Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Reza Aslan's "Zealot" Firestorm

You may have seen the viral video from Fox News' Lauren Green's interview of  Dr Reza Aslan on his book on Jesus titled "Zealot". Watch it here.  The interview is horrible.  Although I don't agree with Reza Aslan's conclusions, from what I've heard,  I was appalled by the bias and unfairness leveled against him. It was painfully obvious that Green  (and maybe her producers either) had not read Aslan's book and did not understand his arguments in the slightest. It was disrespectful. It looked like the Fox News deal was to just to pretend that because Aslan is a Muslim he has no right to comment on Jesus and history. Aslan is wrong in many of his conclusions but he has every right to say it. Many non-Muslims have come to many of the same conclusions about Jesus. Aslan has every right to be wrong as the liberal "christian" or atheist or agnostic scholar.

A firestorm has been launched over this interview that has gone viral. I think it is worth looking at some of the comments and stories around this. For an atheist's perspective, check out John Loftus' short post
Reza Aslan Interviewed on Fox News About His New Book, "Zealot". Loftus was correct about how bad the interview was but I know he does not fully come to the same detailed conclusions that Aslan has and I get the feeling that he'd rather ignore Aslan completely because Aslan is a Muslim. Aslan is not wrong because he is a Muslim, he is wrong because he doesn't let the Bible speak and fairly weigh it, as James White points out in his webcast yesterday. Dr White goes much farther in showing why he disagrees with Dr Aslan (he even read the book) and quoted from an interview Aslan gave recently showing why Aslan was not a Christian (like every apostate I've ever heard from). Read the interview Exclusive Loonwatch Interview with Reza Aslan.
I don't have a problem with non-Christians discussing the content of the Bible. It opens up a dialog.

The interview made Fox News look so bad they felt the need to respond



The YoungTurks channel had some choice comments as well





If you are interested in a more indepth review on what Aslan actually wrote about Jesus check out
What Reza Aslan actually says about Jesus
at

1 comment:

  1. KirkAugust 2, 2013 at 2:43 PM

    Interesting thanks for your post. I commented on the interview. My personal thoughts is that Aslan is not a scholar in no right and anyone wanting to know who Jesus Christ is should read other "scholars" who are I think have more right to speak on this. But yeah you are right he does. Perhaps maybe God will one day if He has chosen to do so save him. Thanks for your post.

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