7/7/2023 0 Comments Zealot by reza aslan summaryTo people unfamiliar with the intellectual histories involved, the first term may not resonate. Some of the most interesting work in the academic study of religion has been produced by scholars who, trained in one subspecialty, extend their studies into other domains.Īslan’s claims concerning his academic degrees have led to some confusion: he uses the term “historian of religions” at times, “historian” at others. On this point, I wish to be quite clear: it is in principle quite possible for a scholar trained in one area of specialization to produce respectable work outside the framework of that field. After all, as one friend of mine puts it pithily, “You don’t have to be a zebra to study zoology.”Īnd then there has been a lot of debate, online and off, about whether Aslan possesses the proper credentials to write the book he has written. But for scholars of religion, the Green’s conflation of the academic study of religion with personal religious identification is a familiar misunderstanding. The anti-Muslim bias of Fox is well-documented and is bad enough, whatever the specific context. The Fox News interview was not just embarrassing but downright offensive. Those of us in the academic field of religious studies, especially biblical scholars and historians of early Christianity, found the whole business deeply cringe-worthy.
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