Review of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

During the last 100 years, the academic quest for the historical Jesus has wandered through at least three major cycles of research and publication. The work to uncover the Jesus “behind the text” has been almost impossible. Without fail, writers with conclusions landing outside creedal orthodoxy find their books being read more for the controversial content than for the author’s insights. Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Time of Jesus of Nazareth moved critical review into an unfortunate position. Much of the initial criticism levied at Aslan was more about Islamophobia than his progressive views of Jesus. Still, as if by design, immediately after Aslan’s now infamous interview with Fox News’ Lauren Green, his ratings on Amazon shot to the top and his publisher printed another 50,000 copies. A week after the interview, Zealot was number one on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Aslan’s historical Jesus is a zealous revolutionary, who in the name of Yahweh sacrifices all to overthrow the Roman oppression. Jesus of Nazareth is not the Son of God, but the Gospel of Mark’s Son of Man. Jesus zealously follows God’s commands for the sake of God’s people. He lives his life in defiance of the occupier leading to his crucifixion—as all others who would dare defy Roman’s crush. Aslan dismisses creedal absolutes—the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, and bodily resurrection. He does so with a bibliography that reads like a who’s who of the last twenty-five years of liberal historical Jesus research. Not surprisingly, his conclusions are little more than a compilation of the likes of John P. Meier, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, among other Jesus scholars.

Surprisingly, Aslan’s does not fully deconstruct the miracles of Jesus. However, he does place them alongside Jesus’ contemporaries who are magic workers. Aslan’s depiction of the resurrection is quite similar to that of the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Where in his book, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel, Williams writes that, “something happened,” on Easter morning. Such acknowledgment by Aslan about the critical event in the life of Jesus the Christ, is quite affirming, especially from a non-Christian.

Interestingly, while conservatives are up in arms about Aslan’s portrayal of Jesus, they have said little about his quick deconstruction of the New Testament Paul. In the final chapter the author states that Paul had little concern for the human Jesus of Nazareth. Instead, Aslan suggests Paul built a new religion based upon his mystical experience with the resurrected Jesus Christ. Instead of Paul, Reza focuses on the story of the early church found in the Acts of the Apostles. The conflict between Paul and the trio of James, Peter, and John, for Aslan, is the blame for the loss of the historical Jesus. Paul, the victor in the first century church wars replaces Jesus of Nazareth with Jesus Christ, in order to make his new religion more palatable to the Romans.

In the end the question Reza Aslan leaves his reader is—can you be a follower of Jesus, if left with the historical Jesus found in the Gospel of Mark, (which has neither the birth nor the resurrection narratives). And are you be a part of the Christian Church conceived of by James, the brother of Jesus, (sans any writings of Paul)?