Reza Aslan has written a book about Jesus. Some consider it controversial because of the fact that Reza is a Muslim man. While this makes news, there are other issues within Reza’s arguments that must be dealt with. If you will allow me, as I read the book, I would like to point out some of the questions I feel arise.

First, in the introduction, Reza starts to show his colors in his perspective about Jesus. He holds to the Gospel of Mark as being written sometime after 70 C.E. This is believed in part because the “most widely accepted theory on the formation of the gospels, the ‘Two-Source Theory’ holds (kindle loc 155)” this view. Someone once said that the narrow road would be found by few, which suggests it is hard. Perhaps this was not because it is hidden or difficult to see, but difficult to follow in a seeming tsunami of “scholarship.” There is a lot of good writing on the early date of Mark’s Gospel (before 60 C.E.). I found a fun example here (http://tinyurl.com/kgzz73m). Just because something is new or seemingly compelling may not make it right. Further, Reza uses this whole concept to suggest that Jesus was but a man who was made into the Christ by the early church (after the rebellion leading to the temple’s destruction in 70 C.E.) to separate themselves from impending Roman judgment. I don’t know how one can come to the conclusion that Jesus was not seen as God until the writing of the Gospels (late writing at that) when Paul makes no mistakes in being bold with his claims of the Christ. Reza has some interesting dating for Paul’s letters, but they are written in the 40s and 50s in his opinion, so that is problematic at best to Reza’s position that Christians colluded to build Jesus into deity.

Second, Reza makes a claim that his entire book is to be the biographical look at the man of Jesus. When one makes that claim, facts must be immaculately recounted. A recent criticism of this kind has come out, but I will let you read that on your own time (http://tinyurl.com/lz9k4n9).

This is a start to my reading the book. It is definitely challenging me, but these are the issues I see at first glance.