I spend most weekday evenings engaged in a familiar ritual: making dinner. I’m a slow cook. That doesn’t make me part of the slow food movement or anything like that. It just means that, try as a might, my work in the kitchen is slow. I’m only good at doing one thing at a time. When I cook, it takes me longer than most people. Over the couple of hours in the kitchen, I typically listen to the local NPR station.
One evening, Fresh Air came on and I heard a delightful interview with Resa Aslan speaking about his new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Aslan is a Biblical scholar who compiled what seems to be a popularly written book about the historical Jesus. Like many scholars before him, Aslan differentiates the historical Jesus from the Christ (the Anointed One) as known among Christians today and in Western history. I found Aslan to be engaging, academically sharp, and able to communicate things I learned in university classes in Biblical Studies in a very understandable way. I also didn’t find anything new about what he said. But I wondered how it would be received.
Since hearing that interview, I have indeed been struck by the critism of Aslan’s work. There have been multiple attempts to discredit him and claim that the work is biased because Aslan is Muslim.
At this point, I must confess: I haven’t read the book. I’ve read several excepts on line and listened to a few interviews he’s done. The basic information he shares is quite sound from an academic perspective.
1. There is very little historical evidence outside of the Bible that Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. There is enough to suggest that he did but, during his life time, he was not a person of great consequence. What we know about Jesus is from the Bible. The events recorded in the Bible were written 40 to 80 years after the death of Jesus. More significantly, the events don’t agree with one another. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John simply contradict each other.
2. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell very different and very amazing stories about the birth of Jesus. There’s no evidence that any of it happened. For example, there was no census taken by Rome in ancient Palestine. Interestingly, about a year ago, Pope Benedict released a book on the stories related to the birth of Jesus stating that there is no historical evidence that the events occurred. In other words, there’s no debate on this from Biblical scholars about the historical basis for the familiar stories Christians re-tell each Christmas.
3. The historical Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. Keeping the spirit of Judaism alive was of utmost importance to him. He was indeed zealous about the traditions and practices of Judaism.
4. At the time of Jesus, there were many itinerant preachers who gathered people around them. What Jesus did was not unusual. What was unusual was that he threatened the establishment so much that he was sentenced to capital punishment as a traitor to the state.
5. Aslan makes a very important distinction: while the Resurrected Christ is the most important aspect of the gospel story for Christians, the key event in the life of the historical Jesus was the Palm Sunday event. That’s because when Jesus came into Jerusalem, he upset the religious leaders so much that they provided testimony that Jesus said he was a King and would overthrow the Roman Empire. After all, he claimed to represent a new kingdom. Within a week, he was executed by the state.
The wealth of scholarship on the quest for the historical Jesus was done in the 1950’s to 1970’s. There have been some further advances in research since then, but they have mostly been refinements on that bedrock research. However, the research has mostly stayed in academic settings.
What’s different with Resa Aslan and the work of other Biblical scholars like Bart Ehrman is that they are presenting information that Biblical scholars have known for a few generations and are now making it accessible to the public.
Bottom line, what can be said about the historical Jesus? Really, there’s not much. It’s my opinion that the things we can be sure of include:
1. Jesus lived in first century Palestine.
2. Like the vast majority of people in his era, he was illiterate and had no formal education.
3. Judaism was the only religion he knew and practiced. He was a fervent Jew
4. He wandered the country with a group of followers, like many other itinerant teachers who were attempting to revitalize Judaism during the Roman occupation.
5. In all likelihood, the only thing we can assume that he actually said was that he referred to God by using the familiar term, “Abba” or “Daddy.” That was revolutionary.
6. He was executed as an enemy of the state.
Indeed, what we know historically about Jesus – just the facts – are pretty minimal. Instead, over the centuries of Christian history, an elaborate mythology has developed about the Christ that is based on faith and not fact.
As for Aslan’s conclusion that Jesus was an early member of the group that would become the Zealot political party, I find that to be a reasonable conclusion. I’ve always considered him to be more of a Pharisee, another group discussed in the Bible. While John’s gospel depicts the Pharisees are religious hypocrites, they were actually reformers. It was the Pharisees who tried to get religion into the hands of the people and away from the priests. It was the Pharisees who started the synagogue system that eventually replaced worship in the temple. If it weren’t for the Pharisees, Judaism may not have survived Roman domination.
As a Progressive Christian, I am not in the least bit bothered that there is little historical evidence about the historical man named Jesus. Nor does it bother me that many key stories of the gospel contradict each other. That’s because my faith in the teachings of Jesus are not based on things like walking on water, feeding hungry masses with a few loaves of bread and some dried fish, or even rising from the dead. My faith is built on a foundation of the life-giving lessons of the Jesus-story which challenge me to look for goodness and grace each day. It’s the teachings of Jesus that form a moral and ethical code that I believe creates a profoundly good and rich way to live. The truth of the gospel isn’t about the details but of the eternal truth that love is stronger than death and that goodness will win out over evil.
I don’t remember what it was that I made for dinner that night. Whatever it was, it must have taken a long time. I was able to listen to all of Fresh Air and hear the entirety of the Aslan interview. I’m glad I heard it all. I guess that’s one advantage to being a slow cook.
Asking questions are actually pleasant thing if you are
not understanding something completely, except this paragraph offers pleasant understanding yet.
It is my conclusion that Jesus had to have been a real person just as the Bible describes him. This is because of the way cycles work. Everything is energy, and energy works in cycles with transformations occurring within them, so the end of a cycle is somewhat different from its beginning. As the first Adam, Jesus brought consciousness from the world of spirit into the world of matter. As the last Adam Jesus brought the world of matter back to the world of spirit. It is through his consciousness as the Christ that this occurred. And it is because of his resurrection that humans can look forward to the same possibility. There had to be one soul that went through the complete cycle, becoming transformed as it worked back to its beginning, in order for others to be able to follow the same way and accomplish the same thing. Before Jesus, there was no such ability and God, called the Father, was not accessible to humans. This is why the ancients worshiped many gods who interceded for them to the “unknown” god. Jesus, through the consciousness that is called the Christ Consciousness, is now our intercessor, the Way, and the Truth. see more in my website and my book. Samuel Mann (author of Spirit and Truth)