Tonight I will finish Anthony Le Donne’s The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals, so hopefully I’ll have a review of the book ready by tomorrow, but tonight I want to say one thing: there is something wrong when Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life of Times of Jesus of Nazareth and Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus: A History will have sold more copies than this book by year’s end. Le Donne’s writing is scholarly, yet readable. He is honest, as objective as possible, careful with the facts, and cautious with speculation. If either Aslan or O’Reilly had been any of these things their books wouldn’t exist.
For anyone aiming to make their studies of the historical Jesus, or early Christianity, or early Judaism accessible to the public without compromising the need for rigorous research I think this book can serve as a model. People who read it will be introduced with necessary levelheadedness to things that the media enjoys sensationalizing, such as The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, Morton Smith’s Secret Gospel of Mark, The Da Vinci Code, and those Gospels that were not canonized (e.g., Gospel of Peter, Thomas).
I will have more to say about this book when I do a full review, but I did want to gripe a bit about how pseudo-scholarship has presented Jesus in the public square in juxtaposition with a book written by a clear thinking, detail oriented scholar who knows how to connect historical Jesus studies to everything from lyrics from Dave Matthew’s Band, to popular novels and movies, to famous works of art. We need more books like Le Donne’s and less like the sort that have made their way to the top of the New York Times Best Sellers List.
FYI: Christopher Skinner has written his review already, so make sure to read it.
the archives near Emmaus 
I just finished “Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism” and one of the general themes of the book was that Evangelicals frequently choose popular and less accurate but things that meet the previously understood myth instead of the good, academically accurate content that is also quite available.
I think that may be an Evangelical thing because Evangelicals are often American and it’s an American thing!
I think you are right. One of the things that was best about Crisis of Authority was placing evangelicals in context of what was going on in America and making it less about the Evangelicals and more about what was going on generally in the US.
I still think we should have a major push to get Le Donne on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report.
Brian, I agree with you “in spirit” on this… That is, the sad state of what gets published and then rises to top popularity levels in many, many cases. I happen to be real suspicious of O’Reilly’s book, not from specific content (which I’ve not seen) but from how I’ve heard him speak of it in fair detail, how it was written, the need to say attention-getting things, etc. I gather even his co-writer is nothing close to a religious scholar, let alone a specialist on the NT or historical Jesus.
But I think lumping his book and Aslan’s together is a disservice to the latter, which I HAVE read (just finished and started re-reading parts, as I intend to review it on my blog in the next couple days). I realize there’s been controversy over Aslan’s credentials, how he’s billed himself and such… not enough knowledge to criticize OR defend him there. But I do think he has both enough pertinent formal education, including apparently strong knowledge of NT Greek at least (don’t know about Hebrew or Aramaic), AND seems to have taken a truly scholarly approach in his specific research for this book, which has long been planned from one remark early in the book. E.g., I found his notes, though confusingly not numbered, to reflect a deep interaction with many and widely varying sources. I noted he gets some slams on 1-star reviews on Amazon that are not at all deserved, specifically on that point, though the style is certainly not the usual or best.
Yes, Aslan sometimes come across as more certain than I think one can be on various points, but he does so, at least in most cases I noted, with extensive knowledge of pertinent data and the range of views differing from his, and often exactly who takes them and why… clearly the work of a pretty thorough scholar, not just a wild “imaginer”.
@Joshua:
That’s a great idea, but how does one do that?! Twitter campaign?
@Howard:
I’ll have to simply disagree with you here. Every review of Aslan by scholars in the field of historical Jesus studies has exposed it as being something other than what Aslan claims it to be. It seems that the overall consensus has been, “Nice novel, but this isn’t the work of a historian.” Aslan may have more credentials than O’Reilly, but not enough to pass off his book as he did. On the other hand, Le Donne’s work is specifically historical Jesus studies, he even is the editor for the scholarly journal on historical Jesus studies, and contra Aslan he makes an effort to try to parse our modern fascination with Jesus from what we can know using the stricter criteria implemented by historians, something neither Aslan nor O’Reilly could do if their book was to sell.
The good news is Aslan and O’Reilly have the public thinking about Jesus again. The bad news is that in spite of whatever strengths either author might display, their books do not deserve as much attention as those written by people like Le Done who have given their lives to this field of study, yet there is little chance Le Donne’s book will sell as much as theirs.
Reblogged this on James’ Ramblings.
@ Brian:
Ok, I’ll move “back” part way, toward a potential “meeting” somewhere in the middle (it doesn’t matter much if we agree on that meeting place… we probably won’t). The difference that may remain may well lie in whether we take the Gospels/Acts as overall reliable reporting of actual events, reflecting at least the historical occurrence and gist of ALL the sayings, teachings, etc., as well as the actions. I’m sure I’m much closer to Aslan’s viewpoint re. that than you are. However, I would agree that he sometimes makes absolute declarations where they are not warranted… that he (like any of us taking a similar overall stance toward the Gospels) faces the near-impossible task, with attendant criticisms, of determining WHICH aspects of the Gospel stories to take as basically historical and which to either hold suspicious or reject. But, to me, facing that is our only real option. And the many ambiguities within the Gospels, even for literalists basically rejecting the historical-critical method and any of its “findings”, are a major reason we continue to get so many, and widely varying, books on Jesus.
So I’m sure some of the historian reviewers object on the basis of Aslan’s overconfidence (or worse), but I imagine they are also subconsciously influenced, if not consciously, by the “cinematic” style of Aslan’s presentation… it IS structured and styled as if to convert, at least in parts, straight to a film. Maybe novel-like is more often the comparison… I haven’t read many reviews of the book and I don’t read enough novels to fairly judge that. But I do NOT find that Aslan takes just a few threads and proceeds to develop a complex identity for Jesus that is widely afield from the picture in the Gospels. And what my review will praise him for, as to both good research (if a bit on the fringe of his broad professional field of “religions”) and good education is how he explores and describes the overall life and political/economic situation of first century Palestine. I’ve read a fair amount about that and knew at least a fair amount about the specific tensions and some of the individual rebellion leaders, some claiming messiah status, some not. But he provides a lot of details (beyond my familiarity) that are readable and easy to follow and which provide important background for understanding the NT and the origins of Christianity (particularly around apocalypticism, although he doesn’t develop this aspect in any depth). I believe this information, unless otherwise specified, is mostly a summary of Josephus’ works, as few other sources exist with any detail, including very little in the NT…. The unfortunate (at least for scholars) notation style makes this hard to determine at many points. While other books may cover this background in general, I’m not personally aware of another mainly popular-level one that gives as thorough a recounting.
So that connects to my main “defense” of “Zealot”: that it is adequately loyal to “facts”, as closely as we can reasonably ascertain them from ancient sources, that it serves a strong, positive service in educating people on the milieu of the first century in Israel. And more specifically, about the dynamics leading to and resulting from the crucial “game-changing” war of 66-70. So I see its role as deeper and more of a contribution than merely getting people talking again about Jesus. As I see it, his conclusions about Jesus are indeed, as I’m aware of at least a few well-educated or scholar reviewers saying, “nothing new”. But the very subtitle: “The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” clues us that exactly who Jesus was is not the only focus of the book, so the “nothing new” seems a bit beside the point as to the real purpose and value of the book.
@Howard:
I wouldn’t disagree that “getting people talking about Jesus” is a positive outcome. This isn’t something that bothers me. I am saying that if people are going to do so it would be nice if the premise wasn’t the fringe idea of Jesus as a “Zealot” that has been sidelined by all but a few scholars in the field over the last several decades. It seems to me that when an idea like this one gains this much attention and excitement the interest is not so much what we can know about Jesus from the perspective of a historian, but what new, novel, edgy idea about Jesus can be discussed because we are a TMZ-isn’t-all-that-different-from-CNN-anymore culture.
Your comment seems to be juxtaposing conservative Christianity with edgy iconoclasm. I don’t see why those two poles have to determine our discussion about the historical Jesus. Sure, ideologically I won’t be as close to Aslan as someone like yourself, I suppose, but even as someone who is a confessional Christian I am very hesitant when saying something about Jesus from a historical-critical perspective (e.g., I do believe Jesus is the Logos of God; I do not think a historian can address this, or that it can be proven by historical-critical means).
I don’t have much more to add to this discussion, but let me recommend Le Donne’s book if you or anyone plan on reading a book on the historical Jesus this year. It has been said that scholars of the historical Jesus need to learn how to say “I don’t know” more often (I believe it was Philip Jenkins who wrote this). Aslan and O’Reilly are popular because their books project the aura (and maybe it is more marketing than content, but it doesn’t seem so), “I do know and its a secret that has been hidden from everyone!” Le Donne’s book is far more levelheaded and cautious—like a work on the historical Jesus ought to be.
@ Brian:
I don’t recall you saying if you have read “Zealot” or not. If not, maybe you are getting a mis-impression from reviews. Even tho I have read it, pretty carefully, and just finished 2 days ago, I can’t say for sure how often or extensively Aslan makes this clear, but he certainly does: that Jesus CANNOT be stretched to claim he was a part of the “Zealot” party or organized faction of rebels. He emphasizes Jesus being only a small “z” zealot as in zealous for the righteous Kingdom of God. I WILL indeed look again, but my recollection is that he is pretty restrained re. any specific claims about whether or not Jesus intended to lead an active rebellion with use of force. In fact, it MAY be a fair criticism that he doesn’t develop adequately the possibilities of WHAT Jesus may have believed he could/should achieve in his coming to Jerusalem, somehow confronting at least the commercial exploitation of the outer Temple area, and doing that at least somewhat forcefully (per all the Gospels). Further, apparently also allowing or calling for SOME kind of self-defense (the “get swords/two are enough” comment) when he foresaw his arrest. Maybe that was intended as symbolic resistance… tough to make sense of it in any way that I’ve been able to see. But such incidents do seem to complicate the fully pacifist picture most Christians from conservative to liberal seem to hold to with little real observation of even the Gospel texts themselves. It seems Aslan IS out to bring some knowledge and reflection to this idealized picture. But I don’t see him proposing any extreme and clearly unsupportable picture of what Jesus, as an historical person, was about. He may be taking misleading advantage of the poorly-understood public perception of what a “zealot” or “Zealot” was.
I have now gone back in your blog to find and re-read Evans’ review you posted. I had at least skimmed it, well before reading the book, but not recalled much of it. He does site numerous points of either exaggeration, speculation or clear error by Alsan. The specific errors I had not been fully aware of, but they are sometimes things of very minor importance overall or in which Evans may be misunderstanding Aslan’s meaning (e.g., whether or not Sepphoris can rightly be said to be “a day’s walk” from Nazareth… granted, not if that is 8 hrs x 2 mph or so, but maybe “a day’s walk” to and back, with a full day’s work in the middle… cf. our earlier discussion, I think here, in which there was no known estimate among us of the distance of “a day’s walk”). So it does look a bit like Evans is trying to pile up “errors” as a form of discrediting beyond what may be deserved.
At any rate, as you say about Le Donne’s book (and I’m familiar and impressed with him from what I’ve seen, and WILL plan to read it), I’ll say that if you haven’t read “Zealot” I do think it’s important to do so. Not in expecting it to be persuasive. But, if nothing else, as a good experience, via overall historically accurate information, of getting immersed briefly in a setting which was much more volatile and violent than we tend to realize. This both in the days of Jesus and of the Apostles and early believers in Jerusalem and the vicinity, on up to Galilee. We DO tend to excise Jesus from his actual milieu and create an incomplete if not skewed picture as a result. And I don’t know of a better summary and popularization of much of Josephus, whose information is vital. If you or someone else does, I’m all ears.
@Howard:
No, I haven’t read Aslan’s book or O’Reilly’s, but neither do I aim to provide a point-by-point review (those reviews have been written and that is the benefit of reading reviews: it assists with time management). I am not saying that these books are free of value or accurate insight. That isn’t the point being made. What I am saying is this: if the public is going to trust someone to inform their understanding of Jesus I would like to see the public learn to trust scholars who work in this field. Aslan is a professor of creative writing. O’Reilly is a talk show host.
@ Brian:
In a limited way, I agree with your core point then, that “What I am saying is this: if the public is going to trust someone to inform their understanding of Jesus I would like to see the public learn to trust scholars who work in this field….” I guess my limitation is this: Given that the field is complex, specialized, yet without broad consensus even on many core points, it’s simply not realistic for most readers, even serious Christians or others interested in Christian origins, religion, etc., to sort out the differences in their views. That, I feel, leaves room for people like Aslan who do have strong and relevant academic backgrounds and are willing to do a lot of digging (and “footnoting” of sorts, though not fully clear in his case) to contribute.
As I said, without yet giving his book a chance, I’m not at all confident O’Reilly’s co-authored book will deserve the same “place”.