Reza Aslan's Many Mistakes | National Catholic Reporter

Reza Aslan's Many Mistakes | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Quite a few others have pointed out the problems with this interpretation as far as the cherry picking of facts. Still, it is an interesting interpretation - even if it ignores the Sermon on the Mount entirely (which Tod Lindberg used in writing The Political Teachings of Jesus). Still, if you accept the Protestant interpretation of the family of Jesus as is having step brothers and brothers and sisters, you cannot totally abandon a revolutionary interpretation of Jesus' career. He and his brothers were named for the Maccabees by Mary (one of them being Simon the Zealot) and his step brothers were named for Jewish kings by Joseph's first wife. The Magnificant is both intensely spiritual and intensely political at the same time. As a loyal Jew, Jesus would have also sought the day when Israel would be free of Rome. He may have evolved in his own thinking toward an entirely spiritual kingdom and away from a kingdom of this earth - and even then - he was political enough for the Roman authorities to hang him on a tree. That is an intensely political death.

The fact that Jesus was crucified as the King of the Jews shows his death WAS political. You can't spin that away. It seems that the review is rife with credentialism. I don't care if Mr. Dickson's professional pride is hurt - which seems to be his major objection to the book. I do not agree with Mr. Aslan's view that the Resurrection was an afterthought put in later. My view on the Crucifixion is actually more radical - that in enduring it Christ did indeed empty himself of both his divine identity and his mission when he said "Woman, this is your son - John, this is your mother." (actually, she was his grandmother). She was the source of the infancy narrative (who else could be?) and his self-identity as the Son of God. John was the last of his disciples - and he did not say to baptize the world, just take care of Nana. This is what caused him to cry out in the words of Psalm 22 "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?" thus experiencing human despair when it is separated from God. It was at this point that, as a sign that the kingdom had indeed been fulfilled, he said "I thirst" and drank of the fruit of the vine, which he had said he would not drink until the kingdom had been established. It is only then that he gave his spirit to the Father and expired.

This reading - that the sacrifice of the cross was a divine vision quest rather than a divine revenge killing - is far more radical than anything Aslan says - because the implication must follow that the moral law is for our benefit, not God's satisfaction. If we can do what is right without fear then suddenly there is room for movement on gay marriage, the abortion of dangerous pregnancies and the ordination of women. Of course, the lack of moral courage to make necessary changes probably has less to do with the fear of God than the fear that doing so might harm one's ecclesiastical career. It is time to for the bishops to quit hiding behind the implicit teaching that God is an ogre, as He is not.