Help awaken a free society by doing all of your Amazon shopping through this portal. A portion of each purchase will directly support the work of Life & Liberty. Thanks from all of us.


Review Reza Aslan

Published on October 11th, 2013 | by David Housholder

0

Zealot, by Reza Aslan #0234 Life & Liberty


Zealot, by Reza Aslan. Random House, 2013

Click on for more info:

Zealot

 

This is a book which is perhaps more about the author, Reza Aslan, than it is about Jesus of Nazareth.

It is also a work of great insight and, in contrast, amateur mistakes.

Aslan was from a Muslim immigrant family to the USA and became a Christian in an evangelical youth-conversion experience.

He learned the “naive” version of Jesus in this community, but then went to school and became skeptical about much of it.

The problem with writing about Jesus, as Albert Schweitzer so clearly said, is that we tend to see in Jesus a mirror image of our ideal selves rather than a true look at Jesus himself.

The plain old mistakes in the book:

1) Aslan continues to paint a picture of Jesus as a peasant. This comes more from Roman Catholic romanticism than from any historical evidence. Simply not true. Mary was connected with the high priestly branch of the Levite tribe and Joseph, Jesus’ step-father, was of the royal Davidic line in Judah. He spoke as “one who had authority,” thus one used to giving orders and not taking them. There is a good chance he earned a fortune as a stone contractor (Greek: tekton, which is “builder” not “laborer”) in Sepphoris, right across the ravine from Nazareth. His main metaphoric descriptive image is stone, not wood. All of his parables, economically speaking, are told from the position of management, not labor. A couple of them could be titled “It’s hard to get good help.” When he was crucified, his robe was so valuable that soldiers gambled for it.

2) Aslan talks about “sea air” coming off the Sea of Galilee. Page 95: “….the entire village stretched along a wide expanse of the seacoast, allowing the cool salt air to nurture all manner of plants and trees.” Dude, the Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake.

3) Aslan claims that Paul changed his name at his conversion (i.e. from Saul to Paul, p. 184). Sha-ool of Tarsus (Saul) remained Sha-ool in the synagogue for the rest of his life. But he worked with Gentiles and his native tongue was Greek, not Semitic Aramaic/Hebrew. Thus “Paulos” literally was his Greek nick-name, likely used since he was a child. And Paulos means….”Shorty.” Need some tents? Here’s my card. Call me Shorty. It’s absurd to think that his conversion changed him from Sha-ool to Shorty. Many Jews do the same today. My friend Reuben ben-Yonatan also has a passport that reads “Robert Palmer.”

4) His knowledge of Greek is spotty. He calls the apostles “apostolou” instead of “apostoloi.” This is the kind of thing you see with TV preachers all the time.

Aside from this, there is one insight worth the price of the book. Aslan delivers an excellent interpretation of Jesus using his phrase “render unto Caesar” vis-a-vis taxation. I did an entire post on this which you can read HERE.

And along the way, there is some good substance about the “zealot” nature of Jesus which is uncomfortable, but helpful.

It’s worth a read, as with virtually any serious book about Jesus.

Jesus has a tendency to show us a lot about ourselves, and who can’t benefit from that?

+++++++

Click on below and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Screen Shot 2013-05-07 at 5.10.57 PM Screen Shot 2013-05-07 at 5.06.48 PM

Click on the links to the left of this post, and share this with others. Thanks!

Here is a page with my all time favorite books! What are yours? Click on the cat below:

Cat Bookstore

Tags: , , , , ,


About the Author

David Housholder

Believes that a spiritually-awakened non-coercive voluntary society is possible. Author of a number of books. Surfer/Snowboarder. Pastor of Robinwood Church in Orange County, California.



Back to Top ↑