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hi my name is Richard shell I'm here with Reza aen the author of zealot The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth uh
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and I'm proud to say that we're happy at Wharton to uh host a best-selling author
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uh and someone who knows more than probably most people living about the facts of the this life of Jesus so
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welcome Rea thank you thanks for having me uh Rea um I'm U curious about how
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this book came to uh be next on the plate you've written about Islam you've
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written about fundamentalism both of which are sort of Islamic oriented Middle East subjects but how did how did
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the idea of writing a life of Jesus come to your mind well it turns out Jesus is
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Middle Eastern too true um no I've actually been in wanting to write this book for a very
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long time it actually has its source in my uh undergraduate thesis work at Santa
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Clara University which was on something called the Messianic Secret in mark this
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very difficult to understand uh thing that happens with in the First Gospel where Jesus is constantly denying his
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Messianic identity constantly rejecting it when other people throw it at him and
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Scholars have been trying to figure out for 200 years why that is and I wrote a little little thesis on it that then
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became kind of the impetus for wanting to dig deeper and deeper into the historical Jesus um it's just that I
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didn't get a chance to actually write the book itself until until now okay great um well um for our listeners
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um I think it would be helpful to start this if you could just give us sort of your thesis in a nutshell so uh you can
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sort of set the plate right well this is a book this it's a biography of the
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historical Jesus the man who lived 2,000 years ago this itinerant Jewish preacher
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who despite his illiteracy his lack of Education started a movement uh that uh that was seen as so revolutionary at the
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time so threatening to the political religious powers of the of the day that he was ultimately arrested tortured and
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executed for it it's an attempt to kind of dig through all of the layers of Mythology and interpretation the Legends
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and theology that have Arisen about this man over the last 2,000 years and to see
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as much as possible how we can get to the person himself it's a admittedly quite a difficult task it's one that has
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been uh a part of a quest for the historical Jesus for two centuries now and really what I'm trying to do is
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distill these 200 years of academic scholarship and Research into something that's appealing that's popular uh and
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meant for a general audience people who are interested in trying to figure out who this man was over and Beyond what
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the sort of Christian Traditions about him have created and who he is is a Jewish nationalist revolutionary who
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like the dozen or so other Messiah as of his time had at as his chief goal the removal of the Roman occupation from the
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holy land so people who are familiar with the Bible I think have an image of Jesus as sort of sitting in a meadow
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with a group of children uh uh and birds on his shoulders looking at mustard seeds and flowers uh and your image of
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Jesus is much closer to the one of the uh powerful physical person who could overturn the tables of money changers
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well look if you know nothing else about Jesus except that he was crucified you know enough to at the very least begin
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to question that image that you're referring to of this pacifistic preacher of good works with no interest in the
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cares of this world crucifixion was a punishment that Rome reserved almost exclusively for crimes against the state
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crimes like sedition or Insurrection treason Rebellion that's all that you could be crucified for so again if
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that's all you know about Jesus then you know enough to think that perhaps this
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guy was a little bit more of a troublemaker a little more revolutionary than we we perhaps think the image of
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Jesus as this celestial spirit with no concern over uh anything about this world that Jesus frankly would have gone
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totally unnoticed by Rome interesting so um um I think you know a lot of people when they just encounter the Bible have
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this puzzle you know what did this guy do that deserve this punishment so you're saying well what let's look at
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the punishment and go back to see what he must have done precisely that's exactly where you start at the end of
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the story not the beginning of the story this man was at the very least seen as a
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rebel as as seditious and let's be honest I mean if he did declare himself to be the Messiah that is a treasonable
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offense in the first century the Messiah means the anointed one the job of the Messiah as the descendant of King David
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is to reestablish David's Kingdom on Earth to usher in the rule of God well if you're claiming to usher in the rule
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of God you're claiming to Usher out the rule of Caesar and that is something
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that the Romans would not have ignored right yeah I remember the first time I read the Bible uh just on my own I I
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remember being struck at about Midway through the second gospel Jesus was a Jew who let who did who kept the secret
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for me it's funny that you say that because that really is the key to understanding
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the historical Jesus and it seems obvious I mean everybody thinks everybody knows Jesus is a Jew but there
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are consequences to that fact which is that everything that Jesus said or did he said or did as a Jew that every word
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that came out of his mouth has to be understood in the Jewish context that his audience were Jews so when Jesus
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said I am the Messiah he meant the Jew Jewish Messiah and every Jew who heard that understood what that meant when he
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uh overturned the tables of the money changers when he talked about the kingdom of God as a very real thing on
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earth those were the statements by a Jew about Judaism for Jews and that should immediately change the way that you read
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the gospels the gospels were written by Christians but they're written about a
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Jew that uh I remember I read the Bible all the way through in a relatively short amount of time and when I hit the
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New Testament I suddenly started hearing uh verses I'd heard before and they were
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all from the prophets and and various things so I started circling passages that that I could find in another book
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in the Old Testament and it really became obvious that he was referencing a tradition so referencing a tradition and
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what's really fascinating too about what you just said is that we have to understand
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the the direction where that prophecy goes so obviously a person of Faith a person a Believer thinks that Jesus
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fulfilled these prophecies that were written by the Hebrew prophets in reality the gospel writers wrote Jesus's
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story in a way to fulfill those prophecies so for instance one of the prophecy says that the Messiah has to be
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born in Bethlehem but Jesus was not born in Bethlehem Jesus was a nazaran that's
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how he was known throughout his entire life so the Gospel of Luke has to figure out a way to make Jesus fit the prophecy
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and so he creates this entire story about a census that forces Jesus's family to uproot themselves from
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Nazareth and go to Bethlehem where where he is born that's how the prophecies
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were fulfilled you take the story of Jesus and you shift it so that it fits the prophecy not the other way around in
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uh in U law we call that reverse engineering right right precis so U so let me ask you a couple of things that
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might be of interest to our audience who are business uh leaders uh people interested in business uh just because
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you know so much about the historical life of Jesus and sort of put it in context for us so uh uh in your view
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having studied uh all the records do you think that Jesus was an effective leader let's let's talk about the basic
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facts of this man's life he is illiterate as 98% of his fellow Jews were totally uneducated if he was a
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tekon like the gospel say uh he was at the second lowest rung of the social ladder just above the slave the Indigent
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and the beggar the tekon is a tecton is a woodworker you know we always think of
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him as as a carpenter but the image that we have of him is some guy with a small
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business you know that he's like making tables and chairs and people coming and
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buying that's not what a tecton was a tecton was a day laborer a tect on was
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the kind of guy who hangs out uh in front of Home Depot waiting for a truck to come by to get a job he would go from
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City to City looking for work so you're talking about the poorest of the poor
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illiterate uneducated and yet despite all that was able to start this movement on behalf of
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the poor the weak the marginalize the dispossessed that ultimately led to this confrontation with Rome so I guess what
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I'm saying is that the the leadership principles there are so fascinating to
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me because the gospels over and over again say that the people that Jesus spoke to were amazed not So Much by his
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teachings but by the authority with which he spoke it was his personal Charisma that brought people to him he
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wasn't a scribe he wasn't a Pharisee he wasn't a priest he was not learned he
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did not talk uh about the scriptures from a position of an E from an expert he was not an expert in the scriptures
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instead what he did was talk about the needs of the individuals that he was speaking to and he would address those
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needs through his Charisma a and that's where his power came from so in a in an
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American political context he might have been a populist uh politician someone who came from the working class and who
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spoke to the working class and uh was you know very charismatic and able to to develop a big precisely indeed if you
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were to distill Jesus's social teachings it was about the reversal of the social
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order the first shall be last and the last shall be first the rich shall be made poor the poor shall be made Rich
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this was about as populist as it gets I mean nowadays we would call him a socialist and you know we would we would
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denigrate him to the margins of society well it turns out that that's how they
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thought about him back then too okay uh what about his skill another leadership skill as a communicator uh What uh what
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evidence do you have to suggest that he either was uh on the A+ wrong or the C Rong of Communicator well as most people
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know Jesus's primary form of communication was through Parables some of these Parables of course for us are
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somewhat incomprehensible you know that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed uh the kingdom of God is like a
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Wedding Banquet the kingdom of God of course being the primary uh message that he had in mind that when he talks about
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the kingdom of God he's talking precisely about this reversal of the social order that I was referring to now
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obviously this is a message that is profoundly appealing if you're at the lowest rungs of the social ladder and
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it's profoundly threatening if you're at the highest rungs of the social ladder
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so Jesus by speaking in these Parables has figured out a way to communicate the truth of this Kingdom to his audience
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who would understand precisely what he is is talking about but at the same time to keep it as much as secret as possible
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from the those that would feel threatened by it indeed he says about his Parables that the secrets of the
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kingdom of God are spoken of in Parables so that those who have ears to hear can
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hear them those who can understand them can understand them and to everyone else
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it's maintained a secret and I think that's a very interesting and unique way
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of communicating your thoughts in a way that only your intended audience can understand well one of one we in in our
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teaching uh here about persuasion and so on uh probably the most profound skill is coming up with the right metaphor uh
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and the metaphor always has to connect to the specific audience so I think what you're saying was he knew his audience
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and he had metaphors they could relate to exactly and it's interesting because
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if you took let's say you know some herodian Elite uh and some uh farmer and
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said to both of them the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed the farmer understands what that means this tiny
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insignificant seed that then becomes the biggest of bushes the herodian elite would have no idea what you're referring
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to what's a mustard seed some small thing on a dining room table Yeah so that oh so then you mean it's irrelevant
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is what you mean interesting uh there was your a lot of your book is taken up with the succession problem that follow
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Jesus's death and uh that's a huge issue in business when a Founder uh gives the
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Reigns or dies or moves on uh there's usually rivalries in who's going to run
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the company or how how how what direction it'll take I was wondering if you could uh tell us a little bit about
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whether uh Jesus's succession planning worked out the way he planned well so
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what we do know is that the the person who ended up leading the community that Jesus left behind after his death was
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his brother James James was a very significant man in in the first century um he was called the bishop of Bishops
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and he he led what was known as the Jerusalem assembly or church they didn't
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have the word church back then but the the the Jerusalem Church which was then in charge of all the other churches that
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pop up everywhere James had a very uh limited conception of what this movement was about Jesus was a Jew James was a
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Jew this was a Jewish movement it was for Jews uh certainly non-jews could join this movement if they'd like but
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first they had to become Jews they had to follow all the Jewish dietary restrictions the Jewish laws after a few
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years James decided to forego the circumcision uh requirement which was marketing wise probably a good idea but
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nevertheless as far as he was concerned this was a Jewish movement for Jews and that you had to become a Jew to join it
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the sort of rival to James was Paul Paul this former Pharisee who never knew J Jesus while he was alive but who has
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this ecstatic experience uh of the Risen Jesus and decides that he's going to
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actually transform this movement for non-jews he's going to preach it to Gentiles and if he's going to do that
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particularly if he's going to preach it to Rome he has to get rid of these Jewish requirements so as far as J uh
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Paul is concerned forget about the law of Moses forget about circumcision forget about the dietary requirements
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forget about the even notion of having to become a Jew first that Jesus's movement transcends Judaism now here's
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the interesting thing during the lifetime of both men uh Paul dies around 66 ad James dies at 62 ad during the
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lifetime of these two men James is descendant after all you don't argue with the brother the Flesh and Blood
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brother of Jesus he wins any argument that you have James is going to win but after the death of both men and
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certainly after 70 the destruction of Jerusalem it's Paul's idea of Christianity that suddenly becomes
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ascendant as Christianity becomes less and less a Jewish religion and more a a Roman religion this notion of a
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universalism that a a Christianity that's divorced from its parent religion becomes enormously popular and
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successful and James's version of Christianity a Jewish religion for Jews continues to exist but just begins to
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slowly die away so it's an interesting notion that the successor of Jesus James
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who thinks that he is following Jesus's Vision uh becomes the failed version of
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Christianity and the version of Christianity that divorces itself from Jesus's teachings and creates something
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new appealing open to everyone becomes the largest religion in the world so um I find it ironic if Jesus was a sort of
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failed revolutionary that his kingdom actually ended up overtaking Rome right uh and one wonders depending on what you
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how you characterize Jesus whether he might not have had uh a bit of an insight into how this would all work out
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I think that that's certainly what Christians would say is that the failure of the Cross was actually a victory and
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but again you're going to have to thank Paul for that and not so much Jesus well
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Jesus appeared to Paul you're right right the Risen Jesus appeared to Paul and Paul says that he's getting all this
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information from the Risen Jesus so that that's a good point I mean that's where
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I guess A Book Like Yours uh goes straight to the border of faith and then it becomes you know pretty hard to you
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know have a discussion around facts here's the dividing line and I and I'm
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glad that you brought this up is it possible that Jesus had this conception of himself utterly unique than what any
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other Jew understood when it came to the the role of the Messiah is it possible that he thought to himself that this
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Celestial Kingdom will overcome the Roman Empire and that no action on Earth would do that yes it's possible is it
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likely no it's not likely and that's the dividing line between the historian and
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the person of Faith the person of faith is interested in what is possible the historian is interested in what is
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likely I guess the uh the the fact that this Faith uh worked out so well uh in terms of an institution uh suggests that
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that wasn't likely either so I think that's a good point so two two quick
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points to to wrap it up for us um first of all you've been on this book tour
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you've written a controversial book uh that sort of looks at at something that's very hard to see the historical
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Jesus uh what are some of the surprises that you've met on the road as you've
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exposed this message to different audiences well it's interesting I I you know I get I've gotten an overwhelmingly
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positive response particularly from Christians I think a lot of Christians uh who email me I get dozens of these
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emails a a week uh telling me that although they actually believe that this person that I'm describing is also God
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they so rarely get an opportunity to if you will suspend that this that belief and instead look at Jesus as just a man
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it's very hard to do that you know if you think that Jesus is fully God and fully man no matter how hard you try the
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man part gets subsumed by the god part um and this is an opportunity for them to have that experience at the same time
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I get just as many emails from atheists who say that finally this is the Jesus that they've
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been looking for that the other Jesus The Godly Jesus they know is just a bunch of bunk but in reality this is the
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Jesus that they want so for me as a writer and as a thinker it's been incredibly satisfying to see Christians
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and atheists come to this book and both enjoy it for their own sort of preconceived reasons right you've had
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this issue that arose as well having to do with um your own uh background and your own family uh tell us a little bit
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about how that uh has worked out well so you know I've I've as I've me mentioned
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before I'm a Muslim that I I uh that my faith background is Islam uh that my
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scholarship of course is something entirely different and you know it might be difficult for a lot of people to
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understand that religion is an academic discipline that we are all you know coming at it from as much as an academic
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and objective and scarly Route as we possibly can despite the fact that many of us have our own background so you
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know Jews write about Buddhism and and Christians write about Islam and sometimes Muslims write about uh
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Christianity uh in my world that's totally normal but in the popular world and particularly amongst certain media
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Outlets that shall remain unnamed uh that's crazy that you can't possibly not
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have some secret agenda if you're writing about uh a religion not you know from that religious uh religion's
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perspective but you know to be honest that's as much our fault as it is the media's Fault the truth of the matter is
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and I can say this for Scholars of almost every discipline including business uh we don't do a very good job
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sometimes of communicating to a popular audience we spend so much time locked in
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these Ivory Towers talking to each other in our own specialized language that nobody else can understand we talk about
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these complex theories and ideas as though they don't they don't have a real
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world uh uh uh you know uh impact and we don't spend enough time I think communicating to the popular media to
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the popular world and by the way when we do we're often criticized by our own
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colleagues for doing so so it's a two-way street I mean it's on the one hand there's a misperception of what
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Scholars do in the media but we bear some of that burden ourselves yeah well Jesus encountered his culture and was
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misunderstood and you've encountered yours uh I'll take that so last last
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question uh and this is just a a quirky one but I know a lot of our listeners have read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code
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right and the premise of that novel and some sequels is that Jesus had a family a wife uh children that there's this
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bloodline of Jesus that's uh persisted through the Middle Ages to the present
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well you've investigated the life of Jesus more than anyone I know so what do
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you think well this is actually a very complex question it's sort of one of the
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biggest paradoxes about Jesus studies on the one hand it would have been inconceivable for a 30-year-old Jewish
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male in the first century not to have a wife and children he may as well be from
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Mars I mean it would have been absolutely inconceivable that's not to say that there weren't celibates in
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Jesus's time there were but they were monastic orders they separated themselves from society not just from
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wives and children and Jesus obviously did not do that um so that's that's the
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that's the first fact it would have been downright inconceivable here's the other fact in
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every piece of writing ever written about Jesus by his friends and his enemies by his detractors and his
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worshippers everything written by Christians by Jews by pagans by apologists everything ever written about
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about Jesus there is never a mention of wife and kids and that is difficult to overcome uh now is it possible that
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we'll come up with something one day that a piece of Papyrus will suddenly show up as as perhaps my colleague Karen
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King may have found which we're still waiting to find out whether that's
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authentic or not and there's some question about whether it is or not will some gospel all of a sudden show up uh
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one day that that shows that Jesus was married maybe but those are the irreconcilable facts it would have been
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impossible to think of him as not married and yet no evidence no evidence all right great uh Raza aen author of
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zealot The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth thank you very much thank you for having me
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all