Shared with permission from Jim's Literary Soapbox.
Zealot
I’ve seen Reza Aslan on The
Daily Show over the years, so I knew that he was an author that I needed to
check out. I didn’t find the time, however, until his latest book, Zealot:
The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, came out earlier this summer. As
I’d expected, he’s an author worth reading.
Aslan, who has degrees in creative writing as well as a
master's from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Sociology of Religions
from the University of California at Riverside, begins by emphasizing that his
book, the result of twenty years of research and study, is about the historical
Jesus, not about the supposed son of God. In other words, Aslan is interested
in finding out as much as he can about the physical man who lived some 2,000
years ago and is not interested in debating whether or not that man was a
manifestation of a deity.
Judea of 2,000 years ago, Aslan points out, was aflame with
Jewish rebellion against the oppressive rule of Rome. Many prophets wandered
through the land, declaring themselves God, or the son of God, and trying to
lead a revolt to free the Jewish people. The Romans, and the Jewish ruling
class that owed its privilege to the Romans, promptly executed—usually through
crucifixion—nearly all of those rebels before they could stir up too much
trouble. (Crucifixion,
in fact, was the punishment specifically reserved for non-citizens who espoused
sedition against Rome.) A problem for any scholar of the period, however, is
that almost nothing is known about any one of these prophets, including the
most famous of all, Jesus of Nazareth, although a lot is known about them collectively
because of the meticulous records-keeping of the Romans. Consequently, to learn
about Jesus, Aslan must rely on inference based on his study of the political,
economic, religious, and social conditions of that period. Aslan’s central
question, then, is how did a Jewish radical, one who advocated for kneeling only to
the Kingdom of God, become transformed into the son of God? How did Jesus the
man become Jesus the Messiah?
Although his book is rigorously documented (his bibliography
runs to sixteen pages), Aslan writes in a colloquial style for the general
reader. For example, here he describes what a typical Jewish man arriving at
the Temple in Jerusalem would see:
The money changers play a vital
role in the Temple. For a fee, they will exchange your foul foreign coins for
the Hebrew shekel, the only currency permitted by the Temple authorities. The
money changers will also collect the half-shekel Temple tax that all adult
males must pay to preserve the pomp and spectacle you see around you: the
mountains of incense and ceaseless sacrifices, the wine libations and the
first-fruits offerings, the Levite choir belting out psalms of praises and the
accompanying orchestra thrumming lyres and belting cymbals.
This straightforward, unadorned style allows Aslan to make
his points directly and clearly so that his book's emphasis remains on his
argument, which is that Jesus was a dangerous radical who posed a threat to
Rome's rule of Judea. He adds, perhaps controversially, that Jesus’s mission
should be seen as a failure since, according to Jewish tradition, the messiah
would be a living man, proclaimed “King of the Jews,” who would expel the
Romans and restore the purity of Judea for the Chosen People. Instead, the
Romans crucified Jesus and, following a large-scale
rebellion forty years later, razed the Temple in Jerusalem and exiled the
Jews from Judea.
Zealot is divided
into three parts: Part One covers the birth and early years of Jesus and also
explains the rise of zealots during these years (the term refers to Jewish
nationalists, full of “zeal,” who swore strict allegiance to the Torah and
vowed never to kneel before any but the One God); Part Two begins by describing
Jesus’s radical acts, such as attacking the money changers at the Temple,
before then explaining exactly why the Jewish and Roman authorities saw such
acts as heresies against the Jewish religion and sedition against Rome; and
Part Three focuses on the years immediately following Jesus’s crucifixion, in which,
Aslan writes, “a failed messiah who died a shameful death as a state criminal”
became transformed into “God incarnate.”
Regardless of your faith, or lack of faith, Aslan’s book is
a fascinating account of life in Judea 2,000 years ago and, as such, is worth reading.
(After I wrote this review in June, Zealot sparked much controversy, especially following an
inflammatory Fox News
interview with Aslan).
- Dr. Jim McWilliams
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| Available in Stoxen Library | BT301.3 .A85 2013 |
