Reza Aslan

La versione originale inglese di questo libro lo definisce “zealot”, quella italiana lo chiama “ribelle”. Il dizionario inglese, a dire il vero, offre una lunga sfilza di sinonimi del tipo “fanatico, entusiasta, estremista, radicale, attivista, militante, bigotto, dommatico, settario, partigiano, infido, maniaco”. Non mi pare che facciano giustizia a quella importante “figura storica” che si chiama Gesù. Una “giustizia” di tipo, ovviamente, terreno e poco religiosa.

Il show more libro l’ho letto in inglese, mi propongo di trovare l’edizione italiana per meglio contestualizzare le cose di cui parla. E’ costato all’autore due decenni di lavoro, un autorevole e rispettabile esperto studioso arabo iraniano di storia delle religioni. Il libro è stato pubblicato negli Usa e in Inghilterra nel 2013. Me lo sono trovato tra le mani in questi giorni prenatalizi di fine anno, non ricordo bene cosa mi spinse a comprarlo da Amazon.

L’ho ritrovato dietro una siepe di altri libri, mi è parso opportuno affrontare la lettura in questo contesto quanto mai appropriato. Diviso in tre parti, quindici capitoli, tre prologhi ed una introduzione, con oltre cento pagine di note ed una ricca bibliografia, il lavoro è ineccepibile da un punto di vista strettamente documentario. Risponde in maniera egregia alle canoniche domande che cerco sempre di assegnare alla affidabilità di un libro.

Reza Aslan si propone di dare una risposta a “chi” era l’uomo chiamato Gesù, “cosa” si proponeva, “quando” apparve sulla scena del mondo del suo tempo, “dove” fece sentire la sua presenza, e “perchè” la sua vita ebbe un senso. Un impegno molto forte quello di Aslan. Sono migliaia le recensioni disponibili su GoodReads e altri siti di libri, punti di vista che aiutano chi vuole dare un senso alle sue letture. Aslan ha dato alla sua ricerca uno stile quanto mai contestualizzato. Il suo sistema di lavoro ha un approccio molto diverso al problema interpretativo dei canonici testi sacri biblici. Per lui ha poco interesse la storia dell’individuo chiamato Gesù ed i suoi attributi teologici.

Ciò che conta per Aslan è il contesto: la politica, la sociologia, l’amministrazione governativa e la cultura dei tempi, prima, durante e dopo la breve vita di Gesù. Mettendo insieme ciò che sappiamo di questo contesto, con la conoscenza storica molto limitata di Gesù e le prime interpretazioni teologiche della sua vita, Aslan crea una storia molto leggibile, molto moderna e coerente sull’Uomo e la sua missione.

Chi crede, ovviamente, può non accettare questo sistema di lavoro. L’esegesi di Aslan è professionale, sempre rispettosa ed inoffensiva da riuscire a spiegare tanto, sia della teologia che della storia di Gesù, facendo riferimento a eventi, condizioni e motivi che sono del tutto indipendente da lui, dai suoi seguaci e dai suoi avversari. La storia raccontata da Aslan incorpora contraddizioni bibliche, non-sequitur e anche molto spesso l’impossibilità assoluta di una narrazione coerente.

Una minaccia questa per la quale chi crede e legge fideisticamente può provare irritazione. Sulla vera identità dell’uomo Gesù continua a cadere il velo del mistero, che rimane tale e che solo la fede può disvelare. In un mondo tanto diverso oggi dai tempi in cui visse Gesù detto il Nazareno, pensare a un Dio Creatore che manda suo figlio su un pianeta chiamato Terra per una missione che rimane (im)possibile, (dipende dai punti di vista), collocato in un universo fatto da tanti infiniti universi, rimane un racconto quanto mai avvincente. Ecco come Reza Aslan conclude il suo libro:

Duemila anni dopo, la creazione del Cristo di Paolo ha completamente assorbito il Gesù della storia. Il ricordo del fanatico rivoluzionario che attraversò la Galilea radunando un esercito di discepoli con l’obiettivo di stabilire il Regno di Dio sulla terra, il predicatore magnetico che sfidò l’autorità dei sacerdoti del Tempio a Gerusalemme, il nazionalista ebreo radicale che sfidò l’occupazione romana e perse, è stato quasi completamente perduto nella storia. Peccato. Perché l’unica cosa che ogni studio completo del Gesù storico dovrebbe rivelare, io credo, è che Gesù di Nazareth, Gesù l’uomo, è altrettanto avvincente, carismatico e degno di lode come Gesù il Cristo. In breve, è qualcuno in cui vale la pena credere. show less

Zealot has come to most people's attention, I would imagine, because of the kerfuffle over that shockingly ignorant interview which Fox News inflicted on the book's author—to be honest, I picked it up because of that, as I'm an atheist who's also a historian of religion. However, the text is well worth reading on its own merits. Aslan sets out to write a historical account not of Jesus the Christ, the literary-theological figure of the Christian Bible, but rather of Jesus of Nazareth, the show more historical figure who was shaped by the political, social and economic contexts of early first century Palestine. This is not a book designed to comfort the biblical literalist. The Jesus about whom Aslan writes is no pacifist who sets out to preach a message of universal love to all nations, but a fiery Jewish nationalist who preached social revolution and aimed to become king. Indeed, one finishes the book with the unmistakable impression that Christianity as we know it has, in fact, very little to do with the historical Jesus. The religion which splintered off from Judaism towards the end of the first century CE was shaped as much, if not more, by the prevailing political conditions, the thought of Paul of Tarsus, and the need to convert gentiles; its theology is something which would have been shocking to most early Christians.

Aslan's evocation of the turbulent world into which Jesus was born, and his discussion of the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist (which addressed some issues which have niggled at me vaguely since childhood!) are probably the best aspects of the book. There are times, though, where I felt he pushed things a little far—because X condition existed in ancient Palestine, Jesus must have, etc. That's shaky historical ground. I also wish that Aslan had incorporated more of the historiographical debate/methodological argument into the book—much as he argues for us to disregard the Gospels as a historical source, for example, there are times when he does just that. Either he's being inconsistent, or he's making judgement calls based on diplomatics technical enough that its discussion is beyond the book's scope, and there are no footnotes to allow the reader to easily track down the surrounding literature. A lack of footnotes to the scholarly debate also makes me suspect that there are times when Aslan presents as fact things which are hot topics of discussion still—certainly I know just enough about the period that his characterisation of the Council of Nicea made my eyebrows rise. There is a lengthy appendix with notes, but as they are not referenced from within the text proper, it makes the notes more difficult to reference. (Dear publishers, I wish you'd stop with the vendetta against footnotes! They are useful things.)

These reservations aside, I think that Zealot is a short, snappy introduction to the topic—one which provides, while certainly not the definitive word on the historicity of Jesus, an accessible and provocative account of what was definitely a remarkable life. show less

All through my religious studies in college and in my post-college years, I tried to understand the contradictions in the biblical writings about Jesus.

How does one reconcile the political Jesus and the spiritual Jesus? The gentle Jesus and the fierce Jesus? How was Jesus really perceived both by his own community and by the Roman Empire? And how on Earth did Rome go from crucifying Jesus to making the faith of his followers the state religion?

Aslan's book takes after these questions through show more a focus on discovering as best one can the historical Jesus, and then placing this man in the context of his time, place, and culture. After Jesus' execution, Aslan explores the teachings of Jesus' followers in much the same way, looking both at historical documents from the time and at the canonical writings about Jesus.

Separating Jesus of Nazareth---the historical Jesus, about whom very little is known, from Jesus the Christ---the religious figure based primarily on texts written well after Jesus' life and around whom a worldwide religion sprang, Aslan provides the most thorough answers to these questions that I've encountered. He presents a picture of a man whose goal was to turn his own culture and religion on its head, eliminating the stark separation that existed between rich and poor. He stood up to power to try and help the poor, and this action alone---not the declaration that he was a divine being in human form---was enough to have him executed.

Particularly interesting to me was the story of the schism that formed between Jesus' brother James along with the other people who knew Jesus during his lifetime and saw Christianity as a branch of Judaism rather than a religion in itself, and Paul and his followers, who never knew Jesus the man and showed essentially no interest in Jesus as a person. This alone explains a lot of the contradictions that exist about Jesus in the Bible.

As a person raised in a nominally Christian but non-observant household who learned most of what I know about Christianity through scholarly study, I found Zealot engrossing and eye-opening. It presents a well-rounded portrait of the historical Jesus as a man worthy of admiration for his courage in standing up to the established order of both Jewish Temple culture and the rule of the Roman Empire. It's amazing to think that this one messiah and healer among many others who came before and after him, this one man executed for sedition among hundreds of others, was the inspiration for a religion that's continued for 2,000 years. show less

Let me preface this review with a few considerations – because I know how passionately many feel about their religious convictions, and I do not want to offend with my personal thoughts on this absolutely incredible, truly thought-provoking, and possibly life-altering book. First, I was raised Catholic, and come from a very devout family. My paternal grandmother knew the Bible better than God. Both of my parents were devoted; we went to Mass every weekend. And for a time, I was devout. show more Then, during my college and early adulthood years, I started losing belief in the Catholic faith for a multitude of reasons. By the time I turned 21, I was more than lapsed; I was borderline atheist.

And with that loss of faith, I found myself poking holes as it were in my former religious doctrine. Very similarly to a child who learns Santa Claus isn’t real, and all those questions that had answers rooted in magic now become difficult (and impossible) to answer with logic. How does Santa make it to every house all around the world in one night? How does he get in and out of homes without chimneys and fireplaces? How do reindeer fly?

I started asking those types of questions about Catholic dogma.

And those questions prompted an interest in the historical Jesus. Not the Jesus of the Gospels and the New Testament. The one who raised Lazarus from the dead, walked on water, died on a cross and rose from the dead three days later. I was raised on that Jesus, and knew him intimately. No, I wanted to know the man who lived, breathed, and walked the ancient Holy Land during the Roman occupation. The son of a carpenter who preached a new message to the disenfranchised Jews. What kind of archaeological evidence exists to support that Jesus was a real historic figure? What was Jesus’ life really like? And how much of the historic Jesus differs from the Jesus brought to us through the Bible? It has been so difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to separate the Jesus of history from Jesus Christ of the Bible.

But that is what Aslan does in this extraordinary book. He peels back the religious connotations of Jesus and drills down to the historic figure. The Jesus of Nazareth as Aslan distinguishes him from the Jesus of Christ, or the divine figure modern Christians worship. And from page 1, where Aslan details the assassination of a high priest of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by a rising religious sect known as the Zealots, through the Epilogue, where Aslan laments the loss of the historical Jesus to the modern interpretation of Jesus Christ, every page in Zealot is an eye-opener.

The book itself is divided into three parts: the first approaches the historical environment, and life in the Holy Land in the 1st century CE when it was a province of the Roman Empire. Who were the figures? What were their roles? What was the culture? Those are questions Aslan addresses. The second studies Jesus of Nazareth through the lens of this historic context, and through contemporary sources that illuminate Jesus’ associates, such as John the Baptist. Where did Jesus fit into the religious revolution of his time? What was his relationship to fellow preachers and leaders? What and who inspired his teachings? Why was he crucified from the Roman perspective? The final section looks at how the historical Jesus was shaped and molded into Jesus Christ by his early followers in the first few centuries following his execution. We meet Paul, Peter, James, and others who had direct influence and impact on the development of Jesus as a divine figure, and a founder of a whole new religious movement.

I cannot express how truly informative and enlightening this book was. It has answered so many questions I have about the historical Jesus since my days of disappearing faith, but it has raised so many new ones for me too. Not questions about Jesus per se – Aslan is incredible in his detail and context; you feel like you are right there in the ancient Holy Land, walking alongside this revolutionary preacher – but rather questions about faith and belief. Aslan is very explicit in his approach to this topic; he does not in any way, shape, or form, try to discredit Christian dogma or attempt to answer questions about Jesus’ divinity. Aslan’s purpose is to find the real person behind the Son of God. So, he does not say Jesus did or did not raise Lazarus from the dead; he did or did not walk on water; and he did or did not rise himself from the dead three days after his execution. Those questions he leaves to his readers to answer for themselves.

But by contextualizing Jesus in his historic environment, and placing Jesus in with his ancient Jewish contemporaries, questions I had long buried about my own faith bubbled to the surface. Maybe that is why I loved this book so much. I like to think that I can identify books I enjoy based on factors other than personal resonance, like writing technique, storytelling, etc… And I do think Aslan is an exemplary writer. His ability to tell history in the form of a narrative, to make it feel like a story, is beyond compare. I would recommend Zealot to anyone interested in the historical Jesus or the life and times of 1st century CE Jerusalem without hesitation. But I also think this book touched chords in me that it might not in other readers because of my own personal experiences with Catholicism and the Jesus of Christ.

I can guarantee this, however: if you do read Zealot and you absorb what Aslan has so beautifully put to paper, you will walk away with a new cognizance of Jesus. A whole new way of understanding him. As Aslan himself says, “the historical Jesus is just as much a person to admire as the Jesus of Christ.” True dat, my friend. True dat. show less