On the FoxNews.com show Spirited Debate, host Lauren Green repeatedly questioned the motives guest Reza Aslan, a Muslim and author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, had in writing a scholarly text about the historical Jesus Christ.
“To be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees including one in the New Testament and fluency of biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also just happens to be a Muslim,” Aslan said.
“It still begs the question though: why would you be interested in the founder of Christianity?” Green asked.
“Because it’s my job as an academic,” Aslan said. “I am a professor of religion, including the New Testament. That’s what I do for a living.”
Green continued to ask Aslan about his motives, as Aslan grew more and more impatient with her imputations. “There are those who do not like the book, who are unhappy with its general arguments, and that’s fine,” Aslan said. “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.”
At one point, Green quoted a critic of Aslan’s who said a Muslim writing a book about Jesus would be like a Democrat writing a book about why Ronald Reagan wasn’t a good Republican.
“It would be like a Democrat with a PhD in Reagan who has been studying his life and history for two decades writing about Reagan,” Aslan responded. “I think that the fundamental problem here is that you’re assuming that I have some sort of faith-based bias. I write about Judaism, I write about Hinduism, I write about Christianity, I write about Islam. My job as a scholar with a PhD in the subject is to write about religionS.”
Finally Green accused him of hiding his faith. “You’ve been on several programs and never disclosed that you’re a Muslim,” she said, to which Aslan responded that his biography is on the second page of his book and stated in every interview. >>more<<
THIS IS THE ANTI-MUHAMMED MOVIE THAT SPARKED DEADLY ISLAMIST PROTESTS IN EGYPT & LIBYA
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Sam Bacile, 56, the movie’s writer and director, has gone into hiding following the violent reaction to his film. An Israeli, Bacile lives in California and works in real estate development. While filmmaking isn’t his main source of income, he put together the inflammatory movie in an effort to expose negative attributes that he believes come from and are associated with the Islamic faith.The self-described Israeli Jew told the Associated Press, from an undisclosed location, that Islam is a cancer and that the film was intended to make a political statement, while condemning Islam on the whole. The English-language movie spans two hours and is entitled, “Innocence of Muslims.” Bacile claims that more than 100 Jewish donors helped put up the $5 million to make the film, which has reached no measurable level of success, possible.“This is a political movie,” Bacile told the AP. “The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re fighting with ideas.. . . clip MORE
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