Leafing through this book in a bookstore, I was attracted by the dedication: “For my wife, Jennifer Jackley, and the entire Jackley clan, whose love and acceptance have taught me more about Jesus than all my years of research and study”.  I had noticed that the author, Reza Aslan, had been born in Iran, and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons.  I thought: Here is a book about Jesus, written by someone who was born a Shia Muslim but is married to a Christian; this should be interesting!

Reza Aslan has written two other books with interesting titles: No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam and How to Win a Cosmic War: Confronting Radical Religion.

Reza Aslan

The subtitle of Zealot is The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, and what Mr Aslan does in this biography is to separate the ‘historical Jesus’ from the religious icon whom Christians adore as the son of God.  While there is no original research contained in this book, Mr Aslan draws on over one hundred and fifty other published books to reach his conclusions which are largely credible and interesting.  He paints a picture of life, culture, politics and religious practices in Palestine in the first century.  It is unlikely that He was a carpenter, but because of the minimal use of wood in most houses, He, like many others, was more likely a day laborer, a builder, a tekton, who may have worked in the rapidly growing, near-by city of Sepphoris.  Nazareth was, during Jesus lifetime, a town of about 1000 residents, mostly poor peasants and day laborers.  There is no evidence that a synagogue existed in Nazareth during Jesus life: the temple in Jerusalem was the religious focus for Jews in Palestine.  It is likely that the gospel writers, who began writing at least forty years after Jesus’ death may have assumed that there was a religious meeting place in Nazareth, because by that time the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans.  Data suggests that the illiteracy rate among Jewish peasants in the first century was about 97%, yet somehow, Jesus was able to read the Torah scrolls in the synagogue.

Mr Aslan argues (successfully) that Jesus was, like many contemporaries a zealot, that is: someone strongly committed to a cause, and that his most clearly documented cause was the reform of the corrupt Jewish priesthood.  In fact this antipathy for the Jewish leadership was still strong when the gospels were written, so that politics may have influences some of the words that the writers put into Jesus’ mouth.  For example, Mr Aslan finds it unlikely that Jesus ever met with Pontius Pilot.  If such a meeting ever occurred, it would have been an extraordinary event, since in the normal course of events, Pontius Pilot merely signed the death warrant where capital punishment was sought by the chief priest.  The scriptural dialogue between Jesus and the Roman essentially absolves Jesus of any crimes and places the blame for his death squarely on the hated chief priest.  (I have always wondered why a crowd that brought Jesus so triumphantly into Jerusalem could so loudly demand his crucifixion!)

This biography makes interesting reading, and it does not hesitate to open and explore nearly every controversy about Jesus: His disciples, parents, relationship with John the Baptist, trials, crucifixion, resurrection, what He said or didn’t say, what He may have thought.  The controversies involving the leadership of the church after Jesus’ death are also examined.  These examinations may extend to the historic translations of the original text, as well as both (or even three) sides of the scholarly arguments.  Cultural, political, military, and economic evidence is brought to bear.

This is clearly a scholarly work.  In addition to the extensive bibliography there are nearly seventy pages of notes for those who have lingering curiosity about statements made in the main text.

For me, the only disappointment is that Mr Aslan has made no attempt after shattering what may be a childish image of Jesus to reconcile the ‘historical Jesus’ with the Son of God.

I had heard of Nietzsche, the wild German philosopher who averred that “God is dead!” when I was in my late teens.  My college roommate seemed to know about him (and Ayn Rand), but I considered anyone who would make such a stupid remark not worthy of further attention.  And Nietzsche was not among the philosophers studied in the Philosophy 101 course.

But he came to my attention about 10 days ago when there was an hour-long BBC program about the man and his life.  In the program, the “God is dead!” exclamation was attributed to the untimely death of his much-admired father at an early age from a horrible brain disease, and to his view of the culture in late 19th century Europe.  As Nietzsche saw it, the culture was wantonly secular, and self-serving.  People cared only about entertainment, pleasure, wealth, status, and image.  His view was that we had killed God (who had been alive).

The novel I am currently writing has a similar theme: society has turned its back on God.  So I bought a copy of Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann to compare my views with those of the great German philosopher.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Walter Kaufmann (1921 – 1980) was professor of philosophy at Princeton University and a world-renowned scholar and translator of Nietzsche.  In fact, Nietzsche was first published in 1950, and has been through four editions, the latest appeared in 1974 in paperback.

It is clear from a mere perusal of the book that Kaufmann devoted much of his life to the study of Nietzsche, who was a difficult and somewhat opaque character, who fought with his mother and sister, and had a tendency to state his case in strong, sometimes extreme, language.  For these reasons, he was not well understood and attracted considerable criticism.  In fact, he became a hero of Nazi ideology, when some of what he said was either misunderstood or taken out of context.  Much of  this misunderstanding is owing to his sister who was an ardent Nazi, and who published re-written pieces of his work.  Nietzsche abhorred the German state and anti-Semitism.  His use of the term ‘blond beast’ was thought to praise Aryan purity, when, in fact, it had reference to the male lion.

The book begins with a history of  Nietzsche’s life: born 1844 and died in 1900, having slipped into insanity on about 1889.  He was made a full professor of classical philosophy at the age of 24; traveled extensively in Europe, and suffered from ill health.  He never married, but he proposed twice to Lou Salomé, a bright, strong-willed woman who was seventeen years his junior.

Nietzsche wrote fifteen books, there are also his lecture notes, his letters and his personal notes.  Rather than deal with each of his works one-at-a-time, Kaufmann addresses themes of Nietzsche’s work.  This is a better approach since Nietzsche made changes to his views from time to time.  Nietzsche was a doubter, a questioner, who took nothing at face value, yet he avoided the label ‘nihilist’ by attempting to establish pieces of a structure to replace what he had torn down.  He was anti-Christian because for him it placed too much value on faith and not enough on good works, and he called himself the Antichrist as a result of inconsistencies he perceived in Christ’s messages and actions, and because he refused to accept Christ’s divinity.  While he averred that ‘God is dead!’ because he thought people had turned their backs on God, it is not clear that Nietzsche was an outright atheist.  He seems to have had a belief in the possibility of God.

One of his better known ideas is that the basic human urge (more important than sex) is the Will to Power.  By this somewhat confusing term he meant striving to overcome the faults and weaknesses in ourselves to become as valuable human beings as we could be.  For Nietzsche there were three categories of humans which exhibited extraordinary value: artists, saints, and philosophers.  When one had overcome one’s faults and weaknesses, one became an ‘úbermensch’ – literally an ‘over man’, which has unfortunately been translated as ‘superman’, which wasn’t at all what Nietzsche had in mind: a sustained, an arduous, personal striving for self improvement which leads to happiness.  Coupled to Nietzsche’s concept of the úbermensch was the idea of ‘eternal recurrence’.  This latter was the unconditional and infinitely repeated circular course of all things; unfortunately, even if one assumes that time is infinite, this has been proven impossible.

Kaufmann is at his best shedding light on Nietzsche’s intentions, his values, and his thought processes.  As a result there is an enormous amount of detail in the book: footnotes and quotations from a wide variety of sources.  Occasionally, the logic of an argument becomes murky, but Kaufmann’s straightforward approach clarifies both the distinct character and the great contribution of this philosopher, and restores his stature in the face of unjust criticism, poor health, broken friendships and little happiness.

If one wants to understand Nietzsche as a whole philosopher, this book – rather that any two or three of his own books – is the one to read.