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Post by sandwiches on Jul 29, 2013 15:59:35 GMT
Is it possible to write an "objective" view of Jesus? There is a book by a Muslim author on Jesus. The author was interviewed by a slightly-dim-witted interviewer on Fox News who kept zeroing in on the fact that the author was a Muslim. This has earned much internet disapprobation re Fox News, but I can't help feeling that she has a point (up to a point) , in that I would find it hard to believe that a book on Jesus and the Gospels' view of Jesus by a Muslim would not inevitably be slanted i.e. working toward a certain propagandistic aim. The book itself appears (from the reviews) to be possibly an unsophisticated and not particularly original view of Jesus as a Jewish nationalist crucified for nationalist extremism. Nevertheless, is this just another illustration that all history is subjective? www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/27/reza-aslan-fox-zealot_n_3665211.htmlReza Aslan To Fox News: Yes I 'Happen To Be A Muslim,' But Wrote 'Zealot' Because I Am An Expert
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Post by turoldus on Jul 30, 2013 9:34:06 GMT
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Post by ignorantianescia on Jul 30, 2013 10:53:53 GMT
An issue for the revolutionary interpretation is that Josephus doesn't write of Jesus as a revolutionary, which would be odd if he was one. Of course he seems to only accept the James the Just passage and thinks the authenticity of the TF is completely up for debate and wholly irrecoverably. I wonder whether he argues that point in sufficient detail (as it is a minority position).
Anyway, this certainly reeks of a strong bias, but I don't think it is a particularly Muslim one.
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Post by timoneill on Jul 30, 2013 11:03:58 GMT
I would find it hard to believe that a book on Jesus and the Gospels' view of Jesus by a Muslim would not inevitably be slanted i.e. working toward a certain propagandistic aim. Unlike those miles of shelves of books on Jesus by various varieties of Christians, which are wholly objective? As I understand it, he depicts Jesus as "zealous" for a pure Judaism and for a Temple unsullied by collaborators with the Romans, not as a "nationalist". And that is a perfectly sensible and respectable interpretation.
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Post by fortigurn on Jul 30, 2013 12:07:58 GMT
As I understand it, he depicts Jesus as "zealous" for a pure Judaism and for a Temple unsullied by collaborators with the Romans, not as a "nationalist". And that is a perfectly sensible and respectable interpretation. Makes sense to me.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Jul 30, 2013 12:50:33 GMT
Alan Jacobs at The American Conservative, in an article that focuses (or what is supposed to pass for it) more on the issue of literacy, writes this, stating that Aslan's portrait of Jesus is more political than Crossan's: "Moreover, there is nothing remotely new in Aslan’s book. Its general outlines very closely follow the story told by John Dominic Crossan in his 1994 book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, which was itself a kind of summation of work Crossan and his colleagues had been doing for the previous quarter-century. (Aslan is more prone to see Jesus as a consciously political revolutionary than Crossan, who writes of Jesus’s message, “It did not invite a political revolution but envisaged a social one at imagination’s most dangerous depths” [196]; but in other respects Aslan’s picture of Jesus so closely resembles Crossan’s that it’s peculiar, at least, to see the earlier book go barely acknowledged in those notes.) Aslan makes no new discoveries, and makes no arguments that haven’t already been made — in some cases very long ago."www.theamericanconservative.com/jacobs/more-about-reza-aslans-zealot-than-i-wanted-to-write-or-that-you-want-to-read-probably/In the Huffington Post article from almost two weeks ago, this is written: www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/reza-aslan-zealot-_n_3611504.htmlSo it seems that Aslan portrays Jesus as an insurrectionist aiming for the whole of Israel being liberated of foreigners. Update: Also notice the reference to the Palestinian side in the Middle East conflict that is at the bottom of the HuffPo article. Could that be the "certain propagandistic aim"?
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Post by sandwiches on Jul 30, 2013 20:48:01 GMT
ignorantianescia Thank you for those links which were excellent and which crystallised some of my own thoughts. First, re the Huffington Post article: Aslan also hopes that people reading the book will find another important parallel from Jesus’ life to the present-day world, specifically in the cause of the Palestinians. The land that Jesus called his own, there is still a poor marginalized people who are being occupied directly by a military presence and so I would be curious how Christians couldn’t see the parallels between what’s happening in the occupied territories today and what was happening in the time of Jesus.Re The American Conservative article, a pithy conclusion: So, in sum: Reza Aslan’s book is an educated amateur’s summary and synthesis of a particularly skeptical but quite long-established line of New Testament scholarship, presented to us as simple fact. If you like that kind of thing, Zealot will be the kind of thing you like.This point particularly caught my attention: The chief point I want to make here is that in claiming that Jesus was illiterate Aslan is (a) asserting flatly a point that is seriously disputed among New Testament scholars and (b) making no new claim. Indeed, the claim was not remotely new when Crossan made it: probably armchair atheists have been making it since before there were armchairs, but among New Testament scholars it goes back at least to Light from the East by Adolf Deissmann, the first edition of which appeared in 1908.I though the claim about illiteracy was unlikely when I recently saw it asserted without evidence by an atheist in another forum, viz: www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-god-question.885882/page-321We have two whole books written by Caesar, whereas we have nothing written by Jesus at all (he was most likely illiterate).
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Post by timoneill on Jul 30, 2013 20:54:40 GMT
So it seems that Aslan portrays Jesus as an insurrectionist aiming for the whole of Israel being liberated of foreigners. The snippets of the book that I've read so far sound more like he's saying Jesus' apocalyptic views had a distinct edge of "and the land will be cleansed of the Kittim and the Temple will be renewed". The evidence that these "political" elements to his eschatology (even though that word has modern implications that aren't really appropriate) were toned down in the later gospels, ie after the failure of the Jewish Revolt, is actually a very sound proposition. Perhaps someone should actually read the book. To me, it sounds like something between Crossan's hippy Jesus and Ehrman's apocalyptic one. So a reference to possible modern political parallels becomes "propagandistic" when it's made by a Muslim? Do people here realise this guy is a Sufi? That's about as militant as a Quaker.
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Post by timoneill on Jul 30, 2013 20:58:23 GMT
I though the claim about illiteracy was unlikely when I recently saw it asserted without evidence by an atheist in another forum, viz: www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-god-question.885882/page-321We have two whole books written by Caesar, whereas we have nothing written by Jesus at all (he was most likely illiterate).Jesus was a peasant from a tiny village, not someone with the time or luxury to be learning to read or write. Jewish literacy was higher than in other ancient cultures, but still low meaning that the chances he was literate are also low, especially given his background and social status. And the two gospel references to him reading and writing are both ones that we can show to be most likely non-historical. So "unlikely"? No, quite the opposite.
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Post by unkleE on Jul 31, 2013 4:04:00 GMT
I haven't read any of the book, but I happened to come across this partial review on The Jesus Blog. Maybe this review is biased, though it doesn't look that way, but it may be of interest to others here.
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Post by timoneill on Jul 31, 2013 9:39:26 GMT
I haven't read any of the book, but I happened to come across this partial review on The Jesus Blog. Maybe this review is biased, though it doesn't look that way, but it may be of interest to others here. That guy seems to have been taking lessons in minute nitpickery from Richard Carrier himself. I must say, the prickliness of Christian reactions to this rather unremarkable book is very interesting. I can't think of a book on Jesus that depicts him in a way I agree with that I don't have reservations about a judgement or position taken every few pages, and that's without the level of hyper-nitpicking we see in that finicky semi-review. And to say "there are things he states that many scholars disagree with" - ummm, seriously? Try finding me anything at all that can be said about the historical Jesus that you can't find at least someone disagreeing with it - that's the nature of a notoriously fractious field. It's remarkable that many other books far more outré than this one have never got this level of persnickety scrutiny. I think it's pretty clear why this one is being singled out for what seem to be pretty ordinary conclusions. (Oh look - my karma points are sinking again. The Thin Skinned Faithful are smiting me for saying things that pleaseth them not, yet again).
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Post by ignorantianescia on Jul 31, 2013 11:07:04 GMT
The snippets of the book that I've read so far sound more like he's saying Jesus' apocalyptic views had a distinct edge of "and the land will be cleansed of the Kittim and the Temple will be renewed". The evidence that these "political" elements to his eschatology (even though that word has modern implications that aren't really appropriate) were toned down in the later gospels, ie after the failure of the Jewish Revolt, is actually a very sound proposition. Perhaps someone should actually read the book. To me, it sounds like something between Crossan's hippy Jesus and Ehrman's apocalyptic one. That is possible, though his comments in the HuffPo interview seem to imply something more like a violent revolutionary. The small preview on Google Books I read seems to be compatible with both interpretations. I'd be interested in reading the book, but it has disappeared from my regular online bookstore within minutes. It must be quite popular. So a reference to possible modern political parallels becomes "propagandistic" when it's made by a Muslim? The words "certain propagandistic aim" are a quote and I intended them with a little irony. No I don't think it is propagandistic but I think that this point might be the relevant bias some other people have suspected. And it is a no-brainer that a Muslim is more likely to have a bias favouring the Palestinian side than most others, just like YECs tend to be Evangelical fundamentalists. That doesn't mean any claim possibly influenced by such a bias becomes "propagandistic". Do people here realise this guy is a Sufi? That's about as militant as a Quaker. What does militancy have to do with it? For the record, I am not suggesting Aslan wants the Israeli occupation of the West Bank to be ended by military means. I suggest that his advocacy of the Palestinian cause might be the relevant bias in a portrait of Jesus as an anti-Gentile insurrectionist, if that is his reconstruction.
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Post by unkleE on Jul 31, 2013 13:11:44 GMT
That guy seems to have been taking lessons in minute nitpickery from Richard Carrier himself. I thought, considering this was stated to be a preliminary comment, that the inaccuracies were worth noting and somewhat troubling. You can have your view Tim, but that's not what I think at all. I just passed on the review because it's on a blog by New Testament scholars and therefore presumably has some value. I don't feel at all "prickly", and if I was concerned at this dude, I wouldn't be reading Casey, Ehrman, Vermes etc. I think you make these inferences too easily and too often.
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Post by merkavah12 on Jul 31, 2013 14:13:33 GMT
Yep. It's because everyone wants to push Aslan into accepting his destiny: action movie star.
....oh come on. We were all thinking it. "Reza Aslan" is a name that just screams to be put on a movie poster with a bombastic tagline.
"They could have taken away anything. His home. His wealth. Even his freedom.They took away Bob Saget. Now he'll make them pay.
REZA ASLAN IN
FULL METAL HOUSE"
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Post by timoneill on Jul 31, 2013 20:38:27 GMT
I thought, considering this was stated to be a preliminary comment, that the inaccuracies were worth noting and somewhat troubling. Really? The long, tortured analysis of his use of the Celsus quote was a Carrieresque exercise in nitpicking about a totally uncontroversial statement that there were other preachers like Jesus around at the time. The reviewer even finishes by asking "Am I nitpicking? Maybe." Try "definitely". He then defends this by saying that it's supposedly a problem to come across a point he doesn't totally agree with in the first pages of a book about Jesus. I find that in pretty much any book about Jesus that I pick up - it's the nature of the field, so I wonder what other books on Jesus Larry Behrendt has been reading. Then we get another nitpick about another unremarkable statement, that crucifixion was reserved for for "the worst kind of criminals". This is absolutely true, which is why crucifixion was referred to as "the extreme penalty", was regarded with special horror and was reserved for non-Romans. Behrendt lists a number of crimes that the Romans considered major crimes and ... somehow thinks he's made some kind of point. Aslan's claim that attempts at showing parts of the TF are authentic have proven futile and his claims about Arianism are more substantial issues, but Behrendt then spends a lot of time and a lot of Carrier-like bluster in an odd attempt at trying to argue that an enclosure where a lot of animals were slaughtered would not smell like an enclosure where a lot of animals were slaughtered. I wonder if Behrendt has ever smelled a number of animals being slaughtered. I'm guessing he hasn't. There were two points of any substance in there - the rest was up there with Neil Godfrey's best efforts. Methinks they doth protest too much. I think you tend to apply general statements too personally too often. I was referring to the blogger and some of his more hysterical "He's a MUZZlim!! Run for the hills!" commenters.
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