Religious scholar Reza Aslan destroys ‘charlatan’ Joel Osteen: Jesus hated wealth

[truebluegreen]

33. "It is Jesus' wisdom and teachings that matter."

I agree completely. Coming to the story as a history buff I was aware of the Jesus-as-a-social-reformer aspect. I was also aware that the gospels were written long after the events they purport to describe, that the New Testament was codified by men whose motives I suspect (i.e. by men looking to "establish" a religion in a decaying empire*) and then was copied, re-copied, translated, re-translated etc etc etc. IIRC there exist more versions of the New Testament than there are words in it ("Misquoting Jesus" by Bart D Ehrman).

One thing I really like about Aslan's book is that he thoroughly explains the historical background of Jesus' life, traces the development of the early church/movement (I never could figure out how this new cult made the jump from Jerusalem directly to Rome), points out the origins of some clearly magical and contradictory additions, but takes no position on Jesus' ability as a healer (i.e. things he can't explain he makes no attempt to). This is definitely not the typical Bible-as-history book.




*an empire that had long used religion to bind the disparate regions and people of the Roman Empire together. In the early days they superimposed their own gods on the local ones; later they developed the cult of the Emperor. Needless to say when the Emperor Constantine "converts" but doesn't allow himself to be baptized (until many years later, on his deathbed) it casts doubt on his sincerity.