Zealot

A member of my congregation gave me Reza Aslan's latest book, Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, as a Christmas gift.  It was interesting, because that meant that I was reading a book about the actual historical evidence that we have concerning Jesus, at precisely the time of year when we are most immersed in the decidedly non-historical birth narratives.
Let me start with what I appreciated about Aslan's book: he does a wonderful job of presenting the cultural context of Jesus of Nazareth, he gives a visceral portrayal of Jerusalem and the Temple, and brings some of the fervor and turmoil of first century Palestine to life.  He is also very vulnerable and honest in his prologue about his own involvement and eventual disenchantment with evangelical (American) Christianity.  In that journey, I am with him, I have also experienced a "get saved or go to hell," version of Christian faith as a teenager.  I have also spent years discovering that Jesus of Nazareth is perhaps a much more inspiring and, dare I say, "likeable," character than Jesus the Christ.  I have also been often frustrated by how little Christianity seems to have to do with Jesus.
The difference for me comes in the fact that I do, in fact, believe that Jesus of Nazareth was also Jesus the Christ, and making a distinction between the two is simply splitting theological hairs.  Aslan's entire argument essentially hinges on the self understanding of the man Jesus of Nazareth.  His suspicion is that the divinity of Jesus, which has become so central to much of Christianity, would actually be shocking, even scandalizing to a Nazarene Jew.  I agree, it probably would.  The Gospels tell us that Jesus was highly uncomfortable with people who would elevate him to royal, let alone divine, status.
Aslan is highly suspicious of the Gospel writers agendas, pointing out that all of the Gospels were written in Greek and most likely date after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, which consequently means that they were probably not "eyewitness" accounts of Jesus life.  Indeed, biblical scholarship generally acknowledges the chaotic temporal separation between Jesus' life, death and resurrection, and the beginning of what we know as Christianity, and that the Gospel writers had a certain story that they were telling about Jesus of Nazareth.  For instance, Matthew and Luke include a birth narrative, which they include presumably to emphasize the exceptional nature of Jesus life from it's very beginning and present him as a fulfillment of prophecy (especially in Matthew's Gospel).  However, the birth narratives are a definite chink in the armor for skeptics to begin their assault on the truth of the Gospels.
Believers who have a strong sense of biblical infallibility are going to have a hard time with Zealot. When you strip away two thousand years of tradition and theological evolution, you are left with very little to hang your hat on.  What history tells us, absent the witness of the Gospel, was that Jesus was a Jew from Nazareth, who was executed by Rome for sedition (claiming to be King of the Jews, which represented a threat to Roman authority).  After Jesus' death a movement, headed primarily by his brother James, continued to proclaim him as the Messiah, until that movement was destroyed along with the rest of Jerusalem in 70 CE.  After 70 CE, the teachings of Jesus were primarily left in Gentile hands.  Most of the New Testament was written in Greek, by people who had never actually seen Jesus in the flesh.
So that's the "historical" reality.  If you want the long version, read Zealot for yourself, it's entertaining and well written, and pretty accurate in most ways that matter.
But, if you don't want to lose your faith in Jesus the Christ, let me tell you a little secret: Jesus is more than a historical figure.  I won't argue with Aslan's assertion that Christianity has almost certainly become something that would have been shocking to Jesus of Nazareth.  What we need to understand is the nature of the incarnation, when God became a man, he became an actual man, he was not just pretending.  When Superman is "disguised" as Clark Kent, he still has the powers, and often there are funny moments where Cal-el uses his powers while not in costume, but is careful to hide them.  We can often think that this is what God did in Jesus: he really had powers, he really knew everything, he really understood exactly what was happening all the time.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus certainly had the ability to do miracles, but they also tell us that he learned, that sometimes he was corrected, that sometimes he was uncertain, afraid, surprised and even cranky, all things that we would not expect a supreme, omniscient God to be.  The "secret" agenda of the Gospels is actually to tell us about the Incarnation, not necessarily just about Jesus of Nazareth.  He is where it starts.  If Aslan had not decided to drink the hater-ade about the Apostle Paul and been dead set on labeling him an unstable deviant, who essentially decided to start his own Jesus cult over and against Peter, James and John, he might have noticed that Paul actually started to understand how God was working, despite all the "evidence" of defeat.
What Aslan admits, several times over the course of the book is that he cannot see how anyone continued to call Jesus the Messiah after his death, and after all that transpired in Jerusalem over the next fifty years.  The Messiah was supposed to save the day, the Messiah was supposed to be the superhero, but Jesus "failed" in that mission.
Yes, he did.
But he called others to continue to "do the things that he did."  The Incarnation goes on, in James, Peter, John and yes, even Paul.  It went on at Nicea almost 300 years after Jesus died, it went on in the Reformation, it goes on in Churches all over the world right now, where people believe and follow Jesus.  I agree, that we sometimes get a little too tied up in our own stuff, and we definitely do forget that Jesus really, really wanted us to protect the poor and vulnerable, and we perhaps become far too much like the Temple that Jesus railed against, but when we remember our Savior we can repent, because he called us to it.  When we die we can be resurrected, because Jesus showed us that it was the Way.
The Incarnation was not an historical event, which happened at a specific time and place.  It is something that happens and continues to happen.  Thus, it's no surprise that it gives historians fits.  You can't write history until it's finished.  Zealot, is useful in telling us where the story began.  It tells us what Jesus may have thought about the Kingdom of Heaven, and his identity as the Son of Man, but what it entirely misses, perhaps because it is part of the "agenda" of the Gospel writers, is that Jesus may have actually understood that one man, even a God-man, cannot change the world, he needs help, he needs others to have faith and follow his path.
Maybe it's true that Christianity isn't "pure" in the historical sense, maybe it has been shaped by people who hear the Word, and learn the Way, but I think that's what makes it a living, breathing practice of Incarnation, not a dead set of doctrines.  In fact, I would say one of the things that Jesus definitely wanted to challenge was the notion of purity as a prerequisite for a relationship with God...
But that's a really long story.