Scoop: Jésus était non seulement un chef de guerre mais un chef de guerre raté ! (Zealot: Muslim manchurian candidate Reza Aslan pulls out the character assassination of the century)

Ne croyez pas que je sois venu apporter la paix sur la terre; je ne suis pas venu apporter la paix, mais l’épée. Jésus (Matthew 10: 34)

Mon royaume n’est pas de ce monde. Si mon royaume était de ce monde, mes serviteurs auraient combattu pour moi afin que je ne fusse pas livré aux Juifs; mais maintenant mon royaume n’est point d’ici-bas. Jésus (Jean 18: 36)

Voici, je vous envoie comme des brebis au milieu des loups. Soyez donc prudents comme les serpents, et simples comme les colombes. Jésus (Matthieu 10: 16)

Hommes Israélites, prenez garde à ce que vous allez faire à l’égard de ces gens. Car, il n’y a pas longtemps que parut Theudas, qui se donnait pour quelque chose, et auquel se rallièrent environ quatre cents hommes: il fut tué, et tous ceux qui l’avaient suivi furent mis en déroute et réduits à rien.Après lui, parut Judas le Galiléen, à l’époque du recensement, et il attira du monde à son parti: il périt aussi, et tous ceux qui l’avaient suivi furent dispersés. Et maintenant, je vous le dis ne vous occupez plus de ces hommes, et laissez-les aller. Si cette entreprise ou cette oeuvre vient des hommes, elle se détruira;mais si elle vient de Dieu, vous ne pourrez la détruire. Ne courez pas le risque d’avoir combattu contre Dieu. Gamaliel (Actes 5: 35-39)

Le christianisme est la seule religion qui aura prévu son propre échec. Cette prescience s’appelle l’apocalypse. René Girard

Depuis un demi-siècle, l’Amérique vit dans la hantise du « candidat de Mandchourie ». Derrière cette expression, il y a d’abord eu un roman de politique-fiction de Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate, paru en 1959. Puis deux films : par John Frankenheimer d’abord, en 1962, avec Frank Sinatra dans le rôle principal ; et par John Demme ensuite, en 2004, avec Denzel Washington. Thème : la manipulation du système démocratique par des ennemis de la démocratie. Dans le roman de Condon et le premier film, il est question de soldats américains capturés par les Rouges pendant la guerre de Corée, robotisés à travers un « lavage de cerveau » et renvoyés aux Etats-Unis pour y participer à un coup d’Etat : l’un de ces soldats, conditionné pour être un assassin, devra tuer le président des Etats-Unis et assurer ainsi son remplacement par le vice-président, autre ancien captif des Nord-Coréens, qui a été programmé, quant à lui, pour livrer son pays, et l’ensemble du monde libre, au communisme. (…) Le premier est Jimmy Carter, président de 1977 à 1981, médiocre gouverneur d’un Etat du Sud, pris en main par un universitaire ambitieux d’origine est-européenne, Zbigniew Brzezinski, qui lui même agit pour un cartel d’hommes d’affaires et de politiques américains, européens et japonais décidés à « dépasser la guerre froide » et à conclure une sorte de Grande Alliance avec le bloc communiste : la Commission Trilatérale. Au bout de quatre ans, le bilan est si catastrophique pour l’Amérique que Ronald Reagan, le candidat de la droite pure et dure – des « bons » du livre de Condon et du film de Frankenheimer -, remplaçait Carter à la Maison Blanche. Le second, c’est Barack Obama. Un homme politique jeune (moins de cinquante ans), sans fortune, au profil personnel ambigu (incertitudes sur les circonstances exactes de sa naissance, sur sa nationalité, sur son identité religieuse, sur son itinéraire académique), lié à l’extrême gauche, est mis en orbite dès 2004 en tant que sénateur de l’Illinois (l’un des Etats les plus corrompus des Etats-Unis). Puis lancé, avec un soutien médiatique immédiat et massif, en tant que candidat aux primaires démocrates de 2008. Puis élu, au terme de la campagne la plus chère de l’histoire américaine, à la présidence. Le fait qu’il soit Africain et musulman par son père, musulman par son père adoptif indonésien, et qu’il apparaisse donc comme Noir, semi-musulman, et fils du tiers-monde, a sans doute beaucoup joué dans la décision de ses parrains : en gros, la Trilatérale des années 1970, élargie aux dictatures national-socialistes russe et chinoise et aux régimes totalitaires ou autoritaires islamiques. Le slogan de la campagne d’Obama en 2008 – Yes I Can ! (« Oui, je peux le faire ! ») – a caché le programme. Mais aujourd’hui, les Américains découvrent ce dernier à travers la politique de leur président et les lois qu’il tente de faire approuver par le Congrès. Michel Gurfinkiel

Nous avons décidé d’accorder aux chrétiens et à tous les autres le libre choix de suivre la religion qu’ils voudraient, de telle sorte que ce qu’il peut y avoir de divinité et de pouvoir céleste puisse nous être bienveillant, à nous et à tous ceux qui vivent sous notre autorité. (…) Ainsi donc, dans un dessein salutaire et tout à fait droit, nous avons décidé que notre volonté est qu’il ne faut refuser absolument à personne la liberté de suivre et de choisir l’observance ou la religion des chrétiens, et qu’à chacun soit accordée la liberté de donner son adhésion réfléchie à cette religion qu’il estime lui être utile […]. Puisque Ta Dévotion voit que nous leur accordons cette liberté sans aucune restriction, elle voit également qu’aux autres aussi qui le veulent est accordé le pouvoir de suivre leur observance et leur religion, ce qui évidemment est convenable pour la tranquillité de nos temps : de la sorte chacun a le pouvoir de choisir et de pratiquer la religion qu’il veut. Cela a été décidé par nous de telle sorte que nous ne paraissions diminuer pour personne aucun rite ou religion. « Edit » de Milan (13 juin 313, cité par Eusèbe de Césarée)

Nous croyons en un seul Dieu, Père tout-puissant, Créateur de toutes choses visibles et invisibles. Et en un seul Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Fils unique de Dieu, engendré du Père, c’est-à-dire, de la substance du Père. Dieu de Dieu, lumière de lumière, vrai Dieu de vrai Dieu ; engendré et non fait, consubstantiel au Père ; par qui toutes choses ont été faites au ciel et en la terre. Qui, pour nous autres hommes et pour notre salut, est descendu des cieux, s’est incarné et s’est fait homme ; a souffert et est mort crucifié sur une croix, est ressuscité le troisième jour, est monté aux cieux, et viendra juger les vivants et les morts. Et au Saint-Esprit. (…) Pour ceux qui disent : “ Il fut un temps où il n’était pas ” et “ Avant de naître, il n’était pas ”, et “ Il a été créé à partir du néant ”, ou qui déclarent que le Fils de Dieu est d’une autre substance (hypostasis) ou d’une autre essence (ousia), ou qu’il est créé ou soumis au changement ou à l’altération, l’Église catholique et apostolique les anathématise. Crédo de Nicée (25 juillet 325)

Édit des empereurs Gratien, Valentinien II et Théodose Auguste, au peuple de la ville de Constantinople. Nous voulons que tous les peuples que régit la modération de Notre Clémence s’engagent dans cette religion que le divin Pierre Apôtre a donné aux Romains – ainsi que l’affirme une tradition qui depuis lui est parvenue jusqu’à maintenant – et qu’il est clair que suivent le pontife Damase Ier et l’évêque d’Alexandrie, Pierre, homme d’une sainteté apostolique : c’est-à-dire que, en accord avec la discipline apostolique et la doctrine évangélique, nous croyons en l’unique Divinité du Père et du Fils et du Saint-Esprit, dans une égale Majesté et une pieuse Trinité. Nous ordonnons que ceux qui suivent cette loi prennent le nom de Chrétiens Catholiques et que les autres, que nous jugeons déments et insensés, assument l’infamie de l’hérésie. Leurs assemblées ne pourront pas recevoir le nom d’églises et ils seront l’objet, d’abord de la vengeance divine, ensuite seront châtiés à notre propre initiative que nous avons adopté suivant la volonté céleste. Donné le troisième jour des calendes de mars à Thessalonique, Gratien Auguste étant consul pour la cinquième fois et Théodose Auguste pour la première fois. Edit de Thessalonique (24 novembre 380)

Il est une race nouvelle d’hommes nés d’hier, sans patrie ni traditions, ligués contre toutes les institutions religieuses et civiles, poursuivis par la justice, universellement notés d’infamie, mais se faisant gloire de l’exécration commune : ce sont les chrétiens […]. Dans ces derniers temps, les chrétiens ont trouvé parmi les juifs un nouveau Moïse qui les a séduits mieux encore. Il passe auprès d’eux pour le fils de Dieu et il est l’auteur de leur nouvelle doctrine […]. On sait comment il a fini. Vivant, il n’avait rien pu faire pour lui-même ; mort, dites-vous, il ressuscita et montra les trous de ses mains. Mais qui a vu tout cela ? […] Soutenez l’empereur de toutes vos forces, partagez avec lui la défense du droit ; combattez pour lui si les circonstances l’exigent ; aidez-le dans le commandement de ses armées. Pour cela, cessez de vous dérober aux devoirs civils et au service militaire ; prenez votre part des fonctions publiques, s’il le faut, pour le salut des lois et la cause de la piété. Celse (cité par Origène)

Celse, philosophe romain épicurien du IIe siècle écrivant en langue grecque, est l’auteur d’un ouvrage analytique et articulé, Discours véritable (en grec : Λόγος ‘AληΘής), rédigé vers 178. Il s’agissait d’un ouvrage où il attaquait le christianisme naissant par les armes du raisonnement et du ridicule. Le texte original est perdu mais la majeure partie nous est parvenue par les extraits étendus cités par son grand contradicteur Origène dans son ouvrage La Réfutation. Wikipedia

Socrate (…) est un philosophe grec du Ve siècle av. J.-C. (-470 à -399). Il est considéré comme l’un des inventeurs de la philosophie morale et politique. Socrate n’a laissé aucun écrit, mais sa pensée et réputation se sont transmises par des témoignages indirects. Ses disciples Platon et Xénophon ont notablement œuvré à maintenir l’image de leur maître, qui est mis en scène dans leurs œuvres respectives. D’après Idoménée de Lampsaque dans son ouvrage Des Socratiques, il est le premier à avoir, avec Eschine de Sphettos, son disciple, enseigné l’art oratoire. Déjà renommé de son vivant, Socrate est devenu l’un des penseurs les plus illustres de l’histoire de la philosophie. Sa condamnation à mort et sa présence très fréquente dans les dialogues de Platon ont contribué à faire de lui une icône philosophique majeure. La figure de Socrate a été discutée, reprise, et réinterprétée jusqu’à l’époque contemporaine. Socrate est ainsi célèbre au-delà de la sphère philosophique, et son personnage entouré de légendes. En dépit de cette influence culturelle, très peu de choses sont connues avec certitude sur le Socrate historique. Les témoignages le concernant sont souvent discordants, et reconstituer la vie ou la pensée originelle de Socrate est une tâche difficile. Wikipedia

Every word ever written about the historical Jesus (…) was written by people who did not know Jesus while he was alive. Reza Aslan

There is no evidence that Jesus promoted violence in any of the histories that we have. But we need to rid ourselves of this notion that he was a pacifist. Jesus wasn’t a fool, if you are talking about the end of Caesar’s rule and inauguration of reign of God, you can’t be so daft as to think that will happen in a peaceful way. (…) This is who Jesus was, the historical Jesus: he was an illiterate, day laborer, peasant from the country side of Galilee who hung around with the most dispossessed, poor, weak, outcasts of his society — people whom the temple rejected. And who, in their name, launched an insurrection against the Roman and priestly authorities. That’s Jesus. So, if you claim to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, that’s what it means. It means rejecting power, in all its forms -– religious and political — it means denying yourself in the name of the poor and the marginalized regardless of their religious or their sexual orientation or anything else. If you do not do those things, you are not a follower of Jesus. ‘Cause that’s who Jesus was. (…) The land that Jesus called his own, there is still a poor marginalized people who are being occupied directly by a military presence and so I would be curious how Christians couldn’t see the parallels between what’s happening in the occupied territories today and what was happening in the time of Jesus. Reza Aslan

From the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth. Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry—a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious “King of the Jews” whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity. Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and mission. The result is a thought-provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel: a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time, and the birth of a religion. Book description (Amazon)

The person and work of Jesus of Nazareth has been a topic of constant interest since he lived and died some 2,000 years ago. Much speculation about who he was and what he taught has led to confusion and doubt. Aslan, who authored the much acclaimed No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, offers a compelling argument for a fresh look at the Nazarene, focusing on how Jesus the man evolved into Jesus the Christ. Approaching the subject from a purely academic perspective, the author parts an important curtain that has long hidden from view the man Jesus, who is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. Carefully comparing extra-biblical historical records with the New Testament accounts, Aslan develops a convincing and coherent story of how the Christian church, and in particular Paul, reshaped Christianity’s essence, obscuring the very real man who was Jesus of Nazareth. Compulsively readable and written at a popular level, this superb work is highly recommended. Elyse Cheney (Publishers Weekly)

Attention: un candidat mandchou peut en cacher un autre !

Après Mordillat et Prieur et la longue tradition dont ils sont le produit …

Voici, en ces temps étranges de post-tout et naturellement dans la patrie du premier président américain multiculturel, le dernier révisionniste en date du christianisme …

Un certain Reza Aslan qui, véritable agent dormant de l’islam (et postculturel comme il se doit: né de réfugiés iraniens fuyant la révolution islamique, ancien chrétien évangélique et aujourd’hui born again musulman), redécouvre pour nous,  si l’on en croit les extraits qui en sont parus, la roue du Jésus historique …

A savoir l’ensemble des objections contre l’historicité du Jésus des Evangiles qu’il passe dument en revue …

Sauf qu’ignorant commodément au passage le bab-ba de la critique historique, il oublie de rappeler que nombre d’entre elles, de l’embarras ecclésiastique (le fait d’aller à l’encontre de la thèse ou des intérêts de ses auteurs) à l’absence de sources contemporaines (à la mesure de la nécessaire marginalité alors d’un personnage issu d’une province marginale de l’empire romain) et aux incohérences et contradictions entre les textes ou aux critiques d’adversaires patentés,  peuvent en fait  être les meilleures attestations d’existence et d’authenticité …

Ou que l’invention supposée d’un supplice aussi infamant que la crucifixion ou de l’expression « roi des juifs » (comme acte d’accusation pour sédition et haute trahison) pour expliquer la mort d’un maitre à penser (de surcroit entouré chronologiquement de nombre de faux messies (Athronges, Simon, Judas le Galiléen, fils de Hézékiah/Ézékias) mais aussi littéralement entre ses disciples zélotes: Simon, Judas, qui le trahira), sa mise au ban des sicaires: Barabbas contre lequel il sera échangé et les deux « larrons » jusque sur la croix) semble un moyen très peu crédible tant de se distinguer de groupes rivaux (juifs) que de s’intégrer à la société dominante (romaine) …

Et ce pour quelqu’un dont, au contraire par exemple d’un Socrate (qui on le sait n’a jamais rien écrit et qui n’est connu qu’a travers son disciple Aristote), « la multiplicité et la précocité des sources documentaires » font  au bout du compte « le personnage historique le mieux attesté de toute l’Antiquité » …

Pour finir de plus par s’appuyer sur les textes mêmes qu’il remet en cause pour, oubliant encore le critère de cohérence (face à « mon royaume n’est pas de ce monde », « Je suis venu apporter l’épée » ne doit-il pas être entendu davantage comme une référence aux effets induits qu’à l’objectif explicite du message christique ?),  n’en retenir que ce qui coïncide avec sa thèse préalable …

A savoir que, derrière le véritable mythe créé ultérieurement par ceux qui ont écrit sur lui, Jésus n’était qu’un vulgaire zélote qui a eu ce qu’il méritait …

N’oubliant bien sûr pas au passage, dans les nombreuses interviews qui lui sont accordées, de défendre (vous avez dit « ordre du jour caché » ? Continuation de la falsification par d’autres moyens ?) les thèses de sa bien plus tendance foi islamique …

Notamment (surprise !) l’Iran de ses pères incompris par l’Occident et notamment sa quête bien compréhensible du nucléaire …

Mais également (nouvelle surprise !) ses frères palestiniens, nouveaux juifs opprimés par les nouveaux Romains que l’on sait …

Zealot: The Life And Times Of Jesus Of Nazareth By Reza Aslan (EXCERPT)

07/17/2013

Introduction

It is a miracle that we know anything at all about the man called Jesus of Nazareth. The itinerant preacher wandering from village to village clamoring about the end of the world, a band of ragged followers trailing behind, was a common a sight in Jesus’ time—so common, in fact, that it had become a kind of caricature among the Roman elite. In a farcical passage about just such a figure, the Greek philosopher Celsus imagines a Jewish holy man roaming the Galilean countryside, shouting to no one in particular: “I am God, or the servant of God, or a divine spirit. But I am coming, for the world is already in the throes of destruction. And you will soon see me coming with the power of heaven.”

The first century was an era of apocalyptic expectation among the Jews of Palestine, the Roman designation for the vast tract of land encompassing modern day Israel/Palestine as well as large parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Countless prophets, preachers, and messiahs tramped through the Holy Land delivering messages of God’s imminent judgment. Many of these so-called “false messiahs” we know by name. A few are even mentioned in the New Testament. The prophet Theudas, according to the book of Acts, had four hundred disciples before Rome captured him and cut off his head. A mysterious charismatic figure known only as “The Egyptian” raised an army of followers in the desert, nearly all of whom were massacred by Roman troops. In 4 B.C.E., the year in which most scholars believe Jesus of Nazareth was born, a poor shepherd named Athronges put a diadem on his head and crowned himself “King of the Jews”; he and his followers were brutally cut down by a legion of soldiers. Another messianic aspirant, called simply “The Samaritan,” was crucified by Pontius Pilate even though he raised no army and in no way challenged Rome—an indication that the authorities, sensing the apocalyptic fever in the air, had become extremely sensitive to any hint of sedition. There was Hezekiah the bandit chief, Simon of Peraea, Judas the Galilean, his grandson Menahem, Simon son of Giora, and Simon son of Kochba—all of whom declared messianic ambitions and all of whom were executed by Rome for doing so. Add to this list the Essene sect, some of whose members lived in seclusion atop the dry plateau of Qumran on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea; the first-century Jewish revolutionary party known as the Zealots, who helped launched a bloody war against Rome; and the fearsome bandit-assassins whom the Romans dubbed the Sicarii (the Daggermen), and the picture that emerges of first-century Palestine is of an era awash in messianic energy.

It is difficult to place Jesus of Nazareth squarely within any of the known religiopolitical movements of his time. He was a man of profound contradictions, one day preaching a message of racial exclusion (“I was sent solely to the lost sheep of Israel”; Matthew 15:24), the next, of benevolent universalism (“Go and make disciples of all nations”; Matthew 28:19); sometimes calling for unconditional peace (“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God”; Matthew 5:9), sometimes promoting violence and conflict (“If you do not have a sword, go sell your cloak and buy one”; Luke 22:36).

The problem with pinning down the historical Jesus is that, outside of the New Testament, there is almost no trace of the man who would so permanently alter the course of human history. The earliest and most reliable nonbiblical reference to Jesus comes from the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (d. 100 C.E.). In a brief throwaway passage in the Antiquities, Josephus writes of a fiendish Jewish high priest named Ananus who, after the death of the Roman governor Festus, unlawfully condemned a certain “James, the brother of Jesus, the one they call messiah,” to stoning for transgression of the law. The passage moves on to relate what happened to Ananus after the new governor, Albinus, finally arrived in Jerusalem.

Fleeting and dismissive as this allusion may be (the phrase “the one they call messiah” is clearly meant to express derision), it nevertheless contains enormous significance for those searching for any sign of the historical Jesus. In a society without surnames, a common name like James required a specific appellation—a place of birth or a father’s name—to distinguish it from all the other men named James roaming around Palestine (hence, Jesus of Nazareth). In this case, James’ appellative was provided by his fraternal connection to someone with whom Josephus assumes his audience would be familiar. The passage proves not only that “Jesus, the one they call messiah” probably existed, but that by the year 94 C.E., when the Antiquities was written, he was widely recognized as the founder of a new and enduring movement.

It is that movement, not its founder, that receives the attention of second-century historians like Tacitus (d. 118) and Pliny the Younger (d. 113), both of whom mention Jesus of Nazareth but reveal little about him, save for his arrest and execution—an important historical note, as we shall see, but one that sheds little light on the details of Jesus’ life. We are therefore left with whatever information can be gleaned from the New Testament.

The first written testimony we have about Jesus of Nazareth comes from the epistles of Paul, an early follower of Jesus who died sometime around 66 C.E. (Paul’s first epistle, 1 Thessalonians, can be dated between 48 and 50 C.E., some two decades after Jesus’ death). The trouble with Paul, however, is that he displays an extraordinary lack of interest in the historical Jesus. Only three scenes from Jesus’ life are ever mentioned in his epistles: the Last Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23–26), the crucifixion (1 Corinthians 2:2), and, most crucially for Paul, the resurrection, without which, he claims, “our preaching is empty and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Paul may be an excellent source for those interested in the early formation of Christianity, but he is a poor guide for uncovering the historical Jesus.

That leaves us with the gospels, which present their own set of problems. First of all, one must recognize that, with the possible exception of the gospel of Luke, none of the gospels we have were written by the person after whom they are named. That is true of most of the books in the New Testament. Such so-called pseudepigraphical works, or works attributed to but not written by a specific author, were extremely common in the ancient world and should by no means be thought of as forgeries. Naming a book after a person was a standard way of reflecting that person’s beliefs or representing his or her school of thought. Regardless, the gospels are not, nor were they ever meant to be, a historical documentation of Jesus’ life. These are not eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds. They are testimonies of faith composed by communities of faith written many years after the events they describe. Simply put, the gospels tell us about Jesus the Christ, not Jesus the man.

The most widely accepted theory on the formation of the gospels, “the Two-Source Theory,” holds that Mark’s account was written first sometime after 70 C.E., some four decades after Jesus’ death. Mark had at his disposal a collection of oral and perhaps a handful of written traditions that had been passed around by Jesus’ earliest followers for years. By adding a chronological narrative to this jumble of traditions, Mark created a wholly new literary genre called gospel, Greek for “good news.” Yet Mark’s gospel is a short and somewhat unsatisfying one for many Christians. There is no infancy narrative; Jesus simply arrives one day on the banks of the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist. There are no resurrection appearances. Jesus is crucified. His body is placed in a tomb. A few days later, the tomb is empty. Even the earliest Christians were left wanting by Mark’s brusque account of Jesus’ life and ministry, and so it was left to Mark’s successors, Matthew and Luke, to improve upon the original text.

Two decades after Mark, between 90 and 100 C.E., the authors of Matthew and Luke, working independently of each other and with Mark’s manuscript as a template, updated the gospel story by adding their own unique traditions, including two different and conflicting infancy narratives as well as a series of elaborate resurrection stories to satisfy their Christian readers. Matthew and Luke also relied on what must have been an early and fairly well distributed collection of Jesus’ sayings that scholars have termed Q (German for Quelle, or “source”). Although we no longer have any physical copies of this document, we can infer its contents by compiling those verses that Matthew and Luke share in common but that do not appear in Mark.

Together, these three gospels—Mark, Matthew, and Luke—became known as the Synoptics (Greek for “viewed together”) because they more or less present a common narrative and chronology about the life and ministry of Jesus, one that is greatly at odds with the fourth gospel, John, which was likely written soon after the close of the first century, between 100 and 120 C.E.

These, then, are the canonized gospels. But they are not the only gospels. We now have access to an entire library of noncanonical scriptures written mostly in the second and third centuries that provides a vastly different perspective on the life of Jesus of Nazareth. These include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Secret Book of John, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and a host of other so-called “Gnostic writings” discovered in Upper Egypt, near the town of Nag Hammadi, in 1945. Though they were left out of what would ultimately become the New Testament, these books are significant in that they demonstrate the dramatic divergence of opinion that existed over who Jesus was and what Jesus meant, even among those who walked with him, who shared his bread and ate with him, who heard his words and prayed with him.

In the end, there are only two hard historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth upon which we can confidently rely: the first is that Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement in Palestine at the beginning of the first century C.E.; the second is that Rome crucified him for doing so. By themselves these two facts cannot provide a complete portrait of the life of a man who lived two thousand years ago. But when combined with all we know about the tumultuous era in which Jesus lived—and thanks to the Romans, we know a great deal—these two facts can help paint a picture of Jesus of Nazareth that may be more historically accurate than the one painted by the gospels. Indeed, the Jesus that emerges from this historical exercise—a zealous revolutionary swept up, as all Jews of the era were, in the religious and political turmoil of first-century Palestine—bears little resemblance to the image of the gentle shepherd cultivated by the early Christian community.

Consider this: Crucifixion was a punishment that Rome reserved almost exclusively for the crime of sedition. The plaque the Romans placed above Jesus’ head as he writhed in pain—“King of the Jews”—was called a titulus and, despite common perception, was not meant to be sarcastic. Every criminal who hung on a cross received a plaque declaring the specific crime for which he was being executed. Jesus’ crime, in the eyes of Rome, was striving for kingly rule (i.e. treason), the same crime for which nearly every other messianic aspirant of the time was killed. Nor did Jesus die alone. The gospels claim that on either side of Jesus hung men who in Greek are called lestai, a word often rendered into English as “thieves” but that actually means “bandits” and was the most common Roman designation for an insurrectionist or rebel.

Three rebels on a hill covered in crosses, each cross bearing the racked and bloodied body of a man who dared defy the will of Rome. That image alone should cast doubt upon the gospels’ portrayal of Jesus as a man of unconditional peace almost wholly insulated from the political upheavals of his time. The notion that the leader of a popular messianic movement calling for the imposition of the “Kingdom of God”—a term that would have been understood by Jew and gentile alike as implying revolt against Rome—could have remained uninvolved in the revolutionary fervor that had gripped nearly every Jew in Judea is simply ridiculous.

Why would the gospel writers go to such lengths to temper the revolutionary nature of Jesus’ message and movement? To answer this question we must first recognize that almost every gospel story written about the life and mission of Jesus of Nazareth was composed after the Jewish rebellion against Rome in 66 C.E. In that year, a band of Jewish rebels, spurred by their zeal for God, roused their fellow Jews in revolt. Miraculously, the rebels managed to liberate the Holy Land from the Roman occupation. For four glorious years, the city of God was once again under Jewish control. Then, in 70 C.E., the Romans returned. After a brief siege of Jerusalem, the soldiers breached the city walls and unleashed an orgy of violence upon its residents. They butchered everyone in their path, heaping corpses on the Temple Mount. A river of blood flowed down the cobblestone streets. When the massacre was complete, the soldiers set fire to the Temple of God. The fires spread beyond the Temple Mount, engulfing Jerusalem’s meadows, the farms, the olive trees. Everything burned. So complete was the devastation wrought upon the holy city that Josephus writes there was nothing left to prove Jerusalem had ever been inhabited. Tens of thousands of Jews were slaughtered. The rest were marched out of the city in chains.

The spiritual trauma faced by the Jews in the wake of that catastrophic event is hard to imagine. Exiled from the land promised them by God, forced to live as outcasts among the pagans of the Roman Empire, the rabbis of the second century gradually and deliberately divorced Judaism from the radical messianic nationalism that had launched the ill-fated war with Rome. The Torah replaced the Temple in the center of Jewish life, and rabbinic Judaism emerged.

The Christians, too, felt the need to distance themselves from the revolutionary zeal that had led to the sacking of Jerusalem, not only because it allowed the early church to ward off the wrath of a deeply vengeful Rome, but also because, with the Jewish religion having become pariah, the Romans had become the primary target of the church’s evangelism. Thus began the long process of transforming Jesus from a revolutionary Jewish nationalist into a peaceful spiritual leader with no interest in any earthly matter. That was a Jesus the Romans could accept, and in fact did accept three centuries later when the Roman emperor Flavius Theodosius (d. 395) made the itinerant Jewish preacher’s movement the official religion of the state, and what we now recognize as orthodox Christianity was born.

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.

There are those who consider such an endeavor to be a waste of time, believing the Jesus of history to be irrevocably lost and incapable of recovery. Long gone are the heady days of “the quest for the historical Jesus,” when scholars confidently proclaimed that modern scientific tools and historical research would allow us to uncover Jesus’ true identity. The real Jesus no longer matters, these scholars argue. We should focus instead on the only Jesus that is accessible to us: Jesus the Christ.

Granted, writing a biography of Jesus of Nazareth is not like writing a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. The task is somewhat akin to putting together a massive puzzle with only a few of the pieces in hand; one has no choice but to fill in the rest of the puzzle based on the best, most educated guess of what the completed image should look like. The great Christian theologian Rudolf Bultmann liked to say that the quest for the historical Jesus is ultimately an internal quest. Scholars tend to see the Jesus they want to see. Too often they see themselves—their own reflection—in the image of Jesus they have constructed.

And yet that best, most educated guess may be enough to, at the very least, question our most basic assumptions about Jesus of Nazareth. If we expose the claims of the gospels to the heat of historical analysis, we can purge the scriptures of their literary and theological flourishes and forge a far more accurate picture of the Jesus of history. Indeed, if we commit to placing Jesus firmly within the social, religious, and political context of the era in which he lived—an era marked by the slow burn of a revolt against Rome that would forever transform the faith and practice of Judaism—then, in some ways, his biography writes itself.

The Jesus that is uncovered in the process may not be the Jesus we expect; he certainly will not be the Jesus that most modern Christians would recognize. But in the end, he is the only Jesus that we can access by historical means.

Everything else is a matter of faith.

http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/product-description/140006922X/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

A Hole in the Corner

Who killed Jonathan son of Ananus as he strode across the Temple Mount in the year 56 c.e.? No doubt there were many in Jerusalem who longed to slay the rapacious high priest, and more than a few who would have liked to wipe out the bloated Temple priesthood in its entirety. For what must never be forgotten when speaking of first-century Palestine is that this land—this hallowed land from which the spirit of God flowed to the rest of the world—was occupied territory. Legions of Roman troops were stationed throughout Judea. Some six hundred Roman soldiers resided atop the Temple Mount itself, within the high stone walls of the Antonia Fortress, which buttressed the northwest corner of the Temple wall. The unclean centurion in his red cape and polished cuirass who paraded through the Court of Gentiles, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword, was a not so subtle reminder, if any were needed, of who really ruled this sacred place.

Roman dominion over Jerusalem began in 63 b.c.e., when Rome’s master tactician, Pompey Magnus, entered the city with his conquering legions and laid siege to the Temple. By then, Jerusalem had long since passed its economic and cultural zenith. The Canaanite settlement that King David had recast into the seat of his kingdom, the city he had passed to his wayward son, Solomon, who built the first Temple to God—sacked and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 b.c.e.—the city that had served as the religious, economic, and political capital of the Jewish nation for a thousand years, was, by the time Pompey strode through its gates, recognized less for its beauty and grandeur than for the religious fervor of its troublesome population.

Situated on the southern plateau of the shaggy Judean mountains, between the twin peaks of Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives, and flanked by the Kidron Valley in the east and the steep, forebidding Valley of Gehenna in the south, Jerusalem, at the time of the Roman invasion, was home to a settled population of about a hundred thousand people. To the Romans, it was an inconsequential speck on the imperial map, a city the wordy statesman Cicero dismissed as “a hole in the corner.” But to the Jews this was the navel of the world, the axis of the universe. There was no city more unique, more holy, more venerable in all the world than Jerusalem. The purple vineyards whose vines twisted and crawled across the level plains, the well-tilled fields and viridescent orchards bursting with almond and fig and olive trees, the green beds of papyrus floating lazily along the Jordan River—the Jews not only knew and deeply loved every feature of this consecrated land, they laid claim to all of it. Everything from the farmsteads of the Galilee to the low-lying hills of Samaria and the far outskirts of Idumea, where the Bible says the accursed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah once stood, was given by God to the Jews, though in fact the Jews ruled none of it, not even Jerusalem, where the true God was worshipped. The city that the Lord had clothed in splendor and glory and placed, as the prophet Ezekiel declared, “in the center of all nations”—the eternal seat of God’s kingdom on earth—was, at the dawn of the first century c.e., just a minor province, and a vexing one at that, at the far corner of the mighty Roman Empire.

It is not that Jerusalem was unaccustomed to invasion and ­occupation. Despite its exalted status in the hearts of the Jews, the truth is that Jerusalem was little more than a trifle to be passed among a succession of kings and emperors who took turns ­plundering and despoiling the sacred city on their way to far grander ambitions. In 586 b.c.e. the Babylonians—masters of Mesopotamia—rampaged through Judea, razing both Jerusalem and its Temple to the ground. The Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, who allowed the Jews to return to their beloved city and rebuild their temple, not because they admired the Jews or took their cult seriously, but because they considered Jerusalem an irrelevant backwater of little interest or concern to an empire that stretched the length of Central Asia (though the prophet Isaiah would thank the Persian king Cyrus by anointing him messiah). The Persian Empire, and Jerusalem with it, fell to the armies of Alexander the Great, whose descendants imbued the city and its inhabitants with Greek culture and ideas. Upon Alexander’s untimely death in 323 b.c.e., Jerusalem was passed as spoils to the Ptolemaic dynasty and ruled from distant Egypt, though only briefly. In 198 b.c.e., the city was wrested from Ptolemaic control by the Seleucid king Antiochus the Great, whose son Antiochus Epiphanes fancied himself god incarnate and strove to put an end once and for all to the worship of the Jewish deity in Jerusalem. But the Jews responded to this blasphemy with a relentless ­guerrilla war led by the stouthearted sons of Mattathias the Hasmonaean—the Maccabees—who reclaimed the holy city from Seleucid control in 164 b.c.e. and, for the first time in four centuries, restored Jewish hegemony over Judea.

For the next hundred years, the Hasmonaeans ruled God’s land with an iron fist. They were priest-kings, each sovereign serving as both King of the Jews and high priest of the Temple. But when civil war broke out between the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus over control of the throne, each brother foolishly reached out to Rome for support. Pompey took the brothers’ entreaties as an invitation to seize Jerusalem for himself, thus putting an end to the brief period of direct Jewish rule over the city of God. In 63 b.c.e., Judea became a Roman protectorate, and the Jews were made once again a subject people.

Roman rule, coming as it did after a century of independence, was not warmly received by the Jews. The Hasmonaean dynasty was abolished, but Pompey allowed Hyrcanus to maintain the position of high priest. That did not sit well with the supporters of Aristobulus, who launched a series of revolts to which the Romans responded with characteristic savagery—burning towns, massacring rebels, enslaving populations. Meanwhile, the chasm between the starving and indebted poor toiling in the countryside and the wealthy provincial class ruling in Jerusalem grew even wider. It was standard Roman policy to forge alliances with the landed aristocracy in every captured city, making them dependent on the Roman overlords for their power and wealth. By aligning their interests with those of the ruling class, Rome assured that local leaders remained wholly vested in maintaining the imperial system. Of course, in Jerusalem, “landed aristocracy” more or less meant the priestly class, and specifically, that handful of wealthy priestly families who maintained the Temple cult and who, as a result, were charged by Rome with collecting the taxes and tribute and keeping order among the increasingly restive population—tasks for which they were richly compensated.

The fluidity that existed in Jerusalem between the religious and political powers made it necessary for Rome to maintain close supervision over the Jewish cult and, in particular, over the high priest. As head of the Sanhedrin and “leader of the nation,” the high priest was a figure of both religious and political renown with the power to decide all religious matters, to enforce God’s law, and even to make arrests, though only in the vicinity of the Temple. If the Romans wanted to control the Jews, they had to control the Temple. And if they wanted to control the Temple, they had to control the high priest, which is why, soon after taking control over Judea, Rome took upon itself the responsibility of appointing and deposing (either directly or indirectly) the high priest, essentially transforming him into a Roman employee. Rome even kept custody of the high priest’s sacred garments, handing them out only on the sacred festivals and feast days and confiscating them immediately after the ceremonies were complete.

Still, the Jews were better off than some other Roman subjects. For the most part, the Romans humored the Jewish cult, allowing the rituals and sacrifices to be conducted without interference. The Jews were even excused from the direct worship of the emperor, which Rome imposed upon nearly every other religious community under its dominion. All that Rome asked of Jerusalem was a twice-daily sacrifice of one bull and two lambs on behalf of the emperor and for his good health. Continue making the sacrifice, keep up with the taxes and tribute, follow the provincial laws, and Rome was happy to leave you, your god, and your temple alone.

The Romans were, after all, fairly proficient in the religious beliefs and practices of subject peoples. Most of the lands they conquered were allowed to maintain their temples unmolested. Rival gods, far from being vanquished or destroyed, were often assimilated into the Roman cult (that is how, for example, the Canaanite god Baal became associated with the Roman god Saturn). In some cases, under a practice called evocatio, the Romans would take possession of an enemy’s temple—and therefore its god, for the two were inextricable in the ancient world—and transfer it to Rome, where it would be showered with riches and lavish sacrifices. Such displays were meant to send a clear signal that the hostilities were directed not toward the enemy’s god but toward its fighters; the god would continue to be honored and worshipped in Rome if only his devotees would lay down their arms and allow themselves to be absorbed into the empire.

As generally tolerant as the Romans may have been when it came to foreign cults, they were even more lenient toward the Jews and their fealty to their One God—what Cicero decried as the “barbarian superstitions” of Jewish monotheism. The Romans may not have understood the Jewish cult, with its strange observances and its overwhelming obsession with ritual …

COMPLEMENT:

LA QUESTION – « Vous êtes musulman. Pourquoi écrivez-vous sur Jésus ? »

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29 juillet 2013

Reza Aslan, un universitaire américain, vient de publier un livre sur la vie de Jésus, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (« Zélote : la vie et l’époque de Jésus de Nazareth »). Jusqu’ici rien de plus normal pour un spécialiste de l’histoire des religions. Mais il se trouve que Reza Aslan est musulman… et qu’il a eu la mauvaise idée de faire la promotion de son livre sur Fox News.

Dès sa première question, la présentatrice de Fox news, chaîne réputée pour ses positions conservatrices, attaque l’universitaire sur sa légitimité à écrire sur le sujet : « Vous êtes musulman. Alors pourquoi avoir écrit un livre sur le fondateur de la chrétienté ? »

Littéralement soufflé par cette entrée en matière, Reza Aslan ouvre de grands yeux, reprend son souffle, et tente, avec force pédagogie et patience, de remettre la conversation sur des rails plus rationnels :

« Bon pour être clair, je suis un universitaire spécialiste des religions, titulaire de quatre diplômes, dont l’un sur le Nouveau Testament, qui lit parfaitement le grec biblique, qui a étudié les origines de la chrétienté pendant deux décennies, et qui se trouve aussi être musulman. Mais je ne suis pas un musulman qui écrit sur Jésus : je suis un spécialiste ayant fait un PhD [doctorat] sur l’histoire des religions… »

Peine perdue. La journaliste l’interrompt : « Ça ne répond toujours pas à la question : pourquoi vous êtes-vous intéressé au fondateur de la chrétienté ? »

Reza Aslan roule de nouveaux de grands yeux éberlués avant de reprendre, de répéter plutôt (quoi faire d’autre ?), son raisonnement :

« Parce que c’est mon travail d’universitaire. Je suis professeur en histoire des religions, et cela inclut le Nouveau Testament. C’est mon métier. Demanderiez-vous à un chrétien pourquoi il écrit un livre sur l’islam ? Je ne le pense pas. Et pour être honnête, je suis obsédé par Jésus depuis vingt ans. J’ai étudié sa vie, son œuvre et les origines de la chrétienté depuis deux décennies. Ce livre n’est pas une attaque de la chrétienté : ma mère est chrétienne, ma femme est chrétienne, mon beau-frère est pasteur… Toute personne qui pense que ce livre est une attaque contre le christianisme ne l’a pas lu. »

La journaliste cite alors à l’antenne la tribune publiée sur le site de Fox News d’un certain John S. Dickerson, journaliste, auteur et pasteur, reprochant à Reza Aslan de ne pas avoir révélé lors de ses différentes apparitions médiatiques qu’il était musulman. Il l’accuse en outre de ne pas faire œuvre d’historien et de véhiculer des opinions propres à l’islam sur Jésus, comme le fait qu’il ait été un zélote, cette secte juive qui combattait le pouvoir romain, et ne prétendait pas être le fils de dieu.

Réponse résignée du chercheur :

« Ce n’est pas du tout ce que dit l’islam sur Jésus… Et mon livre dément justement la plupart des affirmations de l’islam sur Jésus. […] Pour être clair, il ne s’agit pas de l’opinion d’un musulman sur Jésus, mais d’un travail universitaire à visée historique, pas tant sur le Christ ou la chrétienté d’ailleurs que sur la vie d’un homme qui a vécu il y a deux mille ans sur un territoire que les Romains nommaient Palestine. »

« En quoi votre livre diffère-t-il des thèses de l’islam sur Jésus ? », insiste la journaliste, visiblement incapable d’endurer la lecture politique que fait le chercheur du personnage historique de Jésus.

Réponse argumentée de Reza Aslan :

« Pour commencer, l’islam pense que Jésus n’a pas été crucifié et croit à l’immaculée conception. Or il est tout à fait clair que Jésus a été crucifié, et mon livre remet en question la véracité historique de l’immaculée conception. Encore une fois, je sais que nous avons déjà mentionné ce point à trois reprises, mais je ne suis pas sûr que ma foi ait quoi que ce soit à voir avec vingt années de recherches sur le Nouveau Testament. […] Je suis tout à fait disposé à débattre du fond avec ceux qui ne partagent pas mes conclusions, cependant je trouve un peu étrange de débattre, non pas des thèses du livre, mais de mon droit en tant qu’universitaire à l’écrire. »

Il revient ensuite sur le fond de sa thèse, qui part de la réalité historique de la crucifixion :

« Ce châtiment était réservé aux personnes qui avait porté atteinte à la sécurité de l’Etat (sédition, rébellion, trahison, insurrection…). Les ‘voleurs’ crucifiés à ses côtés n’étaient pas des voleurs, mais des ‘bandits’, un des termes les plus communs à l’époque pour désigner les insurrectionnistes. Il suffit de savoir que Jésus a été crucifié pour comprendre quel agitateur il était. Son action était une telle menace pour l’empire romain qu’ils l’ont arrêté, torturé et crucifié… »

Le chercheur n’a pas le temps de poursuivre la présentation de son ouvrage que la présentatrice lui coupe de nouveau la parole afin de questionner, une énième fois, sa légitimité à écrire sur le sujet. D’une patience héroïque, Reza Aslan déroule une nouvelle fois son raisonnement avant, face aux arguments de plus en plus fallacieux de son interlocutrice, qui le compare à un démocrate écrivant un livre sur Ronald Reagan, de souligner ce qui s’apparente, de toute évidence, à un manque de culture générale : « Vous ne me connaissez peut-être pas, mais il se trouve que je suis un penseur musulman relativement connu aux Etats-Unis. »

Une semaine avant son expérience désastreuse sur Fox News, Reza Aslan avait passé un bien meilleur moment sur le Daily Show :