Rheza Aslan was a Christian but converted back to the faith of his forefathers, it's Islam. He has now written a book about Jesus, the book has become controversial as it calls into question some of the core tenets of Christianity. The book is called Zealot, the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, and Rheza joins me now from Los Angeles. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Well this is an interesting book. Now I want to declare that you're a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity? Well to be clear I am a scholar of religions with four degrees including one in a New Testament and Fluency in Biblical Greek who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades who also just happens to be a Muslim. So it's not that I'm just some Muslim writing about Jesus. I am an expert with a PhD in the history of religions. But I have been obsessed with Jesus. It still begs the question why would you be interested in the founder of Christianity? Because it's my job as an academic. I am a professor of religion including the New Testament. That's what I do for a living actually. So I mean it would be like asking a Christian why they would write a book about Islam. I'm not sure about that. But in honestly I've been obsessed with Jesus for really 20 years. I've been studying his life and his work and the origins of Christianity both in an academic environment and in a personal level for about two decades. And just to be clear this is not some attack on Christianity. My mother is a Christian. My wife is a Christian. My brother-in-law is an evangelical pastor. Anyone who thinks that this book is an attack on Christianity has not read it yet. But I want to read you some quotes from some people who are criticizing you. One from John Bickers and who has written an op ed piece on Fox News.com and he says it's not a historians report on Jesus. Is it an educated Muslims opinion about Jesus? He says its conclusions are long held. Islamic claims namely that Jesus was a Zellus prophet type who didn't claim to be God. Well that's actually not what Islam claims about Jesus. My book about Jesus overturns pretty much everything that Islam also thinks about Jesus as well. And to be clear I just want to emphasize this one more time. I am a historian. I am a PhD in the history of religions. This isn't a Muslim opinion. This is an academic work of history. Not about the Christ or about Christianity for that matter. It's about a historical man who walked the earth two thousand years ago in a land that the Romans called Palestine. How are your findings different from what Islam actually believes about Jesus? Well Islam doesn't believe that Jesus was crucified first of all. Islam believes in the virgin birth. I mean Jesus was most definitely crucified. And my book does question the historicity of the virgin birth. So again I mean I know that we've mentioned this three times now. I'm not sure what my faith happens to do with my 20 years of academic study of the New Testament. I'm just trying to bring out what some others are claiming at this point. And I want you to answer to those claims which is. Well it's pretty clear that there are those who actually do not like the book who are you know unhappy with its general arguments. That's perfectly fine. I'm more than willing to talk about the arguments of the book itself. But I do think it's perhaps a little bit strange that rather than debating the arguments of the book we are debating the right of the scholar to actually write it. Well let me let me give you some let me give you some other quotes from Dr. William Lane Craig who is a Christian philosopher and theologian. He's written a lot of books and done a lot of debates about science and religion. He said, Resa Aslan merely repeats bygone claims about the historical Jesus that have since been abandoned and refuted. What do you say to that? Well I would disagree. I have 100 pages of notes and about a thousand books that I use in my in my discussions. And of course in any scholarly discussion of Jesus as with any scholarly discussion of any ancient figure there are going to be widespread differences but my hundred pages of end notes sites every scholar who disagrees with me and every scholar who agrees with me. And I would suggest that anyone who wants to actually comment on the argument of the book read not just the book but the end notes and to figure out where my scholarly argument about Jesus comes from. What are you going to find people who disagree with me? Right exactly. What are you? We're not talking about just people who disagree with you scholars. Many scholars disagree with you as well. But I want to get to the heart of what do you what are you conclusions about Jesus? Well my conclusions about Jesus start by placing him in the world in which he lived. So I start with one fundamental truth that everyone agrees on with Jesus and that was that he was crucified. You have to understand that crucifixion in 1st century Palestine was a punishment that Rome reserved exclusively for crimes against the state like sedition or rebellion, treason or insurrection. The thieves who were crucified alongside Jesus were not thieves. The Greek word lestus means bandit and bandit was the most common term in Jesus' time foreign insurrectionist. What I say is that if you know nothing else about Jesus except that he was crucified you know enough to understand what a troublemaker this guy must have been. The movement that he started was such a threat to the political stability of the empire that they actually had him arrested tortured and killed for it. So I start with that fundamental fact and then I take the claims of the gospels as every single biblical scholar for 200 years has done and look at them in light of the history of this world that we know. And what's interesting about Jesus's world is that we know a lot about it thanks to the Romans who were very good at documentation and the picture that arises from this is of a real political revolutionary who took on the religious and political powers of his time on behalf of the poor and the meek the dispossessed the marginalized who sacrificed himself in his cause for those who couldn't stand up for himself. And who ultimately launched the greatest religion in the world. Yeah I want to ask I actually there's another a chat coming and I want to get this on before we end this interview. Taylor Taylor Cain just says so your book is written with clear bias and you're trying to say it's academic that's like having a Democrat write a book about why Reagan wasn't a good Republican is it it just doesn't work. Well he would be like it would be like a Democrat with a PhD in Reagan who has been studying his life in history for two decades writing a book about. But then why would a Democrat wants to promote democracy by writing about a Republican. I mean I see the point is that ma'am may I just may I just have my sentence for a moment please. I think that the fundamental problem here is that you're assuming that I have some sort of faith-based bias in this work that I write. I write about Judaism I write about Hinduism I write about Christianity I write about Islam my job as a scholar of religions with a PhD in the subject is to write about religions and one of the religions that I have written about is the religion that you're not just writing about a religion from a point of view of an observer I mean the thing about it is that you're you're you're you're you're you're pointing yourself as a scholar and I've interviewed scholars who have written books on the resurrection on you know the real Jesus and who are looking at the same information that you're saying to say that your information is somehow different from theirs is really not my information is not different from theirs at all I'm afraid that it sounds like you haven't actually read my book or seen what I've said about the resurrection or about Jesus or about his claims I think you might be surprised in what I say and there have been thousands of scholars who have written about this very same topic many who disagree with me many who agree with me that's the thing about scholarship is that it's a debate over ancient history and I am one of those people making that debate I think it's unfair to just simply assume because of my particular faith background that there is some agenda on this book that would be like saying that a Christian who writes about Muhammad is by definition you know not able to do so because he has so we can do so bias against it and frankly every book that's I believe that you've been on several programs I've never disclosed that you were a Muslim and I think that's an interesting for the second page of my book the second page of my book says I'm a Muslim every single interview I have ever done on TV or on print says I'm a Muslim you may not be familiar with me but I'm actually quite a prominent Muslim thinker in the United States I've written a number of books about Islam it's just simply incorrect to say that media isn't saying that I'm a Muslim I would actually encourage you to actually try to find media that doesn't mention my biography which by the way again is on the second page of the book all right Riz I want to thank you very much for coming on the book is called zealot the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth I want to thank you for coming on a spur-de-de-bate thank you