A Christian Rebuttal to Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

By Robert Alan King

Savior: A Christian Rebuttal to Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Robert Alan King is a rebuttal from a Christian perspective that exposes the fallacy of Aslan's position that Jesus was a mere Jewish peasant and political revolutionary who was suffering from delusions of grandeur and thus failed in his mission. In light of the real historical evidence that exists, this rebuttal will show how Aslan is violently misrepresenting the truth as he attempts to rewrite history from a purely subjective position without any real validity as he distorts the facts about who Jesus really was.

King not only exposes the many problems with Aslan's claims, but also explores his faulty conclusions along with the erroneous implications about Jesus that he is proclaiming to the world as truth. He will also take a close look at much of what Aslan has to say and show how most of it is simply an elaborate fairytale based on one faulty subjective supposition upon another. Overall, this rebuttal is a defense of the real historical Jesus that Aslan is trying to recreate into the fictitious character of his own imagination. Contrary to Aslan's groundless assertion, the real Jesus of history is the one found in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

Robert Alan King is an ordained minister through Calvary Chapel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Alan King
• Release date: Aug 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301708819

Robert Alan King

Robert Alan King is an ordained minister through Calvary Chapel who has written numerous theological and inspirational articles for a variety of publications, including Advocate, The Church Herald & Holiness Banner, Companions, The Priest, Proclaim, Pulpit Helps, Vista, War Cry, and Decision Magazine. He also has authored numerous printed books and dozens of eBooks.King has a Master of Arts Degree Sum Cum Laude in Psychology from Touro University Worldwide with an 4.0 institutional GPA, a Bachelor of Science Degree Cum Laude in Bible and Theology from Lee University with an 4.0 institutional GPA, and an Associate of Arts Degree with an emphasis in Science from Coastline Community College. He has a total of at least 256 units of education from universities, seminaries or colleges. This includes at least 130 units of Bible and theology related classes from Lee University, Calvary Chapel Bible College, and Chafer Theological Seminary.

Book preview

A Christian Rebuttal to Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

By Robert Alan King

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by King & Associates. All Rights Reserved.

Published by King & Associates, Casa Grande, Arizona.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

For a complete catalog of book and publications by Robert Alan King, visit BibleCommentator.com. This site also provides you with news on his upcoming titles. In addition, you can read many other articles by King on a wide variety of biblical issues. And by singing up and registering for our newsletter, you can get eBooks, articles and other biblically related content for free, often before it is even seen by the general public.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Supposition Upon Supposition

Biblical Infallibility

Supposed Contradictions & Inaccuracies

Weak Arguments & Illogical Assertions

Other Important Points

Dethroning the Christ

The Real Historical Jesus

God in the Flesh

The Kingdom of God

Conclusion

Footnotes

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Introduction

As a Christian minister having read through Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan, I became acutely aware of the fallacy of Aslan's position when examined in light of the real historical evidence that exists. I was quite shocked at how easily many were blindly accepting his attempt to rewrite history from a purely subjective position without any real validity as he distorts the facts about who Jesus really was. Aslan has summed up the main premise and argument of his book in the following statement:

This book is an attempt to reclaim, as much as possible, the Jesus of history, the Jesus before Christianity: the politically conscious Jewish revolutionary who, two thousand years ago, walked across the Galilean countryside, gathering followers for a messianic movement with the goal of establishing the Kingdom of God but whose mission failed when, after a provocative entry into Jerusalem and a brazen attack on the Temple, he was arrested and executed by Rome for the crime of sedition. It is also about how, in the aftermath of Jesus’ failure to establish God’s reign on earth, his followers reinterpreted not only Jesus’ mission and identity, but also the very nature and definition of the Jewish messiah.¹

Because Aslan's argument violently misrepresents the truth, I felt compelled to write a rebuttal from a Christian perspective to expose the many problems with his claims. We will explore his faulty conclusions along with the erroneous implications about Jesus as a failed political revolutionary that he is proclaiming to the world as truth. Contrary to Aslan's groundless assertion, the real Jesus of history is the one found in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. We will also take a close look at much of what he has to say and show how most of it is simply an elaborate fairytale based on one faulty subjective supposition upon another. Overall, this rebuttal is a defense of the real historical Jesus that Aslan is trying to recreate into his own fictitious character.

The current state of affairs in all things concerning Jesus is that many people today simply take a book like this and believe it even though everything out there in the real history of Jesus we have available to us screams loudly of its erroneous nature. I hope to set straight the reality of the matter about Jesus as really shown through history, logic and common sense. Nevertheless, the Spirit warned about these days when he wrote:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

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Supposition Upon Supposition

One of Aslan's main problems in his book is that it's full of suppositions and assumptions with no hard evidence for most of his claims, many of them nonsensical or greatly stretching reality. In much of his book, he merely parrots modern liberal scholarship so there is not much new there from that regard in those instances. This includes the common assumptions about a mysterious Q Document used by the Gospel writers.² Aslan also claims that Mark was written first (known as Markan priority) and that Matthew and Luke both wrote their Gospels independently and completely unaware of each other's work while using Mark and this Q Document as their source.³ But the reality is, as Aslan himself pointed out, they do not have this hypothesized Q Document. And as for their declaration about Mark being written first, this again is pure speculation even though some scholars think they have proved this hypothesis based on their analysis of the text.

Nevertheless, the early church believed that Matthew was written first in Hebrew and then later translated into Greek, and that it was written many years prior to the Jewish rebellion that ended in AD 70, contrary to the claim today by Aslan.⁴ Mark, Luke and John later followed. As explained very thoroughly by Irenaeus in the second century:

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.⁵

The bottom line is that though some modern scholars assume they have figured it all out based on this and that premise, the truth is that we have no idea which Synoptic Gospel was written first, which Gospel writers relied on the others, or if a common source document such as Q even existed. For all we know there might have been several source documents or none at all.⁶ It is all speculation, often built on flimsy evidence that isn't any more solid than other opposing views. And though Markan Priority is the majority view today, there are conflicting views among scholars with some still holding to Matthew Priority (Augustinian hypothesis), some to Lukan Priority, and some even to a simultaneous priority of Matthew and Mark. And many scholars, including some who hold to Markan Priority, reject the hypothesis of a Q document altogether.

The only thing we can be fairly certain of is that either there was a common source document used by at least two of the Synoptic Gospel writers or that the two who did not write first used those Gospels written before them in their composition. This dogmatic insistence that he knows for certain which of the Synoptic Gospels was written before the others and who used which source is the first faulty premise upon which Aslan builds a huge bulk of his entire argument. If Mark was not written first, many of his suppositions in the book completely collapse on just that assertion alone. After reviewing the arguments of various scholars on this matter coupled with my own study of the differences among the Gospels, I still see no valid reason to doubt the testimony of Irenaeus and I feel that both the internal and external evidence supports his declaration.

Add to this that Aslan does not believe that any of the Gospels, other than possibly Luke, were written by those whose names are attached to them (and seems to imply they were not dictated by them either), so they were not eyewitness accounts of Jesus' words and deeds by people who knew him.⁷ He further argues that the Gospels were never meant to be a historical documentation of the life of Jesus, but instead were written simply as testimonies of faith by the later communities of faith.⁸ Aslan then throws in his additional assertions that certain parts of the Gospels were not intended to be taken literally, that some of what has been written was deliberately fabricated out of fear of the Roman government and/or to improve conversions among Gentiles, and that they (as well as the book of Acts) are full of embellishments, errors and historical inaccuracies.⁹ What he has metaphorically done is sentence the Bible to death, killing and gutting it, to piece out as he wills. These claims conveniently allow Aslan to deny whatsoever he likes or doesn't find convincing; in other words, anything and everything that goes against his argument.

In addition, Aslan says there are only two hard historical facts we can confidently rely on about the real life of the historical Jesus, which are his leading of a popular Jewish movement and then Rome crucifying him for doing so.¹⁰ In other words, Aslan claims that only these two facts are

Reviews for A Christian Rebuttal to Reza Aslan's Zealot

[Karen Chuplis · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'm not going to read this because if all you took away from Aslan's book was that Jesus was a "mere peasant" you didn't read Aslan's book. I found it made even more remarkable the fact that we still hotly debate and deeply believe in Jesus. It also made the living Jesus remarkably vital and vibrant, with a whole lot to back up Jesus' ministry from outside the religious texts.

[Alexander Conaty · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

He obviously did not read Aslan’s work. Also- rebutting a PhD with “Calvary Chapel Pastor” and an assortment of questionable institutions as a bio is an exceptionally weak flex. Furthermore, using the Christian bible as his only reference completely undermines King’s arguments.