From ABC Religion and Ethics-He is my favourite subject, academically and personally, but popular accounts of the "historical Jesus" are getting tedious, and some of them are giving history itself a bad name.
Hardly a month goes by without a media outlet announcing something "new" about Jesus. Some half-qualified scholar tells us how the original Jesus was, unsurprisingly, quite unlike the figure of the Gospels. He was married, he was gay, he was both, he never existed, he was peaceful, he was violent, and on and on it goes.
The most recent effort is Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Typical of this genre, the author's principal credentials are not in ancient history, classics, New Testament or Jewish studies - the directly relevant disciplines. Instead, he has a PhD in the sociology of religion and is a "professor of creative writing," which explains both the riveting prose and eccentric content. The mismatch between Aslan's grandiose claims and his limited credentials in history is glaring on almost every page. The sizable bibliography and notes are no substitute for formal training - as is equally well-attested in the similarly blustering works of fundamentalist Christian apologetics.
Naturally, everyone is allowed to express a view on historical matters. All I am saying is that not everyone is allowed to claim the mantle of "expert" in what is a vast and highly specialized field of academic enquiry, in which Aslan has not contributed a single peer reviewed article, let alone monograph.
More here-
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/08/09/3822264.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment