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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
The author investigates the historical Jesus, what actually facts from history about Jesus. Also he goes in great depth to describe life in the first century. I learned a lot and have a better understanding of the early Christian church.
Fascinating read, and not for all the reasons I expected. I never knew all this about the Jewish rebellions against Rome, they were remarkably successful for longer than one would have expected. The historical revolutionary Jewish nationalist Jesus is not Christ, and it's very interesting to see where they diverge and overlap. Excellent book if you're interested in the scholarship but don't want to plunge through the heavier tomes on the subject. I think I liked Diarmaid McCullogh's review in the LRB best on this one (The Snake Slunk Off), for some agreement, dissent, and suggestions of alternate reading.
I learned about this book the same way most people did - all thanks to Fox News being terrible at being a news outlet. I love reading books that are critical of organized religions and that seek to challenge the social standard in regards to how we view this thing that tells the majority of people what to do and how to do it. This is my fifth book of the sort this year alone and the easily the second best, only behind Misquoting Jesus by Bart Erhman.
This book begins with the assumption that it's understood the New Testament Bible is a flawed, human document riddled with errors and inconsistencies. This assumption is made because it is objective fact. Reza Aslan is a scholar and historian and is well aware of the full history and evidence of this fact and addresses it on the grounds that it should be common knowledge. If you'd care to contest this fact, I suggest you read the aforementioned Misquoting Jesus by Bart Erhman. Bart Erhman speaks, reads, and writes in all of the language the New Testament was written in and has studied them for every detail of difference from the earliest documents to the latest documents and provides dozens of examples of the text evolving over the ages to suit the needs of each religious community leading up to the invention of the printing press and KJV which finally gave us a consistent version (albeit one at the end of thousands of re-writes, additions, and spelling errors that completely changed the meaning of various sentences).
What Reza Aslan sets out to do is uncover the best possible estimate for who the historical Jesus may have actually been. The fact of the matter is that in the entirety of history the only proof we have that Jesus even existed are two tiny quotes from Josephus calling James the Just Jesus the Christ's brother, and only one of those is considered a valid proof. Still, this is enough that it is widely accepted that he was a real person.
Aside from that, all we have to go off of is the gospels which contain historical inaccuracies, inconsistencies between each other, and changes that appear to have been added in a weak attempt to create some form of canon regarding tenants that aren't believed to be part of Jesus' original ministry at all (the virgin birth, the resurrection, the claim of being God's own son). Aslan takes pieces of this, separates some of the things that were simply historically untrue (For example: No census in Roman history required people to return to their home land as Luke describes), then contrasts the rest against the history we can actually verify such as the fact that there were many, many self-proclaimed messiahs that performed miracles and were killed for their causes. The story of Jesus is just one of dozens of other historic prophets with nearly identical paths.
It's a really fascinating read. The bulk of the book is written in a very gripping way, and the final 80 pages that cite his references and further details read like a research paper. The book also has a tendency to treat things as fact that are not to give the proper illusion of being a biography of the Historical Jesus, but the claims are based in logic and history and explained as such. I'd just hate for someone to quote a theory as a fact because it's written that way when the book fully admits most of this is just Aslan's best guess as to what actually happened 2,000 years ago since the only thing we know is the gospels can't be fully trusted.
I heartily recommend it to anyone willing to learn more about the beginnings of Christianity and the evolution of the New Testament. The picture painted here is one that I would absolutely be able to believe were real, and honestly I think I like historical-theory Jesus way more than follower-created mythical Jesus. Since they ARE just theories, you can take a lot of it with a grain of salt (except for the historical explanations of certain things that absolutely did not happen). You can still believe Jesus actually healed the blind, but you'll also have to accept that he wasn't the only person at the time that people believed could do that kind of thing. You can believe he was born of a virgin and resurrected from the dead, but you'll have to accept that it's incredibly fishy those details are completely missing from the earliest documents we have. You can believe Paul had a lot of wise things to say, but you'll have to accept the fact that Peter, John, and James all thought he was completely perverting Jesus' message and generally didn't care for him. You can believe John the Baptist was simply paving the way for Jesus, but you'll have to explain why John the Baptist's fanclub didn't like Jesus's fanclub.
It's a really great book.
Absolutely great book. Thank you, Fox News.
This book begins with the assumption that it's understood the New Testament Bible is a flawed, human document riddled with errors and inconsistencies. This assumption is made because it is objective fact. Reza Aslan is a scholar and historian and is well aware of the full history and evidence of this fact and addresses it on the grounds that it should be common knowledge. If you'd care to contest this fact, I suggest you read the aforementioned Misquoting Jesus by Bart Erhman. Bart Erhman speaks, reads, and writes in all of the language the New Testament was written in and has studied them for every detail of difference from the earliest documents to the latest documents and provides dozens of examples of the text evolving over the ages to suit the needs of each religious community leading up to the invention of the printing press and KJV which finally gave us a consistent version (albeit one at the end of thousands of re-writes, additions, and spelling errors that completely changed the meaning of various sentences).
What Reza Aslan sets out to do is uncover the best possible estimate for who the historical Jesus may have actually been. The fact of the matter is that in the entirety of history the only proof we have that Jesus even existed are two tiny quotes from Josephus calling James the Just Jesus the Christ's brother, and only one of those is considered a valid proof. Still, this is enough that it is widely accepted that he was a real person.
Aside from that, all we have to go off of is the gospels which contain historical inaccuracies, inconsistencies between each other, and changes that appear to have been added in a weak attempt to create some form of canon regarding tenants that aren't believed to be part of Jesus' original ministry at all (the virgin birth, the resurrection, the claim of being God's own son). Aslan takes pieces of this, separates some of the things that were simply historically untrue (For example: No census in Roman history required people to return to their home land as Luke describes), then contrasts the rest against the history we can actually verify such as the fact that there were many, many self-proclaimed messiahs that performed miracles and were killed for their causes. The story of Jesus is just one of dozens of other historic prophets with nearly identical paths.
It's a really fascinating read. The bulk of the book is written in a very gripping way, and the final 80 pages that cite his references and further details read like a research paper. The book also has a tendency to treat things as fact that are not to give the proper illusion of being a biography of the Historical Jesus, but the claims are based in logic and history and explained as such. I'd just hate for someone to quote a theory as a fact because it's written that way when the book fully admits most of this is just Aslan's best guess as to what actually happened 2,000 years ago since the only thing we know is the gospels can't be fully trusted.
I heartily recommend it to anyone willing to learn more about the beginnings of Christianity and the evolution of the New Testament. The picture painted here is one that I would absolutely be able to believe were real, and honestly I think I like historical-theory Jesus way more than follower-created mythical Jesus. Since they ARE just theories, you can take a lot of it with a grain of salt (except for the historical explanations of certain things that absolutely did not happen). You can still believe Jesus actually healed the blind, but you'll also have to accept that he wasn't the only person at the time that people believed could do that kind of thing. You can believe he was born of a virgin and resurrected from the dead, but you'll have to accept that it's incredibly fishy those details are completely missing from the earliest documents we have. You can believe Paul had a lot of wise things to say, but you'll have to accept the fact that Peter, John, and James all thought he was completely perverting Jesus' message and generally didn't care for him. You can believe John the Baptist was simply paving the way for Jesus, but you'll have to explain why John the Baptist's fanclub didn't like Jesus's fanclub.
It's a really great book.
Absolutely great book. Thank you, Fox News.
I cannot say enough good things about this book. When I was young I was very, very Christian... until I actually read the Bible cover to cover. There was so much that didn't add up that I "lost my faith" right then and there. So this book was utterly engrossing, and explained so many of the discrepancies I found so many years ago. I was also glad to finally read Jesus in his original context, which the Church has done it's best to strip him of. I've already been recommending this book to everyone I know... and I recommend it to you too, random goodreads'er!
informative
medium-paced
Historically accurate portrayal of who Jesus was and how that compares with the New Testament portrayal
An interesting read; I got wind of this book after watching an interview with the author and newscasters from Fox News, plus I'm curious about historical contexts of events that happened during the time of Jesus.
Things I liked about the book:
Reza Aslan builds an image of the time period, using a variety of sources (and a large notes section in the back of the book) to give us an idea of the life of Jesus, his followers, how the temple worked during his time, common Jewish and Roman practices at the time... it's a very thorough book. His notes and information to back up his point as extensive, and counter arguments to some of his ideas/theories are also noted in the back of the book.
Things I didn't like: Although the book had many moments of greatness, I didn't enjoy the occasional change from a scholarly approach. Every so often, he would mention that "Some people believe X. This is absolutely ridiculous." Saying something is ridiculous doesn't make it so; facts do. Despite his occasional 'outburst' he still puts together an interesting read.
Things I liked about the book:
Reza Aslan builds an image of the time period, using a variety of sources (and a large notes section in the back of the book) to give us an idea of the life of Jesus, his followers, how the temple worked during his time, common Jewish and Roman practices at the time... it's a very thorough book. His notes and information to back up his point as extensive, and counter arguments to some of his ideas/theories are also noted in the back of the book.
Things I didn't like: Although the book had many moments of greatness, I didn't enjoy the occasional change from a scholarly approach. Every so often, he would mention that "Some people believe X. This is absolutely ridiculous." Saying something is ridiculous doesn't make it so; facts do. Despite his occasional 'outburst' he still puts together an interesting read.
Sadly, this book disappointed me on almost all levels. First, it was dry and difficult to read. That was mostly because it is more a scholarly research paper than best-seller entertainment. For one small example, Jesus called himself the "Son of Man". What does that mean? You have to plough through page after page describing different theories, this person said this, that person said that, this translation tends this way, that translation tends the other, etc., but the end conclusion is "nobody knows" (which by the way sums up a lot about the life of Jesus). To be honest, I skimmed over a lot of pages in this book.
Secondly, it did not answer the question I read the book for, which is why did this one Jewish carpenter end up the focus of the largest religion on earth?
Third, I don't think that the book is convincing on what Aslan himself wanted it to do, which he doesn't reveal (and wasn't at all apparent to me) until the last sentences of the book. He says that the story of Jesus as a radical Jewish nationalist has been lost, subsumed by the story of Jesus as God invented in the third century. The book ends with these words: "That is a shame. Because the one thing any comprehensive study of the historical Jesus should hopefully reveal is that Jesus of Nazareth--Jesus the man--is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is, in sort, someone worth believing in." End of book. Is Aslan criticizing his own book? I think so, because his account doesn't reveal Jesus the man as all those things ("compelling, charismatic and praisworthy"). Plus, he doesn't set the bar very high, because he seems to say in the book that the story of Jesus the Christ was just a convenient fabrication 300 years after Jesus died and nobody remembered anything about him.
Hmmm... On rereading the Author's Note at the beginning of the book, I realized that I missed him saying he is more of a disciple of Jesus the man than he is of Jesus the Christ. So, he doesn't wait until the last sentence to reveal that. But still, it doesn't make any sense. Why would anybody worship the radical Jewish nationalist, since acording to the book, nothing he predicted came true, he didn't fulfill any prophesies and in the book, at least, he doesn't seem much different from all the other radical Jewish nationalists who said they were the messiah.
Secondly, it did not answer the question I read the book for, which is why did this one Jewish carpenter end up the focus of the largest religion on earth?
Third, I don't think that the book is convincing on what Aslan himself wanted it to do, which he doesn't reveal (and wasn't at all apparent to me) until the last sentences of the book. He says that the story of Jesus as a radical Jewish nationalist has been lost, subsumed by the story of Jesus as God invented in the third century. The book ends with these words: "That is a shame. Because the one thing any comprehensive study of the historical Jesus should hopefully reveal is that Jesus of Nazareth--Jesus the man--is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is, in sort, someone worth believing in." End of book. Is Aslan criticizing his own book? I think so, because his account doesn't reveal Jesus the man as all those things ("compelling, charismatic and praisworthy"). Plus, he doesn't set the bar very high, because he seems to say in the book that the story of Jesus the Christ was just a convenient fabrication 300 years after Jesus died and nobody remembered anything about him.
Hmmm... On rereading the Author's Note at the beginning of the book, I realized that I missed him saying he is more of a disciple of Jesus the man than he is of Jesus the Christ. So, he doesn't wait until the last sentence to reveal that. But still, it doesn't make any sense. Why would anybody worship the radical Jewish nationalist, since acording to the book, nothing he predicted came true, he didn't fulfill any prophesies and in the book, at least, he doesn't seem much different from all the other radical Jewish nationalists who said they were the messiah.
On the surface he seems to be well studied; he's certainly a good writer. But if you inspect Aslan's sources, they are overwhelmingly contemporary, making him a tertiary historian. He disregards decades of Biblical scholarship and takes interpretations that are convenient to make his points.
Got this book free from FirstReads on Goodreads. Glad I didn't pay for it. People will believe what they want to believe; that's why this is a bestseller.
Got this book free from FirstReads on Goodreads. Glad I didn't pay for it. People will believe what they want to believe; that's why this is a bestseller.
3.5 Overall, a lot of interesting historical information regarding the world during the time of Jesus, the writing of the gospels and compilation of the Bible. At times it felt like the author was cherry-picking scriptures to fit the narrative.
"Because the one thing any comprehensive study of historical Jesus should hopefully reveal is that Jesus of Nazareth - Jesus the man - is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is, in short, someone worth believing in." Indeed.