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cf38299
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Paul's breezy dismissal of the very foundation of Judaism was as shocking to the leaders of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem as it would have been to Jesus himself. After all, Jesus claimed to have come to fulfill the Law of Moses, not to abolish it.
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Reza Aslan |
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f3d2f6e
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Matthew implies that the kingdom belonging to the Son of Man is one and the same as the Kingdom of God. And since the Kingdom of God is built upon a complete reversal of the present order, wherein the poor become powerful and the meek are made mighty, what better king to rule over it on God's behalf than one who himself embodies the new social order flipped on its head? A peasant king. A king with no place to lay his head. A king who came t..
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Reza Aslan |
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49b00e4
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There is, however, one thing about which all the prophecies seem to agree: the messiah is a human being, not divine. The idea of a divine messiah is anathema to Judaism, which is why, without exception, every text in the Hebrew Bible dealing with the messiah presents him as performing his messianic functions on earth, not in heaven.)
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Reza Aslan |
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670a002
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Matthew has Jesus flee to Egypt to escape Herod's massacre not because it happened, but because it fulfills the words of the prophet Hosea: "Out of Egypt I have called my son" (Hosea 11:1). The story is not meant to reveal any fact about Jesus; it is meant to reveal this truth: that Jesus is the new Moses, who survived Pharaoh's massacre of the Israelites' sons, and emerged from Egypt with a new law from God (Exodus 1:22)."
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Reza Aslan |
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9192167
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Luke places Jesus's birth in Bethlehem not because it took place there, but because of the words of the prophet Micah: "And you Bethlehem ... from you shall come to me a ruler in Israel" (Micah 5:2)."
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Reza Aslan |
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e78b4c2
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Unlike their brethren in the Holy Land, Diaspora Jews spoke Greek, not Aramaic: Greek was the language of their thought process, the language of their worship.
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jews
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Reza Aslan |
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bf01d57
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So identified was Jesus with Nazareth that he was known throughout his life simply as "the Nazarean." Considering how common a first name Jesus was, the city of his birth became his principal sobriquet." --
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Reza Aslan |
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0041a22
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As with everything else in the gospels, the story of Jesus's arrest, trial, and execution was written for one reason and one reason only: to prove that he was the promised messiah. Factual accuracy was irrelevant. What mattered was Christology, not history.
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Reza Aslan |
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c586edf
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There would be no more record of who was rich and who was poor. Everyone in this new and divinely inspired world order would begin anew.
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Reza Aslan |
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19ab8d2
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In first-century Palestine, nearly every claimant to the mantle of the messiah neatly fit one of these messianic paradigms. Hezekiah the bandit chief, Judas the Galilean, Simon of Peraea, and Athronges the shepherd all modeled themselves after the Davidic ideal, as did Menahem and Simon son of Giora during the Jewish War. These were king-messiahs whose royal aspirations were clearly defined in their revolutionary actions against Rome and it..
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Reza Aslan |
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b7645a2
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Obviously James did not himself write the epistle; he was, like his brother Jesus and most of the apostles, an illiterate peasant with no formal education. James's epistle was probably written by someone from within his inner circle. Again, that is true of almost every book in the New Testament, including the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and John, as well as a good number of Paul's letters (Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timot..
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Reza Aslan |
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da5a7cf
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The two men's roles had to be reversed: Jesus had to be made superior, John inferior. Hence the steady regression of John's character from the first gospel, Mark--wherein he is presented as a prophet and mentor to Jesus--to the last gospel, John, in which the Baptist seems to serve no purpose at all except to acknowledge Jesus's divinity.
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Reza Aslan |
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01072e9
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The great Christian theologian Rudolf Bultmann liked to say that the quest for the historical Jesus is ultimately an internal quest. Scholars tend to see the Jesus they want to see. Too often they see themselves--their own reflection--in the image of Jesus they have constructed.
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Reza Aslan |
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9f25c23
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It was standard Roman policy to forge alliances with the landed aristocracy in every captured city, making them dependent on the Roman overlords for their power and wealth. By aligning their interests with those of the ruling class, Rome ensured that local leaders remained wholly vested in maintaining the imperial system
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Reza Aslan |
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ea4121d
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Of course, in Jerusalem, "landed aristocracy" more or less meant the priestly class, and specifically, that handful of wealthy priestly families who maintained the Temple and who, as a result, were charged by Rome with collecting the taxes and tribute and keeping order among the increasingly restive population--tasks for which they were richly compensated."
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Reza Aslan |
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e6868e5
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The first century was an era of apocalyptic expectation among the Jews of Palestine, the unofficial Roman designation for the vast tract of land encompassing modern day Israel/Palestine as well as large parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon (the land would not be officially called Palestine until after 135 C.E.)
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jesus
palestine
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Reza Aslan |
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beb8b89
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under a practice called evocatio, the Romans would take possession of an enemy's temple--and therefore its god, for the two were inextricable in the ancient world--and transfer it to Rome, where it would be showered with riches and lavish sacrifices. Such displays were meant to send a clear signal that the hostilities were directed not toward the enemy's god but toward its fighters; the god would continue to be honored and worshipped in Rom..
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Reza Aslan |
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eeff913
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The Romans may not have understood the Jewish religion, with its strange observances and its overwhelming obsession with ritual purity--"The Jews regard as profane all that we hold sacred," Tacitus wrote, "while they permit all that we abhor"--but they nevertheless tolerated it."
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Reza Aslan |
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81f457a
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What most puzzled Rome about the Jews was not their unfamiliar rites or their strict devotion to their laws, but rather what the Romans considered to be their unfathomable sense of superiority. The notion that an insignificant Semitic tribe residing in a distant corner of the mighty Roman Empire demanded, and indeed received, special treatment from the emperor was, for many Romans, simply incomprehensible.
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Reza Aslan |
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c6ce8ac
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As noted, naming a book after someone significant was a common way of honoring that person and reflecting his views.
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Reza Aslan |
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d1ad752
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What the Romans could not understand was that this Jewish exceptionalism was not a matter of arrogance or pride. It was a direct commandment from a jealous God who tolerated no foreign presence in the land he had set aside for his chosen people. That is why, when the Jews first came to this land a thousand years earlier, God had decreed that they massacre every man, woman, and child they encountered, that they slaughter every ox, goat, and ..
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Reza Aslan |
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792a459
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The overwhelming consensus is that the traditions contained within the epistle can confidently be traced to James the Just. That would make James's epistle arguably one of the most important books in the New Testament. Because one sure way of uncovering what Jesus may have believed is to determine what his brother James believed.
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Reza Aslan |
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c03c9d5
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As for the high priest--the wretch who betrayed God's chosen people to Rome for some coin and the right to prance about in his spangled garments? His very existence was an insult to God. It was a blight upon the entire land. It had to be wiped away.
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Reza Aslan |
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a4384c8
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As with everything else in the gospels, the story of Jesus's arrest, trial, and execution was written for one reason and one reason only: to prove that he was the promised messiah. Factual accuracy was irrelevant. What mattered was Christology, not history. The gospel writers obviously recognized how integral Jesus's death was to the nascent community, but the story of that death needed elaborating. It needed to be slowed down and refocused..
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Reza Aslan |
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8387f24
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As Jesus's ministry expanded, becoming ever more urgent and confrontational, his words and actions would increasingly reflect a deep antagonism toward the high priest and the Judean religious establishment, who, in Jesus's words, loved "to prance around in long robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts." "They devour the homes of widows and make lon..
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Reza Aslan |
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c989d39
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A similar lack of concern about Jesus's earthly origins can be found in the first gospel, Mark, written just after 70 C.E. Mark's focus is kept squarely on Jesus's ministry; he is uninterested either in Jesus's birth or, perhaps surprisingly, in Jesus's resurrection, as he writes nothing at all about either event. The early Christian community appears not to have been particularly concerned about any aspect of Jesus's life before the launch..
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Reza Aslan |
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7ef96a7
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The Roman Senate determined that the most effective way to retake Jerusalem from Parthian control was to make Herod its client-king and let him accomplish the task on Rome's behalf. The naming of client-kings was standard practice during the early years of the Roman Empire, allowing Rome to expand its borders without expending valuable resources administering conquered provinces directly.
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Reza Aslan |
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2622088
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Paul may be an excellent source for those interested in the early formation of Christianity, but he is a poor guide for uncovering the historical Jesus.
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bible
christianity
jesus
paul
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Reza Aslan |
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76c3aab
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Luke would have had no idea what we in the modern world even mean when we say the word "history." The notion of history as a critical analysis of observable and verifiable events in the past is a product of the modern age; it would have been an altogether foreign concept to the gospel writers for whom history was not a matter of uncovering facts, but of revealing truths."
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Reza Aslan |
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107dff0
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Herod did a masterful job of maintaining order on behalf of Rome. His reign ushered in an era of political stability among the Jews that had not been seen for centuries. He initiated a monumental building and public works project that employed tens of thousands of peasants and day laborers, permanently changing the physical landscape of Jerusalem. He built markets and theaters, palaces and ports, all modeled on the classical Hellenic style.
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Reza Aslan |
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605d130
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That actually is true of most of the books in the New Testament. Such so-called pseudepigraphical works, or works attributed to but not written by a specific author, were extremely common in the ancient world and should by no means be thought of as forgeries.
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Reza Aslan |
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50fefe7
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Herod was not just the emperor's client-king. He was a close and personal friend, a loyal citizen of the Republic who wanted more than to emulate Rome; he wanted to remake it in the sands of Judea. He instituted a forced Hellenization program upon the Jews, bringing gymnasia, Greek amphitheaters, and Roman baths to Jerusalem. He made Greek the language of his court and minted coins bearing Greek letters and paga
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Reza Aslan |
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490371f
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Naming a book after a person was a standard way of reflecting that person's beliefs or representing his or her school of thought.
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Reza Aslan |
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735091b
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The itinerant preacher wandering from village to village clamoring about the end of the world, a band of ragged followers trailing behind, was a common sight in Jesus's time--so common, in fact, that it had become a kind of caricature among the Roman elite. In a farcical passage about just such a figure, the Greek philosopher Celsus imagines a Jewish holy man roaming the Galilean countryside, shouting to no one in particular: "I am God, or ..
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Reza Aslan |
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defae15
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Six days a week, from sunup to sundown, Jesus would have toiled in the royal city, building palatial houses for the Jewish aristocracy during the day, returning to his crumbling mud-brick home at night. He would have witnessed for himself the rapidly expanding divide between the absurdly rich and the indebted poor. He
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Reza Aslan |
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435e52f
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Matthew needs Jesus to come out of Egypt for the same reason he needs him to be born in Bethlehem: to fulfill the scattered prophecies left behind by his ancestors for him and his fellow Jews to decipher, to place Jesus in the footsteps of the kings and prophets who came before him, and, most of all, to answer the challenge made by Jesus's detractors that this simple peasant who died without fulfilling the single most important of the messi..
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Reza Aslan |
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8d95ca9
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Three centuries of early Christian and Jewish documentation, not to mention the nearly unanimous opinion of contemporary scholars, recognize James the brother of Jesus as the head of the first Christian community.... Why then has James been almost wholly excised from the New Testament and his role in the early church displaced by Peter and Paul in the imaginations of most modern Christians?
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Reza Aslan |
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f972e01
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One would think that Jesus's admonishment not to teach others to break the Law of Moses would have had some impact on Paul. But Paul seems totally unconcerned with anything "Jesus-in-the-flesh" may or may not have said. In fact, Paul shows no interest at all in the historical Jesus. There is almost no trace of Jesus of Nazareth in any of his letters. With the exception of the crucifixion and the Last Supper, which he transforms from a narra..
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Reza Aslan |
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1171177
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Matthew and Luke also relied on what must have been an early and fairly well distributed collection of Jesus's sayings that scholars have termed Q (German for Quelle, or "source"). Although we no longer have any physical copies of this document, we can infer its contents by compiling those verses that Matthew and Luke share in common but that do not appear in Mark."
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Reza Aslan |
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4a43400
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This is an extremely difficult matter for modern readers of the gospels to grasp, but Luke never meant for his story about Jesus's birth at Bethlehem to be understood as historical fact. Luke would have had no idea what we in the modern world even mean when we say the word "history." The notion of history as a critical analysis of observable and verifiable events in the past is a product of the modern age; it would have been an altogether f..
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history
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Reza Aslan |
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8cedf3a
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Together, these three gospels--Mark, Matthew, and Luke--became known as the Synoptics (Greek for "viewed together") because they more or less present a common narrative and chronology about the life and ministry of Jesus, one that is greatly at odds with the fourth gospel, John, which was likely written soon after the close of the first century, between 100 and 120 C.E."
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Reza Aslan |
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03d61b1
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The readers of Luke's gospel, like most people in the ancient world, did not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality; the two were intimately tied together in their spiritual experience. That is to say, they were less interested in what actually happened than in what it meant.
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Reza Aslan |
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988a571
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Mark's focus is kept squarely on Jesus's ministry; he is uninterested either in Jesus's birth or, perhaps surprisingly, in Jesus's resurrection, as he writes nothing at all about either event.
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Reza Aslan |
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4d57ef8
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Crucifixion was a widespread and exceedingly common form of execution in antiquity, one used by Persians, Indians, Assyrians, Scythians, Romans, and Greeks. Even the Jews practiced crucifixion; the punishment is mentioned numerous times in rabbinic sources. The reason crucifixion was so common is because it was so cheap. It could be carried out almost anywhere; all one needed was a tree. The torture could last for days without the need for ..
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Reza Aslan |