Various groups of people ranging from scholars to believers try to draw a sharp contrast between the pioneers of Christianity and Islam. Christ, who marks the foundation of Christianity is portrayed as a peaceful man. On the other hand, Muhammad, the founder of Islam is a judge and general who forcefully grabs a large section of the Arabian Peninsula. Reza Aslan, the author of Zealot, distinguishes the two founders by portraying Jesus as a considerate Jewish “politically considerate Jewish rebel’ and that his kingdom belongs to the world.
Aslan, the author of Zealot, is an Iranian American Muslim. He is also known as a scholar in religious studies and a professor in creative writing. He stays in Los Angeles where he manages an organization known as Aslan Media. Therefore, it is not surprising that the book Zealot reads like a movie with the following major scenes.
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The Exterior Streets of Jerusalem
At the start of the book, Aslan introduces this as a moment that is significant than any other. He uses the chance to introduce who Jesus was and what His meaning to the world. He describes the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in a humble way riding a donkey and the crowd shouting “Hosanna!” according to Aslan, this was not a sign of humility as taught on the church during the Palm Sunday sermon. Jesus demonstrated His kingship. He was the Messiah that people had waited for a long time, who would be the real King of the Jews. Jesus came to rescue the Israelites from their slavery to Rome.
Jerusalem Temple
The book describes how Jesus was angry when He got to the temple and found people doing business. In a rage, he overturned tables of the money changers and drove out other business people, making both the Jewish priests and the Roman rulers angry. In this book, the author introduces two scenes of a revolutionary who passed through Galilee and chose disciples. The zealot would later ‘rain’ the anger of God upon all sinners no matter their financial, physical and political powers. The author devotes the other part of the book to pointing out fact and describing how and the why Jesus was transformed from a man of war into a prince of peace by Paul and members of the early church.
Aslan picks various points as a way of separating the historical life of Jesus from the Christ of the Christian faith. Crediting the Palm Sunday story as a historical event does not add value since it was a fulfilment of the prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. In the book of Zechariah, the Israelites were promised a humble and righteous king. The book also, for no apparent reason, credits and puts more emphasis on the violent passages in the Gospels, and discredits and does not pay any significant attention to the peaceful ones. Why does the author believe it when Jesus said to his disciplines, “If you do not have a word, go sell your cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36)? And why is Aslan sceptical when Jesus said “Love your enemies (Matthew 5:44)?
The book ignores apparent issues concerning the claim by other religious scholars such as Dominic that Jesus did not have political agendas. What do people think of Jesus’ failure to engage in practical activities that would make him ready him for holy war? If indeed Jesus had the aim of fighting to establish “a true kingdom that has a real king,” who were his soldiers and which weapons did they have? Why did they lack a battle plan?
In a bid to answer this questions, Aslan tells a story. Throughout the book, he refers to passages of the New Testament as “fanciful and patently fictitious.” However, Luke, Mathew, Mark and John are not the only ones who talk about Jesus from mere imaginations.
The book gives compelling information about the efforts of the early church to overlook the status of the brother of Jesus known as John the Baptist. This is a similar account of what he says about the Good Samaritan story where he criticizes priests and the cult of the Temple. The book makes a lot of sense in the comprehensive argument that the early Christian movement played a significant role in depoliticizing Jesus to make peace with Rome after the failure of the Jewish revolution.
Unfortunately, Zealot does not give any significant new information. A famous show known as Fox News interview is the one that propelled the book to be one of the bestsellers. The host asked on how a Muslim could be writing about a founder of the Christian faith. The major problem with Aslan is that, just like thousands of experts in the history of Jesus who came before him, says he does not know anything close to what is needed. Aslan claims to be an archaeologist of historical reality, who tries to excavate the ‘real’ Jesus, but he ends up telling a story of Jesus from a personal perspective.
In the end, Aslan presents an American Jesus for the 21st-century population, not a real account of the history of Jesus. He struggles to make sense of the ongoing rivalry between the Christian and Muslim faiths. But I can say, it is an interesting book that I would recommend especially for people who are struggling to have a contemporary understanding of the history of Jesus.
Bibliography
Aslan, Reza. Zealot: The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth . Random House Incorporated, 2013.
