Roman Catholic appeals to John 6, the average Protestant suddenly becomes almost a source critic. But yet that same Protestant will tell us that Jesus, when he met Nicodemus (John 3), had a prepared lecture on monergism and the ordo salutis that he had to deliver (and that it had nothing to do with the immediate context of John baptizing a new Israel).
How did Jesus’ contemporaries see him? What did Jesus claim about himself that made him both a celebrity and an enemy? Nadler rather disappointed me at one point:
Depicting the religious mood of first-century Palestine early on in the book, Aslan asserts that there were “countless messianic pretenders” among the Jews (there were no more than an eminently countable half-dozen).
In the context of Aslan’s other exaggerations, this one seems relatively modest. And further, I’m not sure that we can know that the ones we counted are the only one’s who arose. Didn’t Jesus himself tell us there were many more pretenders coming?
Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. (Matthew 24:23-26, ESV/ Mark 13:21-22/ Luke 17:23)
Unhappily, the vast majority of the people today who regard Jesus as God incarnate and the savior of the world have been trained to read these words and apply them to some mythical future “end times” scenario, rather than acknowledge the plain context that Jesus was warning of messianic movements that he expected to tempt his own disciples. So the fact that Jesus himself classified himself as one of many messianic claimants (albeit, the only genuine one) is completely overlooked.
But we can also see another example of how Jesus was classified by his contemporaries:
When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. (Acts 5:33-40, ESV)
So, there you have it. If Jesus’ followers are declaring him to be the Christ/Messiah, then of course he is to be classified with other insurrectionist leaders who fought the Romans.
If this sounds obtuse to you, be assured it is at the heart of debates over the historical Jesus. There is a whole publishing industry dedicated to the proposition that Jesus never declared himself to be the Messiah–that such a title was fraudulently given to him after he was gone from the scene. Here, the Christian belief in Jesus’ uniqueness actually provides cover for an otherwise ludicrous form of unbelief. Because Jesus is so unique, it is hard to think of the most obvious response: Why wouldn’t Jesus claim to be the Messiah at a time when it was being done by popular leaders in Palestine so often?
But that is the proper response. Jesus is not unique because he claimed to be Christ in that place and that period of history. He is unique because, as N. T. Wright points out, he retained loyalty after being killed. For all other Messianic claimants, being killed ended the movement because it demonstrated that the claimant was not only wrong, but that he was a pretender and thus worthy of condemnation.
So as much as it pains me to say it of a pretender like Reza Aslan, why is he not given more credit for presenting us a Jesus who was both Jewish and Messianic? He has at least popularized a book that fights against many others that are just as unbelieving–that want to make Jesus into a modern pacifist and guru. Thus I find Nadler’s response quite frustrating:
Aslan is, to be sure, a gifted writer. The book’s Prologue is both titillating and bizarre. Entitled “A Different Sort of Sacrifice” it opens with a breezy depiction of the rites of the Jerusalem Temple, but very quickly descends to its ominously dark denouement: the assassination of the High Priest, Jonathan ben Ananus, on the Day of Atonement, 56 C.E., more than two decades after Jesus’s death:
The assassin elbows through the crowd, pushing close enough to Jonathan to reach out an invisible hand, to grasp the sacred vestments, to pull him away from the Temple guards and hold him in place just for an instant, long enough to unsheathe a short dagger and slide it across his throat. A different sort of sacrifice.
There follows a vivid narration of the political tumult that had gripped Roman-occupied Palestine during the mid-first century, which Aslan employs to great effect in introducing readers to the bands of Jewish zealots who wreaked terror and havoc throughout Judea for almost a century. It seems like an odd way to open a book about the historical Jesus, who was crucified long before the Zealot party ever came into existence, until one catches on to what Aslan is attempting. The Prologue effectively associates Jesus, albeit as precursor, with that chillingly bloody murder by one of the many anonymous Jewish Zealots of first-century Palestine.
To address the obvious problem that the Jesus depicted in Christian Scriptures is the antithesis of a zealously political, let alone ignorant and illiterate, peasant rebel and bandit, Aslan deploys a rich arsenal of insults to dismiss any New Testament narrative that runs counter to his image of Jesus as a guerilla leader, who gathered and led a “corps” of fellow “bandits” through the back roads of the Galilee on their way to mount a surprise insurrection against Rome and its Priestly lackeys in Jerusalem. Any Gospel verse that might complicate, let alone undermine, Aslan’s amazing account, he insolently dismisses as “ridiculous,” “absurd,” “preposterous,” “fanciful,” “fictional,” “fabulous concoction,” or just “patently impossible.”
Let me start with what Nadler gets right. Any attempt to explain Jesus that leaves no explanation for the vast majority of the Gospels is doomed as a coherent theory. It ends up relying on “luck” as to why we remember Jesus. Jesus was just one of those defeated Christs, like Theudas or Judas the Galilean. So why is his name any more well-known than theirs? There is no explanation.
But Nadler does more. He gives the reader the unavoidable impression that Jonathan ben Ananus’ assassination has nothing to do with Jesus or the Gospels. And that is just crazy talk.
It doesn’t matter if “The Zealots” ™ didn’t exist as an official party during Jesus’ lifetime. The name wasn’t chosen at random. It had meaning and continuity with other “freedom fighter” groups. The Gospels all speak of the zealots and specifically contrast Jesus with them at the hour of his trial. Two decades before Jonathan ben Ananus there was his spiritual forefather:
After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber. (John 18:38-40, ESV)
I include this account because it designates Barabbas by the same word used for the two men crucified on either side of Jesus, as I’m sure Aslan made a great deal about (and as he should!). Barabbas’ behavior, however, was not simply what we American English speakers think of as robbery
But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”—a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will. (Luke 23:18-25, ESV)
So according to the Gospels, Jesus was a Messiah who didn’t measure up to what the people wanted. Jesus talked of the coming Kingdom, and the people were interested because they wanted the kingdom. But they eventually decided he wouldn’t get them where they wanted to go. He didn’t really have what it would take to bring in the kingdom, but Barabbas did.
Jesus not only is contrasted to Barabbas, but Luke’s Gospel (really all the gospels) show Jesus addressing the fate of Israel that will come about by future versions of Barabbas. Indeed, the very next scene in Luke after Barabbas is presented tells us of Jesus prophesying men like Jonathan ben Ananus
And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:27-31, ESV)
Jesus was being sent to his death as an insurrectionist while he is innocent of the charge. He is the green tree. But once these women’s children grow up and another crop of hatred is sown, in the resulting bloodshed there will be thousands of crosses outside a besieged Jerusalem.
Of course, many scholars don’t believe in any of this. They want the gospels written late enough to explain Jesus’ prophecies as after the fact revisionism. This is not without historical problems. Acts seems clearly written before AD 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem, yet it also seems clearly to have been written by Luke after he wrote his Gospel. Of course, there is another escape hatch for the person who wants an explanation that doesn’t involve Jesus being a supernatural prophet (or more): Perhaps it didn’t take prophetic insight to see where Israel was headed if it pursued the way of zealotry and rejected the way of peace. While I think that falls short of whom Jesus was and is, Jesus himself gives testimony that it didn’t take a weatherman to see which way the wind was blowing:
He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” (Luke 12.54-13.9)
Jesus said his hearers themselves should know what was coming if they did not change their ways. The Galileans slaughtered by Roman troops were only a foretaste of more of the same unless Israel stopped pursuing the Kingdom of God in Barabbas ways. More people in Jerusalem would be crushed under falling bricks if Israel did not repent. Jesus didn’t claim prophetic insight for seeing what was going to happen. He claimed to be a prophet when he told the Israelites that this fate was not glorious martyrdom for faithfulness to the Torah but rather God’s wrath on a nation of law-breaking terrorists.
Again, there are unbelieving scholars who read much of this and are not convinced to acknowledge that Jesus Is Lord. I’m not claiming I have proven it from what I have said in this post, either. But they have acknowledged more that Aslan was willing to acknowledge because they know that a historical explanation for Jesus has to account for why he is not forgotten like all the other Messiahs of his day.
Why does Aslan find his portrayal so satisfying? I don’t know. Since I am a believer I am sure he would discount my feelings on the matter. But I think there are plenty of non-christians, if they have any knowledge of the primary source documents, who would agree with me. It seems to me that Jesus’ popularity and then sudden unpopularity is quite credible and ought to be part of any account worth considering for the historical Jesus. So how can Aslan so readily discount it, along with most of the other information?
A theory comes to my mind that I am almost ashamed of. I don’t believe that all modern followers of Islam are terrorists, jihadist, or sharia advocates. Nothing about Aslan’s public life makes me think of him as some faithful follower of Mohammad. He just seems like some modern guy who identifies with Islam the same way a secular, atheist Jew identifies with Judaism. Maybe I’m wrong. And maybe what I see is just a secular game against Christians. Rather than a “self-justification” it is just another condemnation of alleged hypocrisy.
But whatever his motives, Aslan has decided to treat it as self-evident that Jesus was a terrorist. All other evidence just gets thrown out as self-evident “nonsense.” At this point, it seems far easier to explain Aslan’s intellectual decisions on the basis of modern politics rather than on the basis of the actual data from the first century.
What bothers me the most is how easily the entire public has been played. Hatred of Fox News combined with a sneering confidence in one’s own sophistication opens oneself up to believe anything that John Stewart of Bill Maher jokes about.
In case some things I wanted to make sure readers took away got lost in my verbiage about Aslan, let me end with an articulation of the basic questions of the historical Jesus (almost all of which I am badly remembering from the work of N. T. Wright). Just remember two basic points.
- Jesus needs to be both comprehensible and crucifiable within his own historical context (Aslan in this case leaves him half-crucifiable, but no explanation for any of the records about how he was rejected by the majority of his own generation)
- We have two historical entities, First Century Judaism and First Century Christianity. Jesus is arrived at as the middle term who realistically fits in Judaism (which Aslan did) and then believably starts or at least causes Christianity (which Aslan left completely mysterious).
The historical Jesus is a fascinating pursuit for believer and unbeliever alike. Don’t be an idiot about it.
I’m not referring to Aslan of course. I’m referring to the people who were taken in by the Fox News fiasco.<>
[…] READ THE REST: If you want to be an unbeliever at least don’t be an idiot about it: Reza Aslan and the parame…. […]