Anybody have any opinion on this?
I think Mr Aslan’s points make a lot of sense, but then again, I’ve always believed that the mythology surrounding Jesus was heavily influenced by Eastern beliefs…
I wonder what you mean by this. By Eastern, do you mean India/China and the like?
well…wasn’t there an issue about the’ lost decades’ of jesus where it is thought that he spent his youth(?) in India?
I’m not going to say I outright disagree with Aslan, but I definitely don’t agree either. His big defense seems to be that “the gospels aren’t factual.” That’s hardly an argument, and the fact he claims that first and foremost tells me he doesn’t really have a good argument at all.
Plus I mean, son of God or not, for somebody to command such a following as Jesus did clearly shows he was someone special so we can pretty easily lump him in with the 2% that somehow learned how to read along the way.
Yes. Especially when you drill down to the core idea of Christianity - that Jesus is God in the flesh. This god incarnate then goes on to perform miracles in front of the eyes of the bad guys or doubters. Such an account sounds far more like Hindu concepts of a deity in human form than Abrahamic notions of the deity. There are other common ideas too…such as modern Christian concepts of a personal relationship with Jesus sound far more like Hindu devotional concepts rather than Islamic or Jewish. The core idea of incarnation is pretty striking IMO compard to Jewish and Islamic views of God.
The whole “Jesus was a revolutionary” thing has been done many times beforel, and has been pretty soundly stepped on in the Jesus Studies (yes, there’s an academic area titled this) world. I think NT Wright had a fair bit to say about it (and debunked it pretty well.
Aslan argues that it’s unlikely that the son of a carpenter would be able to read is unlikely.
However, him being the Son of God is also unlikely.
I thought he was good the last time he was on the Daily Show, but I don’t know much else about the latest book beyond what he said then.
The son of a carpenter not being able to read in Jesus’ time: highly probable.
The son of God not being able to read in Jesus’ time: highly improbable.
So I guess it depends on your point of view.
I wonder where Mr. Aslan gets his information. As far as I know, the most authoritative accounts of the life of Jesus is in the Gospels. The people who wrote them were either actual eyewitnesses of the accounts or in the case of Luke, got their information from actual eyewitnesses.
If there are other authoritative references to Jesus outside the Gospels, I don’t know about them.
Given that the earliest manuscripts of the Gospels that contain this info date a few hundred years after death of Jesus, how can you pin down who said what?
Btw, same issue arises in Islam, most of these texts were organized after M’s death.
The funny thing here is that the core ideas of christianity were dreamt up by a franciscan monk hundreds of years after jesus supposedly died…weird how feverish dreams that visit isolated monks at night would become canon,this is especially true when you consider how the equally frantic utterings of your religious-nut-neighbour on public transport repel other passengers…it must be terrifcally difficult to determine when/where in which gospels metaphors stop and historical facts start (if any)…apparently there was a time when gospels were so varied that some spoke of jesus killing and committing other bad deeds…imagine if those had become the chosen stories,how the landscape would have changed…in any case Aslan does not really provide anything groundbreaking as per the book reviews…i am still sticking with the old idea of jesus being a sociopolitical force (embellished with poetic flourishes) trying to overturn roman rule.
What? St. Francis is from late in the 12th century. The “core ideas of Christianity” were well established by then, even if perhaps few people actually lived up to them.
The Council of Nicea is the body that drew up the “official” doctrine of Christianity (hence the Nicene Creed) for the Emperor Constantine and decided on what writings would go into the New Testament. That was in 325. Up to then, each community practiced a version of Christianity based on what local leaders interpreted and thought was good. There were other Gospels, such as the Gnostic Gospels, that claimed to cover other aspects of Jesus, but which were not included in the Roman Catholic doctrine established at Nicea.
The Gospels were supposedly writen by people who knew Jesus (as Greenman said), but it was also written long long after His death and ascension (if you believe that ressurection actually happened). Think about how well you remember things that happened years ago. You probably think you remember a lot of stuff, but you get details wrong unless you are reminded of them. Of course, you can argue that they were divinely inspired so they had perfect recollections, but you can say that about anyone you like.
Keep in mind Constantine was not a Christian, and primarily motivated by using Christianity to maintain his authority, a benign religion would serve his interests.
I think you need to back up that statement with facts, or at least more detail. How did existing religion pose a threat to his interests, or how did Christianity’s benign-ness help them? And why do you conclude that this was his “primary” motivation, rather than just some convenient aspects about it.
The Council of Nicea was - according to the histories I read - primarily about creating a doctrine so that religious squabbles over what Jesus meant did not constantly have to get arbitrated by the Emperor himself. That is admittedly an interpretation, but I find it a very plausible one.
As far as I understood, Constantine became a believer (and effectively a Christian) at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. He didn’t actually get baptized until shortly before his death, but this was more because baptism supposedly washes away all previous sins, so he didn’t do it earlier primarily so as not to have to pay for sins committed before baptism.
oops thanks for the correction there! it was Tertullian who first put the idea of trinitarianism into the form peeps recognise today and he lived around 2nd -3rd century
I’m having trouble making sense of this. I did some fancy Bayesian math, but it basically came down to the idea that you simply believe the son of God was literate.
so he is both literate and illiterate at the same time then ?..schroedingers jesus.
There are speculations that Jesus travelled to Asia (i think India) in his youth, think about it, the bible says very little about his teenage life, it’s like from a child and boom he’s 30.
Although, i am not trying to create a stir here, i think Jesus was a celebrity 2000 years ago, kind of like Johnny Depp, where he took on many different characters but oh so charismatic that people believe (or want to beleive) all the things he did in his roles… which explains his “fan club” and his following if you know what i mean.
just something i always believed in.
^Jesus may have traveled to Asia as a youngster, but there’s no Biblical basis for that. And I doubt that there is any other basis for it either, other than just pure conjecture. I think it’s highly unlikely that a poor son of a carpenter from Nazareth would have just jetted off to Delhi on a vacay.
Yeah…the Jesus in India thing…yeah I doubt that, but I do think there is significant Indic influence on the development of Christianity.