A WSJ book review of two books that attempt to show the times and life of Jesus and the development of theology around him.-http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323740804578600613629282212.html-"In "Christian Beginnings," Geza Vermes, whose death in May, at age 88, ended perhaps the most celebrated career in Middle Eastern studies of the past half-century (among other distinctions, he published the first English translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls), lays out and enhances some of the most important arguments that he helped to make familiar. He asks us to see Jesus as a Jew, a man whose outlook and belief were grounded in Judaism and who did not in any way imagine himself to be reinventing his religion or founding a new one."-"Reza Aslan, in "Zealot," assembles evidence that, like a number of Jewish dissenters under Greek and Roman rule, Jesus was a hot-headed champion of the poor and oppressed against the Jewish hierarchy, whom he saw as puppets of the Romans. He was also, Mr. Aslan argues, a defender of religious purity who did not eschew violence against even Jewish institutions. He was thus in spirit like the revolutionary Zealots of a generation later. Mr. Aslan cites Gospel accounts hard to explain otherwise, such as Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his attack on merchants and money-changers at the Temple. He stresses how anomalous a prophet of peace would have been in such violent times."- "In many ways, according to Vermes, the Galilean holy man resembled, among others, the prophets of ancient Israel—men like Elijah and Isaiah. Their uniting quality was "charisma," or manifestations of the power of God, mainly through preaching, healing and other ministries. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke—probably all written between A.D. 50 and 80—give a credible picture of such a mission and are divided and equivocal regarding Jesus' identity as the messiah. They are even less forthcoming about him as "the son of God"—a Jewish honorific but, when meant literally, blasphemy to traditional Jews of any period.
 
The Book of John—most likely written around the end of the first century—was a major break. Christ as the Logos or Word in John 1—a being existing along with God from the beginning of time as the essential force of creation—is a concept traceable back to Plato. It is easy to see a Greek philosophical influence on the "Johannine" corpus, which includes the Epistles of John and Revelation, as well as the Gospel text. One source may be Philo of Alexandria, whose philosophy epitomizes the Hellenized Judaism of the first century. But is hard to imagine such thinking as part of the peasant, artisan and Temple milieu of a historical Jesus."-
"But Mr. Aslan's claims, as well as those of Vermes, evade the key historical problems. The complete story of Jesus, as his closest followers knew it, made no sense and needed extraordinary explication—hence the quick and extensive development of theology, from Paul all the way to the Nicene Creed. Crucifixion was a vile death, on its own soundly repudiating Jesus' reputation as a charismatic holy man, since divine providence was central to Jewish thought. For a would-be rabble-rouser, on the other hand, crucifixion was a routine, quickly forgotten fate. Yet Jesus was said to have achieved what had not been granted even to the Patriarchs: He had risen from the dead, in the flesh."