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ORIGINAL: MrBukani

Pilate would have killed Jesus without a heartbeat if he really was a warriorking.

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ORIGINAL: MrBukani

Any warriorking the romans killed.
Your turn.

But that's besides the point Herod wanted to kill him.

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ORIGINAL: njlauren

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ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

Having not been there, I personally can't comment on the sanity (or lack thereof) of the Jesus person.

The 'firebrand Christ' bio is hardly new or exclusive to Muslim authors. And speculative history sells.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata


~ FR ~

While Ms. Green rather obviously took offense at Aslan's book, approached the interview with a chip on her shoulder, and behaved in a rude and indefensible way, there is something to be said for casting a jaundiced eye upon it.

Aslan is best known for his earlier work, "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," in which he glorifies the Medina verses and dismisses Islam's excesses by attributing them to "misinterpretation" and a reaction to "Western Imperialism."

Imagine, if you will, an author who writes a Christian apologetic that makes its centerpeice the Sermon on the Mount and attributes the Spanish Inquisition to "misinterpretation" and a reaction to the Muslim conquest of Spain. If that same author, who of course only just "happens" to be Christian, next writes a book portraying the prophet Mohammed as a pedophiliac liar who suffered hallucinations, would you need a map? It would be slammed as a hatchet job, and "Zealot" is no different.

Christ was about as far from being a zealot as you can possibly get, and manifestly not imbued with "a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews."

Aslan holds no doctorates in either history or religion. He teaches Creative Writing, and "Zealot" is right up his alley. Fortunately, neither the Roman Pontiff nor the Archbishop of Canterbury are likely to issue a "fatwa" calling for his death, and we will not be troubled by hordes of frothing Christians raging at the insult to their Christ.

K.

No, it isn't, and a lot of theologians and historians believe that Christ was a lot more than the NT says...scholars know that the NT was edited to purge thngs about Christ out of it that didn't fit their beatific ideal of him, and a Jew in the first century would be very much caught up in the turbulence. Plus if as the NT seems to indicate, that Christ believed he was the messiah, the Jewish messiah was a warrior king, not a passivist beatific figure people paint Christ as.

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Fox News, after a pause, has come back fighting against criticism of their interview with Reza Aslan, a Muslim scholar who wrote a book about Jesus. And as the discussion about a book that's more or less a William Manchester-style literary biography (that is, one steeped in scholarship, but written for the mainstream) of the historical Jesus spirals further and further away from, you know, the actual content of the book itself, what's emerging is a deep, conservative fear, and anger, concerning the audacity and bias of non-Christians who discuss the content of the Bible....

Much of Aslan's (and lots of others') frustration with Fox News began when Lauren Green wondered why a Muslim would "be interested in the founder of Christianity?" and her claim that Aslan's book was "like having a Democrat writing a book about why Reagan wasn’t a good Republican." While similar questions can and do provide a great opportunity for discussion among people who believe differently but have the same interests, Green's repeated questions represent a suspicion to his intentions that could be warranted, say, against a Hitchens-style screed against the idea that religion has value. But Aslan's book seems far from a religous attempt to question the facts of a Christian narrative in order to undermine it.

Bozell thinks that Aslan's Muslim faith gives him an inherent 'bias' in his ability to write about Jesus. Why? In a nod to Aslan's choice to write about Jesus as a man, Bozell says that "the Muslim faith believes that Jesus Christ did not have a divine nature." But Bozell seems to miss that despite the fact that Muslims believe in the Virgin Birth, Aslan's book doesn't find much evidence of this religious claim, either - so where's the Muslim bias there? Additionally, Aslan, along with most experts on the history of Jesus, argues that Jesus was almost certainly crucified, while Islam is much more ambiguous on the subject - they believe he was brought up to heaven beforehand. Still, Aslan's Muslim bias is the central claim Fox News is making against Aslan's ability to write about Jesus. Evangelical author John S. Dickerson's rant against Zealot for FoxNews.com finds a thousand ways to repeat this claim, arguing that Islam sees Jesus as a "zealous prophet type," continuing:

quote:

Even non-violent Muslims and Christians, like Aslan and myself, understand that we hold aggressively oppositional views - particularly about Jesus. National news coverage of “Zealot” has ignored this conflict of interest.

But Jesus is more than just a "prophet type" in Islam. He's a straight-up prophet, and one of the most important ones. Aside from the (religiously important) issue of his divine nature, Islam and Christianity tell basically the same story on Jesus. Despite Fox News's repeated concern about Aslan's Muslim faith, an actual religious bias on his part would have probably produced a more palatable book for Christian readers than the one he actually did write. But while Aslan's faith is a useful tool for critics to frame their beef with the book, it's not really their main argument. The problem, it seems, is that the book contradicts Christianity at all....

Aslan critics are also attacking his "arrogance," specifically his "misrepresentation" of his academic credentials. This was, for instance, the main line of attack at Get Religion, a conservative-leaning and widely-read religion and media blog. But given that Religious Studies as a humanities field is inherently interdisciplinary - combining sociology, history, anthropology, and philosophy into one rhetorical melting pot - it's doubtful that very many religious studies scholars would really take issue with Aslan's representation of his own credentials…His PhD, in the sociology of religion, is not a history degree as he'd said, which is somewhat misleading as David A. Graham at The Atlantic explained earlier this week. But it does not provide a very fruitful line of attack against Azlan's ability to write a book about Jesus. For one thing, that attack unfairly opens up [his interviewer, Lauren] Green to criticism as well: Her degrees are in music and journalism, and not religion.

So far, the defense of Fox News has been mainly from Fox News itself, but that could change as critics continue to frame Aslan's book as an attack on Christianity. Bream, in her segment today, said that Fox was going to keep on the Aslan offensive when she teased the content of an upcoming segment: "We know that there are a lot of folks out there who are happy to criticize Christian viewpoints and faith, and we have a story coming up on that as well." And while the discussion about Aslan's book is more and more taking on the Fight Club rules approach to talking about Aslan's book, it's plausible that Aslan, whose book skyrocketed in sales following Fox News's attack, will welcome all the return volleys he gets.

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And while that's all good fun, unfortunately for "speculative history" neither of these conclusions finds any support in the Qumran and Nag Hammadi scrolls.

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ORIGINAL: Winterapple

FR
The historical Pontius Pilate was a nasty character who
was recalled back to Rome. Jesus was killed by the Romans.

It's an interesting well written book. There is nothing that shocking
in it. Or not to anyone who has general knowledge of the subject,
the historical period and has read the Gospels. The only people I
can imagine that are offended by it are the easily offended or those
looking for an excuse to be offended. The idea that only Christians
can write about Christ is ludicrous not to mention narrow minded
ignorance of the worst kind.

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ORIGINAL: Winterapple

Not at all, Bama, there's no shortage of Muslims who
lose their shit when that occurs. And of course we know
about the incidents with the Danish cartoons etc.
But not all Muslims react that way. Karen Armstrong for
example who writes about Christianity and Islam has
been treated with respect by parts of the Islamic community
just as Aslan will be treated with respect within much of the
Christian community. Also I was eluding to people seeking to make
political hay out of things like this. They exist in the West and
the Muslim world.

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He can write what ever he wants, but when he attacks the very foundation he has to expect a harsh reaction from people who are not just looking for something to be upset about.

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ORIGINAL: Winterapple

Who is the Islamic equivalent of the Pope?
The pope is the head of the Catholic Church not all
Christianity. Neither Christianity or Islam are monolithic.

It's very generous of you to allow Aslan to write the book he
has written. Scholarly books about the historical Jesus and
Christianity are regularly written that contain many of the things contained
in this book. Why aren't their authors being attacked on Fox News?
Attack on the foundation? That's a bit much. It's not a work of
theology it's an academic book on the historical Jesus and his
times. Are you under the impression the book is contemptuous
of Christian believers? That it ridicules Christianity? Because it
does not.

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ORIGINAL: Winterapple

Nope.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: njlauren

No, it isn't, and a lot of theologians and historians believe that Christ was a lot more than the NT says...scholars know that the NT was edited to purge thngs about Christ out of it that didn't fit their beatific ideal of him, and a Jew in the first century would be very much caught up in the turbulence. Plus if as the NT seems to indicate, that Christ believed he was the messiah, the Jewish messiah was a warrior king, not a passivist beatific figure people paint Christ as.

There is no evidence that Jesus ever either thought of himself or represented himself as a Warrior King, and the only "explanation" for this exceedingly conspicuous lack is the bald claim that it must have been removed. That's awfully thin. While it is true that the Jews believed their Messiah would be a military leader, over and over again Jesus' response to what they believed was "but I say unto you..." something different. So there is simply no traction for a claim that the texts were "purged" of his activities as a militant revolutionary in the struggle against Rome.

K.

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ORIGINAL: MrBukani

Pilate would have killed Jesus without a heartbeat if he really was a warriorking.

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ORIGINAL: chatterbox24

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ORIGINAL: MrBukani

Pilate would have killed Jesus without a heartbeat if he really was a warriorking.

He did kill him, because he handed him over, he had the ability to stand strong, but instead fell weak to the pressure of the powers, as we as humans do many times.

I, myself, have made so many errors in life, I would not even want to try to count them. Ones I can never change, if I was to believe there was no hope due to my past, I would have no hope of a better future.