Reza Aslan's Zealot

I am about halfway through this book. I have many feelings about it that are complicated, but on the whole positive. I went to a Jesuit run middle School (Nativity), an Episcopal High school (Groton), and studied religion again at Stonehill College, and though that College is the order of the Holy Cross, the professor was Jewish and she was also a Scholar of Islamic studies. So I was familiar with a lot of the information about Jesus already. In fact I remember having an argument at Nativity about a passage about Jesus healung a Phoenician women, where he eventually heals here but basically calls her a gentile dog.

I would say I am part Christian because I was baptized Catholic, educated as mentioned above, and also I grew up in America, where European Christianity is all over television. In fact it is the stories and fairy tales on tv like touched by an angel or other Christmas specials that most sparked that warm cozy fuzzy religious feeling in me. The historical Jesus is a man I respect, but we would not be friends. After all, part of the Euro-American Christianity is pagan. And I love that part of my religious beliefs. Also, my Chinese side, is also primarily Pagan, and then Buddhist. And finally I have my atheistic rational side as well, from the other classes I took in my schooling and from watching any science special ever. And that view is much more in line with the Roman way of thinking, (and today's America).

Christian or not, you should read this book. It is amazing to see how similar Jesus's time is to ours. I mean what is the big thing in the news today. Syria. But others are more qualified to blog about that.

I have to say the most striking thing that Aslan is revealing to me, is that historical Jesus was a lot like Hung Hei Goon. Hung Hei Goon's mythology. And that statement and thought that popped into my mind while reading about what Jesus's Kingdom of God really meant sheds a lot more light on the significance of the whole Shaolin lineage in Chinese and especially Hong Kong culture. The triads have Shaolin origins as do the Kung Fu schools, and 90% of the Kung Fu in the South is from Hung Hei Goon, who brought the Kung Fu directly to the villages en masse for the purpose of raising an army against the Qing Government. My point is, triads and Kung fu is more than just gangsterism and martial arts. It's almost like a religion, especially when you go back to the 1960's. Now.. not so much. And plenty of people who are part of these organizations and practices are also Christians. I'm just pointing out that there is a reason why Kung Fu movies (even Kung Fu Panda) can induce that same warm fuzzy feeling that a Christmas special does. It might not be preaching a religion but it usually is a kind of kick ass preaching.

But Hung Hei Goon of course cannot compare in similarity to another Qing Dynasty rebel, Hong Xiaoquan, or God's Chinese son, who claimed to be Jesus's younger brother (I guess spiritually) In fact they did take half of China (which is a hell of a lot bigger than measly Israel ever was) in the Taiping rebellion. And they did create a literal Chinese Kingdom of God, for a while. I don't know much about that. But strangely reading about historical Jesus makes me want to read more about the Taiping leader, and truthfully, it sounds like they are more similar than I once imagined.

Anyway, I like learning about the historical Jesus, and I definitely respect him and knowing about him helps me understand the Christ Jesus a little better too, and also to understand, I can worship any kind of Jesus or Buddha, or Odin/Santa Claus, and indeed Gwan Gung, I see fit, regardless of what their actual historical original person might have been. And knowing this helps me feel more comfortable bowing to my version of my many gods, as well as my more elemental Universal Spirit that I meditate towards. In a wierd way, knowing that something is a fiction, somehow grounds my worship of it in reality. Maybe because if suddenly it is discovered that historical Liu Bei, or Gwan Gung, or Zhang Fei did x, y,  or z according to some knew archaeological evidence, or indeed if I think about some of the footnotes and passages of the three Kingdoms that mention some terrible stuff, it doesn't matter. Because I'm not bowing to a historical figure, but an idea of morality, based on a historical figure that I can mold and change with my modern sensibilities. At the same time, it's good to study the historical figure. But that also doesn't make the fictitious mythological figure less important or relevant to daily life and worhsip.