… Zealot is seriously flawed in many ways. There are many factual errors (some of which I will highlight below), but more importantly, Aslan’s approach matches the flawed approach of Jesus Seminar scholars, which is almost guaranteed to produce a skewed picture of Jesus. Zealot’s claim is essentially a conspiracy theory: Jesus was really a proclaimer of violent revolution, but the gospels and Paul covered up the evidence. Aslan then has a typical conspiracy-theory approach: any time the gospels present evidence against Aslan’s theory, they were making it up; any time the gospels present evidence in favor of Aslan’s theory, they were telling the truth.

Reza Aslan’s new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House, 2013), is in most ways a typical attempt to paint a new picture of Jesus. Because so many hundreds of books of this type have been published, Aslan’s book would most likely not have received significant attention at all, except for two factors. First, a botched interview of the author on Fox News caused a huge surge of interest, making his book an overnight best seller. And second, Aslan is a very good writer. His primary teaching role, after all, is as a professor of creative writing at UC Riverside. Aslan is able to take a lot of important historical background and present it in a riveting manner, accessible to most readers.

Since Aslan is a Muslim, some have responded to Zealot as if it is a Muslim look at Jesus. This is simply not the case; Zealot does not present traditional Muslim views of Jesus at all.  Zealot is instead typical of other modern skeptical approaches to Jesus. Aslan is strongly influenced by (among others) John Dominic Crossan, the Jesus Seminar author who has written a number of books presenting Jesus as a peasant social revolutionary.

The central argument of Zealot is this: Jesus, like other messianic figures of his day, called for the violent expulsion of Rome from Israel. Driven by religious zeal, Jesus believed that God would empower him to become the king of Israel and overturn the hierarchical social order. Jesus believed that God would honor the zeal of his lightly armed disciples and give them victory. Instead, Jesus was crucified as a revolutionary. Early Christians changed the story of Jesus to make him into a peaceful shepherd. They did this for two reasons: because Jesus’ actual prediction had failed, and because the Roman destruction of rebellious Jerusalem in AD 70 made Jesus’ real teachings both dangerous and unpopular. Paul radically changed the identity of Jesus from human rebel to divine Son of God, against the wishes of other leaders like Peter and James.

To be fair to Aslan, there are several strengths to his book. He explains well the multifaceted economic, political and religious setting of first-century Palestine (with some exceptions pointed out below). While heavily influenced by Crossan, he abandons some of Crossan’s more bizarre claims. Interestingly, Aslan points out what strong eyewitness evidence there is for the resurrection, although ultimately he says that the resurrection is the sort of thing that historians simply cannot evaluate. He points out that Jesus’ contemporaries fully believed that Jesus performed healing miracles. Aslan also explains some things that most Christians are not aware of, but are widely accepted by both believing and non-believing scholars of the gospels. For example, Aslan correctly writes that Jews before Jesus were not expecting the messiah to be divine or for him to die and rise from the dead. He correctly explains the original significance of some of Jesus’ titles such as “Son of God” and “Son of Man,” both of which had kingly connotations before Jesus.  

However, Zealot is seriously flawed in many ways. There are many factual errors (some of which I will highlight below), but more importantly, Aslan’s approach matches the flawed approach of Jesus Seminar scholars, which is almost guaranteed to produce a skewed picture of Jesus.

Zealot’s claim is essentially a conspiracy theory: Jesus was really a proclaimer of violent revolution, but the gospels and Paul covered up the evidence. Aslan then has a typical conspiracy-theory approach: any time the gospels present evidence against Aslan’s theory, they were making it up; any time the gospels present evidence in favor of Aslan’s theory, they were telling the truth. This is found countless times in Zealot, but a few examples will suffice.

Aslan is certain that Jesus never said “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), because of course that would be evidence against Aslan’s theory. The idea that Jesus was “an inveterate peacemaker” is a “complete fabrication” by the evangelists.¹ Apparently, according to Aslan, Jesus never said “If anyone compels you to go one mile, go with him two” (Matt 5:41, talking about submission to soldiers who demand labor) or “Do not resist the one who is evil” (Matt 5:39). Although Aslan does not deny the historicity of Jesus’ parables, he dismisses them as impossible to understand – a claim that would surprise most modern scholars of the gospels. Aslan needs to dismiss the parables because the Kingdom of God described in the parables is mostly incompatible with violent revolution.
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