The Jesus of History versus the Christ of Faith

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic figures by examining Jesus within the context of the times in which he lived: the age of zealotry. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against historical sources, Aslan describes a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity secret; and the seditious “King of the Jews,” whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his lifetime. Aslan explores why the early Church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary and grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself.
Speaker: Reza Aslan

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[roselotusmystic]

"Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics."
- Charles Peguy

[jmorra]

"The first thing Jesus does when he comes back is (he) gets rid of all the Jews." What a load of crap. Why wasn't there someone in the audience to call him out on this garbage? He is preaching to a choir who read "The Da Vinci Code."

[helennesan]

I'm sorry that I missed to add one more... I'm from India and was a Hindu who accepted Jesus Christ. Please don't mislead people showing Krishna is the Christ version. That's a grave mistake. Please read Mahabharata (Epic of India) to figure out who Krishna is.... Not sure about other countries but definitely not in India. Thanks

[matthewmaguire]

The apostles complaining about Mary Magdalene having too much influence over Jesus sounds like the moaning and groaning around Yoko and John.

[elizabethbeal]

What do they mean Jesus couldn’t read?! He knew the scriptures. He pulled them out and read from them in front of the priests....

[intensewordsessionswithnic]

the response to the woman who said "what's your favorite story in the gospels" has a lot of misleading facts. Unless you have other extraBiblical sources, the gospels don't teach that Jesus was John's disciple, secondly, the disciples of Jesus never said, "teach us to pray as JOHN TAUGHT YOU", you are adding to the info there and that's irresponsible of you. lastly, Jesus never baptized anyone (John 4). actually John makes it clear that Jesus baptized no one. Jesus did not start His movement when John died, that's another lie. by the time John died Jesus had massive crowds. actually this bothered John's disciples and John said it himself that Jesus much increase and he must decrease. All i'm asking is if you gonna comment on the gospels get your facts straight.

[deborahlawrence]

I appreciated Reza's rich historical context of first century Judaism in the Roman occupation, but I find his approach to scripture conflicted. He initially invalidates the gospel records as a historical resource then he cherry picks his use of them to sketch out the details of Jesus' life—at times, misquoting them. For example, he confuses the account of the Samaritan woman at the well with the Canaanite woman who sought exorcism for her daughter. Contrary to what Reza says, Jesus did pass through Samaria. It was the Canaanite woman that he addressed with the statement, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” Reza's attributing the Lord's Prayer to John the Baptizer is even more troubling. If Jesus was John's disciple, why did John rather recognize Jesus as the ONE who should be baptizing him? Reza also erroneously states that John “invented” baptism. On the contrary, ancient Judaism required an immersion ritual for conversion. These ritual immersions were call “mikveh.” Outside of the bible records, I was surprised that Reza makes no mention of hostile independent sources such as Jewish historian Josephus (95 A.D.) and Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (116 AD). And finally, the earliest creeds created within three years of the crucifixion acknowledge the divinity of Jesus—not sufficient time for myths to develop regarding his deity, death, and resurrection. James the brother of Jesus, 11 of the original apostles, Paul, and many early followers died for holding these beliefs.The fact is, the basic tenets of faith were established from the very beginning. Even the term “Christian” was coined in ancient Antioch in the mid first century. So where is this “chasm” between the historical Jesus of Nazareth and the “Christ” (i.e., messiah)? Is this not the same person? “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 (40-60 AD)

[jmpayne]

I’m a former catholic turned somewhere between athirst and agnostic. The one thing that keeps me from completely dismissing Christianity is how fast it spread and how wide its reach is. The thought that a made up fairy tale could have that effect confuses me to the highest degree.

[pig]

34:00 Aslan had his story of the gospels mixed up. The woman at the well whom Jesus asked for a drink was a Samaritan. This is found in the gospel of John. He is referring to the Syrophoenician who asked Jesus to cast out the demons possessing her daughter. Found in Mark. There is nothing about Jesus asking for a drink in this story.

[topers]

I am korean and i ve never seen jesus buddah in my life. I think he just wants to emphasize the fact that christianity can take on any religion and culture but that's non sense. There is no jejus christ in buddism.

[georgi]

Dearest Reza! I wish I could hug you!!! I can not believe that I just came upon your talk today for the first time! I LOVE LOVE LOVE your view, passion, wisdom and commitment to truth and keeping it "real". I would LOVE to talk to you about the "sequel" to your presentation, the aspect of Jesus/Yeshua as the "Christ". It is my conviction that the time is now for each and every human to consider finding that God-given aspect in ourselves, the Christ within and identify with their Christian (Krystian) aspect, meaning messiah, messenger, way-shower. - rather than waiting for a redeemer to do it for us - to wake up, take our power back and let our own Light shine! It is time for the Light to prevail over the illusion/slavery that ruled humanity for a long time.

[estuchedepeluche]

Did Reza said he was going to keep his comment brief?

[christopherj.samuel]

I find it weird how you first mention (11:30) that the Gospels are more like credals of faith, not historical documents, testimonies of faith and should those be taken out you know very little about Jesus but, for every claim you've made about Jesus until now, you resort back to finding a ground of proof in the Gospels.
But, they are creedal of faith, not historical documents.. ??

[bobdemott]

A journey is determined by your own understanding and when you think you know, you don't know, it is only when you come to the understanding you don't know that you are capable of learning and knowing.

[drworm-sz]

At 38:07 he says that Jesus is "never" referred to as the son of Joseph, but this is flat-out wrong. Luke 4:22 has people asking "is this not the son of Joseph?" and in John 6:42 people ask, "Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" Also the genealogies at the beginning of Matthew and Luke specifically mention Joseph as Jesus' father.

[jacqueslombard]

During his first question from his audience, Reza said: "So when He (Jesus) goes to see the Syrophoenician woman, really the only non-Jew that He ever has real contact with, in the Synoptic gospels". Then he describes the story further by explaining that Jesus went to draw some well (guess this was just a slip of the tongue and he actually meant water) and then He met a Syrophoenician woman there and she invited Jesus to her town to come and preach. He (Jesus) then has a conversation with the woman about the food for the children (Israel) and she famously said "the dogs (Gentiles) can eat the crumbs that fall from the table". After this Jesus said, "You're right. Go your faith has healed you". Then Reza makes this bold statement that "THAT Jesus never, ever sets foot in a gentile city, He never preaches to a gentile community. Why? ‘Cause He’s a Jew preaching Judaism to other Jews”...

There are so many unbiblical and false statements here!

First of all, make sure that when you quote events from Scripture you actually know Scripture and you quote them correctly. Merging events (The Syrophoenician Woman & The Woman at the Well) confuses your audience and drives home your view and not the truth! The Syrophoenician Woman is found in Matthew 15 and Mark 7 and the Woman at the Well is found in John 4 - go read it for yourself again to make sure you understand the context and the difference between the two.

Secondly, the Syrophoenician woman wasn't the only non-Jew that Jesus ever had real contact with. Just from these two stories mentioned earlier, we see Jesus engaging with two different women who both were non-Jews. This statement was completely untrue!

Jesus’ first encounter with Gentiles was when He was visited by the Magi when He was a toddler (Matthew 2). It is interesting that the Gospel of Matthew, written for a Jewish audience, kicks off with a visit of the Magi. Presumably, pagan Gentiles traveled hundreds of miles to worship the “King of the Jews.” With this visit, Matthew foreshadowed his theme of the Gentiles’ positive response to Jesus’ ministry.

During His ministry, there was the encounter with the Roman Centurion (Matthew 8:8; Luke 7:2). A Centurion was a Roman military leader with a rank equivalent to that of a captain in the U.S. Army. Being part of the occupying Roman military force, he would have represented everything the Jews would have hated about Rome. If Jesus is looking to make a prophetic statement, meeting with a Roman Centurion was the perfect way to start.

Writing to a Jewish audience, Matthew gave no background information about the Centurion. When Jesus arrived in Capernaum, the Centurion appeared before Jesus asking for a miracle. To see a Roman leader asking a Jew for a favor would have been shocking for Matthew’s Jewish readers.

In Matthew’s account, Jesus responded by asking “Shall I come and heal him?” (Matthew 8:7). Jesus asked the same question that Matthew’s readers would have asked. They would have said, “No”. Jews and Gentiles did not associate with each other. For a Jew to enter a Gentile home would make him ceremonially unclean. The Centurion offers a surprising response. He states that he is not worthy to have Jesus come to his house. One could imagine Matthew’s Jewish audience nodding their heads in agreement.

This is when the narrative takes a surprising turn. The Centurion then told Jesus there is no need for Him to come to his home, “only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” (Matt. 8:8). In both Matthew and Luke, Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you with no one in Israel have I found such faith’ (Matthew 8:10; Luke 7:9). Jesus was saying to both his original Jewish audience and to Matthew’s Jewish readers that this Gentile had more faith than any Jew he had ever met. Undoubtedly, that would be a difficult thing for Jews to hear.

Jesus’ next encounter with a Gentile occurs in the town of Gadara, part of the Decapolis. The Decapolis was a predominantly Gentile area and this story is included in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew 8:26-34; Luke 8:26-39; Mark 5:1-20). All three Gospels give the impression that Jesus’ sole purpose for traveling to this Gentile area was to heal the demoniac(s), because the moment He stepped out of the boat, he (they) appear. Jesus casts out the demons and sends them into pigs and the man was healed and, for the first time in a long time, totally sane. The pig herdsmen told the townfolk what Jesus did. Instead of being appreciative of Jesus delivering the demoniac(s), the locals saw His actions as hurting their economy. They asked Jesus to leave.

The main point in all three Gospels is that Jesus was willing to go out of His way to the land of the despised Gentiles and show compassion by delivering a complete social outcast. Jesus not only goes out of His way but travels to a land of pig farming near tombs, all of which would be unclean to Jews. Jesus does not allow typical Jewish sensibilities to keep Him from helping this Gentile. He intentionally crosses well-known Jewish boundary markers to heal him.

The Gospel of Mark includes two additional stories of Jesus interacting with Gentiles. The first of these follows immediately on the heels of our previous story of the Syrophoenician woman. According to Mark, Jesus travels from Tyre, which is 35 miles north of the Sea of Galilee, and returns to the Decapolis, which is at the south end of the Sea of Galilee (Mark 7:31). This is the Gentile the same Gentile territory in which Jesus delivered the Demoniac (Mark 5:19-20). Apparently, the former demoniac that Jesus had commissioned to share what had happened to him did a credible job. When Jesus arrives, the people are aware that God has used Him to heal people. A crowd, presumably of Gentiles, brings a man with a speech impediment for Jesus to heal. Once again, Jesus heals the man. Mark writes this story in such a way that it gives every appearance that Jesus went significantly out of His way, headed into Gentile territory to heal this man.

Since Mark gave no indication of Jesus’ returns to Israel, the view held by most Bible scholars is that Jesus continued His ministry to the Gentiles. He attracts a crowd. After several days of being with Jesus, the crowd was hungry. According to Mark, it was here, in the Decapolis region, where Jesus fed the 4, 000. In Mark, Jesus fed 5, 000 Jews and later, fed 4, 000 Gentiles.

Though both miracles were motivated by Jesus’ compassion, undoubtedly, in this case, Jesus wished to demonstrate having compassion for Gentiles for the benefit of His disciples. One wonders when it may have dawned on His disciples that Jesus had no qualms with breaking bread with Gentiles. By Jesus’ words and deeds, he demonstrated what racial reconciliation should be like between Jews and Gentiles.

That Jesus went out of His way to travel Gentile territory twice - three times in the Gospel of Mark - each time healing Gentiles in Gentile lands, teaches us that we should be willing to leave our comfort zones and cross-racial barriers to restore broken relationships.

Part of His mission was that we would no longer be divided by titles or race: slave versus free; rich versus poor; Jew versus Gentile; or today, Armenian versus Turk; Ukrainian versus Russian; or Black versus White. Jesus lived a life of racial reconciliation in a world full of racial hate. Jesus came not only to reconcile us with God, but also to reconcile us with each other: Jews and Gentiles, Armenians and Turks, Ukrainian and Russian, and Black and White. As the Apostle Paul said, Jesus came to reconcile ALL THINGS. (Colossians 1:20).

The final thing I would like to touch on is where Jesus taught His disciples to pray. Again, when quoting Scripture, please quote it correctly! The Scripture states: “Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught HIS disciples.”” (Luke 11:1). Incorrectly quoting Scripture confuses your audience and drives home your point of view and not the truth! Stop playing fast and loose with the text!

[raydendenko]

09:56 This is factually incorrect. I have spent my life all over India and haven't seen a single depiction of Jesus like this . This is Krishna all the way, there is absolutely zero christian imagery in the picture (not even the cross).

[kimfenech]

Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

[noahbrasseur]

Reza Aslan is simply a very good story-teller. He blasts the fact that the authors of the Bible are unreliable yet pulls most of the facts of his thesis from those very same authors when they fit in with his narrative. Listen, if the Bible/Biblical authors have no reliability whatsoever as Aslan is saying, then this whole talk is a waste of time. I can create a random American character out of thin air based on 1770 American history too.... It's baseless! I wish I could spend time dissecting this whole talk, because almost each point that he makes wrong. He is basing Jesus off of what the history was at that time (which he wrongly interprets at many times). Makes no sense to me. You are literally creating a person out of thin air. Either the Jesus of the Bible was the man that eye-witnesses attested to him as being, or else he is the Jesus of Reza Aslan - a fiction of creative writing.


Unreal. Don't take this man's word for anything. Do your own research about the authors of the Bible. He skips the most important part of the evidence for Jesus: the reliability of the eye-witness testimony of the disciples. He tosses it out without consideration because they were "Christians". In fact, there were no Christians. Mostly, they were Jews who followed Jesus and wrote about him. Look at the evidence and decide for yourself b/c Aslan has not looked at the evidence yet decided for himself.

[robertwilliams]

There are no Official Roman Records showing that Jesus ever existed in the time frame of Rome's control of Palestine. Nor are their any architectural evidences of his existence. You need to recall the early Church fathers who stated, and believed that Jesus and Joshua were one and the same person. Further, reda Ahmed Osman's " Jesus in the House of the Pharaohs".