Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 07-30-2013, 02:25 PM

Latest piece from CNN

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vi...khani.cnn.html

James The Least · 07-30-2013, 05:14 PM

The funny part about this is that American Christians like this woman are probably completely ignorant of the fact that "Isu" is a major figure in Islam.

Christians. It's like children, every day is a new world to them.

Grog · 07-30-2013, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American who has a PhD in religious studies and now teaches creative writing, has written a biography of the "real" Jesus.

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Aslan starts from the idea that the only sure fact about Jesus is that he was crucified, and that therefore he must have been a revolutionary zealot.

There is a good review on salon: The Real Jesus

Quote:

. . . . Much of contemporary biblical scholarship involves parsing and triangulating the various accounts to surmise which bits are the oldest and most likely to represent some real event or statement by Jesus himself.

This, of course, hasn’t stopped anyone from trying to reconstruct a historical account of Jesus’ life, however speculative it must necessarily be. The latest to try is Reza Aslan, a professor of creative writing with a background in religious studies, which seems like just about the right configuration of skills. Aslan is best known for “No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam” and his appearances on “The Daily Show,” but his literary talent is as essential to the effect of “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” as are his scholarly and journalistic chops. This book, he explains in an author’s note, is the result of “two decades of rigorous academic research into the origins of Christianity.” It’s also a vivid, persuasive portrait of the world and societies in which Jesus lived and the role he most likely played in both.

. . . Aslan’s Jesus is a provincial peasant turned roving preacher and insurrectionist, a “revolutionary Jewish nationalist” calling for the expulsion of Roman occupiers and the overthrow of a wealthy and corrupt Jewish priestly caste. Furthermore, once this overthrow was achieved, Jesus probably expected to become king.

NPR interview with Reza Aslan

It's interesting that in the Fox interview, Aslan states that he starts with the "one fundamental truth that everybody agrees upon" that Jesus was crucified.

That is Aslan's starting, foundational assumption. I don't think he questions that assumption. It sounds, methodologically like Crossan. As a grad student studying peasant rebellion, I was very interested in the idea that Jesus was an anti-Roman rebel. I abandoned that a long time ago, but not before, spending some time as a fan of Crossan.

outhouse · 07-30-2013, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

As a grad student studying peasant rebellion, I was very interested in the idea that Jesus was an anti-Roman rebel. .

I never followed that as much as the Jesus character fighting the socioeconomic difference between Hellenism and traditional Judaism of Galileans by Herod's hands. As any Galilean would given a opportunity.

That and the corrupt temple due to Roman oppression, using blasphemous coins with pagan deities and the severe tithes required to keep the Romans from leveling the temple.

Grog · 07-30-2013, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

As a grad student studying peasant rebellion, I was very interested in the idea that Jesus was an anti-Roman rebel. .

I never followed that as much as the Jesus character fighting the socioeconomic difference between Hellenism and traditional Judaism of Galileans by Herod's hands. As any Galilean would given a opportunity.

That and the corrupt temple due to Roman oppression, using blasphemous coins with pagan deities and the severe tithes required to keep the Romans from leveling the temple.

I am not sure I am seeing the difference between what I said and what you said. Peasant rebellion is more often a reaction against change in preservation of traditions, etc. One factor that the NLF used to gain support was traditional Vietnamese ancestral worship which caused them not to want to leave their homes, while the US was forcing them into "strategic hamlets" and creating "free fire zones." Rural Vietnamese supported the rebels not out of a belief in the tenets of Karl Marx and his critique of capitalism, but to preserve traditions. The Zapatistas (the originals) went into battle wearing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on their backs.

What you said and what I said are almost the same thing.

outhouse · 07-31-2013, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

What you said and what I said are almost the same thing.

There is a difference directly fighting Romans which would be a military operation, and a peasant teaching and healing in Galilee not directly under Roman control, who is more disturbed about the Hellenistic corruption in Judaism due to Romans.

As a Zealot I think Jesus learned from JtB mistake of being to popular. Spoke in more parables and traveled more not to gaim to much attention, trying to keep his head attached to his neck. he wold have known teaching would work better then military as going up against Romans was suicide.

Toto · 07-31-2013, 10:22 AM

Review of the book by Greg Carey,Professor of New Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary

Quote:

Aslan gained wide popularity for his introduction to Islam, No god but God. I very much enjoyed my copy and still consult it. Aslan holds a PhD in sociology, but his primary scholarly emphasis involves contemporary religion. Aslan has also worked in New Testament studies, and Zealot contains references to a vast amount of literature, yet the book also betrays that he is not immersed in the literature of that field. Aslan is a spectacular writer, and his portrait of Jesus is spiritually if not intellectually compelling.

...

First, Zealot has formidable strengths. Aslan has done a great deal of homework, offering material that will instruct many specialists from time to time. The most important thing Aslan accomplishes involves setting Jesus in a plausible historical and cultural context. Indeed, more of the book may involve Jesus' contexts than direct discussion of the man himself. Someone very like Jesus could easily have existed in Roman Galilee. Aslan's Jesus is thoroughly Jewish, passionately committed to Israel's welfare and restoration. Aslan appreciates how Jesus' activities amounted to resistance against Roman domination -- as well as against collaboration on the part of Jewish elites. Many scholars would agree.

Any respectable portrait of Jesus must take serious account of how Jesus died, as Aslan's does. Jesus dies as a convicted seditionist, a would-be king who finally got caught. This is a serious interpretation of Jesus' crucifixion. Perhaps Aslan most deserves credit for his openness to the possibility that Jesus really did see himself as Israel's messiah, or king. Far too many historians dismiss this possibility out of hand.

...

Toto · 07-31-2013, 01:24 PM

Al Jazeera: OMG! A Muslim is obsessed with Jesus by Mark LeVine, professor of Middle Eastern history at UC Irvine, and distinguished visiting professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden

Quote:

By attacking his right as a Muslim to write about Jesus, Green and arch-anti-Muslim commentators like Pamela Geller (who's called the mild-mannered Aslan a "vicious... jihadi operative") and John Dickerson (whose foxnews.com column, which likely provided the fodder for the interview questions, was devoted entirely to declaring that Aslan argued he's a scholar of religion without telling people he's also a Muslim, as if the two are mutually contradictory, or even related) are doing far more than simply attacking Islam. They are trying to stop historically grounded discussions about Jesus's life and highly progressive messages on social justice-related issues - messages which, needless to say, are almost entirely at odds with the conservative American Christianity that dominates Fox and the Republican Party.

The rise of progressive populism

Not surprisingly, Aslan took pains to point out that he's never hid his religious affiliation and indeed discussed its role in his "twenty year obsession" with Jesus on page two of the book. But there is a long history of the Islamophobia community making demonstrably wrong accusations and continuing to make them long after the've been challenged on it (my most amusing experience was being labelled a "rock musician and a Marxist" by David Horowitz based on supposedly reading a book of mine that hadn't even been published when he determined my political affiliation)

MrMacSon · 07-31-2013, 01:35 PM

Any number of characters, or combinations of them, could have fitted the Jesus proposed by outhouse above ( #7517355 / #36), or by Reza Aslan, or Greg Carey in his review of Aslan's Zealot: the life & times of Jesus of Nazareth.

Some of these characters may not have been named Jesus/Joshua etc, or may not have been recorded, or both.

Quote:

Jesus ben Saphat - led the rebels in Tiberias in the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee ("the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people" – Josephus, Life 12.66)

Jesus ben Gamala - During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the ‘peace party’ in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by ‘James and John, sons of Susa’) ... When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds.

Jesus ben Stada - a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (25 miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew. And given the scale that Roman retribution could reach – at the height of the siege of Jerusalem the Romans were crucifying upwards of five hundred captives a day before the city walls – dead heroes called Jesus would (quite literally) have been thick on the ground. Not one merits a full-stop in the great universal history.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/surfeit.htm

outhouse · 07-31-2013, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

Any number of characters, or combinations of them, could have fitted the Jesus proposed by outhouse above ( #7517355 / #36), or by Reza Aslan, or Greg Carey in his review of Aslan's Zealot: the life & times of Jesus of Nazareth.

Some of these characters may not have been named Jesus/Joshua etc, or may not have been recorded, or both.

Quote:

Jesus ben Saphat - led the rebels in Tiberias in the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee ("the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people" – Josephus, Life 12.66)

Jesus ben Gamala - During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the ‘peace party’ in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by ‘James and John, sons of Susa’) ... When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds.

Jesus ben Stada - a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (25 miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew. And given the scale that Roman retribution could reach – at the height of the siege of Jerusalem the Romans were crucifying upwards of five hundred captives a day before the city walls – dead heroes called Jesus would (quite literally) have been thick on the ground. Not one merits a full-stop in the great universal history.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/surfeit.htm

You really should study real scholarships. Websites like that are not a useful tool in any credible biblical study.

Have you even gone through Yale's online resources for the NT? its actually very credible and has vast amounts of proper methodology you wont find at a unaccredited blogger site.

Not one of the people you mentioned can explain Pauls writings before they existed. :constern01:

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07-30-2013, 02:25 PM	#31
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Latest piece from CNN http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vi...khani.cnn.html

07-30-2013, 05:14 PM	#32
James The Least Regular Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: USA Posts: 393	The funny part about this is that American Christians like this woman are probably completely ignorant of the fact that "Isu" is a major figure in Islam. Christians. It's like children, every day is a new world to them.

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