Reza Aslan

The author of the best-selling No God but God presents a meticulously researched biography of Jesus that draws on biblical and historical sources to place His achievements and influence against the turbulent backdrop of His time.

The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Zealot

Lizzy Jensen

The readers of Luke's gospel, like most people in the ancient world, did not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality; the two were intimately tied together in their spiritual experience. That is to say, they were less interested in what actually happened than in what it meant. It would have been perfectly normal- indeed, expected- for a writer in the ancient world to tell tales of gods and heroes whose fundamental facts would have been recognized as false but whose underlying message would be seen as true.

The notion that the leader of a popular messianic movement calling for the imposition of the "Kingdom of God"a term that would have been understood by Jew and gentile alike as implying revolt against Rome- could have remained uninvolved in the revolutionary fervor that had gripped nearly every Jew in Judea is simply ridiculous.

Patrick Book

This is pretty incredible. And I think religion is pretty dumb, so that’s probably saying something.

Timeo Williams

Zealot: The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Expect to hear the words zealot a lot in this book. 

What I most like about this book, is that it looks at the bible and other sources in that timeperiod from the viewpoint of a historian, that is critical and willing to fact check the details. 

Interesting things I learned:
Gospels were written about 50-100 years after Jesus' death. 
The gospels were not written by one individual, but rather the collection of quite a few people. 
The various viewpoints each gospel takes.
The fact that there were several zealots, like Jesus, in this time period going about with their own sets of followers and performing "miracles" is certainly interesting. 
I did not know that Jesus had a brother, named James.
I also did not know that James was highly respected among the Jewish community, ext.

#1 NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER. A fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth.

"The Jesus that is uncovered in the process may not be the Jesus we expect; he certainly will not be the Jesus that most modern Christians would recognize. But in the end, he is the only Jesus that we can access by historical means. everything else is a matter of faith"

The end to Reza Aslan's intro to "Zealot" paints a thesis in which he tries to learn about the historical Jesus and the early history of Christianity. He argues that Jesus was a prophet wrapped around the intrigues of first-century Palestine, in that Roman occupation tested the patience of the Jewish population there. He wasn't the soft and gentle messiah promoted in the New Testament; instead, he was a politically conscious leader who wanted to protest against the stratification of the Jewish priesthood and the Roman empire.

He does a good job with setting the stage, where the Jews, who "had shed so much blood to cleanse the Promised Land of every foreign element so as to rule it in the name of God now found itself laboring under the boot of an imperial pagan power, forced to share the holy city with Gauls, Spaniards, Romans, Greeks, and Syrians..." (16) Despite the relative advantages the Romans gave them, they were a subjugated class in the empire, and had a hand over the high priest. Aslan also has this as an important reason for the Messiah, a title for someone who would "rebuild David's kingdom and reestablish the nation of Israel" (19) Considering the times, it was interesting to see how people would want to stand up to the powers that be.

Another thing which stood out was how Jesus also subverted the Jewish norms, and his relationships with the hierarchy that was. While he mostly got along with the Pharisees, "the handful of encounters Jesus had with the priestly nobility and the learned elite of legal scholars (the scribes) who represent them is always portrayed by the gospels in the most hostile light" (99) As Jesus grew up amongst the peasantry in Nazareth (though he worked as a carpenter in Sepphoris), he must have known how they were being subjugated in the process. A notable protest was how Jesus told a leper "to present him to the priest, having already been cleansed. This is a direct challenge not only to the priest's authority, but to the Temple itself" (113). It stood out in particular because it further enhances Jesus' placing as representative of the people, which is quite powerful, both now and then.

However, I was honestly surprised on how the writers of the Gospels (written decades after Jesus' crucifixion), would manipulate details to get the readers to subscribe to a certain narrative. "The readers of Luke's gospel, like most people in the ancient world, did not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality...they were less interested in what actually happened than in what it meant" (31). Aslan used the example of Herod's massacre to amplify this, "Matthew needs Jesus to come out of Egypt for the same reason he needs him to be born in Bethlehem: to fulfill the scattered prophecies left behind by his ancestors for him...and to answer the challenge made by Jesus' detractors that this simple peasant who died without fulfilling the single most important of the messianic prophecies--the restoration of Israel--was in fact "the anointed one" (31) It would put the New Testament on the same level as mythology because of that embellishment, and the things that Matthew and Luke mentioned weren't true. Fortunately, Jesus was an actual historical figure!

I'm also surprised by how the Gospel writers also tried hard to appeal to the Romans within the empire, rather than the Jews. "Paul may have recognized Jesus as a descendant of King David, but he does not look to the scriptures to argue that Jesus was the Davidic liberator the Jews had been waiting...Paul's Christ is not even human, though he has taken on the likeness of one (188-89). After the Second Temple was destroyed, the Jews were scattered, and absorbed into the diaspora. To spread the new faith, some of Jesus' connections to Judaism were smothered, and we have a completely new character. Most notably, however, was how the evangelists blamed the Jews for killing Jesus--making the Romans “unwitting pawns of the high priest Caiaphas, who desperately wanted to murder Jesus but who did not have the legal means to do so" (151). especially with how some people would use this to justify anti-Semitism, it was pretty jarring.

Aslan talks about his journey in the beginning with becoming a Christian, only to learn more as time goes on "The more I probed the Bible to arm myself against the doubts of the unbelievers, the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history”. The intro was great--I'm not a religious scholar myself, but I'm curious about it. Growing up as a Christian, I had a relatively strong hold on my faith, but began having doubts when I grew up. I didn't like how people used religion to harm others or to discriminate. But I still maintained a thread to it, just out of curiosity.

And "Zealot" provides that, through its delving into historical texts and putting Jesus in context. It's a bit on the shorter side, and might have its inaccuracies, but it still packs a punch through it all.

Elda Mengisto

"The Jesus that is uncovered in the process may not be the Jesus we expect; he certainly will not be the Jesus that most modern Christians would recognize. But in the end, he is the only Jesus that we can access by historical means. everything else is a matter of faith"

The end to Reza Aslan's intro to "Zealot" paints a thesis in which he tries to learn about the historical Jesus and the early history of Christianity. He argues that Jesus was a prophet wrapped around the intrigues of first-century Palestine, in that Roman occupation tested the patience of the Jewish population there. He wasn't the soft and gentle messiah promoted in the New Testament; instead, he was a politically conscious leader who wanted to protest against the stratification of the Jewish priesthood and the Roman empire.

He does a good job with setting the stage, where the Jews, who "had shed so much blood to cleanse the Promised Land of every foreign element so as to rule it in the name of God now found itself laboring under the boot of an imperial pagan power, forced to share the holy city with Gauls, Spaniards, Romans, Greeks, and Syrians..." (16) Despite the relative advantages the Romans gave them, they were a subjugated class in the empire, and had a hand over the high priest. Aslan also has this as an important reason for the Messiah, a title for someone who would "rebuild David's kingdom and reestablish the nation of Israel" (19) Considering the times, it was interesting to see how people would want to stand up to the powers that be.

Another thing which stood out was how Jesus also subverted the Jewish norms, and his relationships with the hierarchy that was. While he mostly got along with the Pharisees, "the handful of encounters Jesus had with the priestly nobility and the learned elite of legal scholars (the scribes) who represent them is always portrayed by the gospels in the most hostile light" (99) As Jesus grew up amongst the peasantry in Nazareth (though he worked as a carpenter in Sepphoris), he must have known how they were being subjugated in the process. A notable protest was how Jesus told a leper "to present him to the priest, having already been cleansed. This is a direct challenge not only to the priest's authority, but to the Temple itself" (113). It stood out in particular because it further enhances Jesus' placing as representative of the people, which is quite powerful, both now and then.

However, I was honestly surprised on how the writers of the Gospels (written decades after Jesus' crucifixion), would manipulate details to get the readers to subscribe to a certain narrative. "The readers of Luke's gospel, like most people in the ancient world, did not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality...they were less interested in what actually happened than in what it meant" (31). Aslan used the example of Herod's massacre to amplify this, "Matthew needs Jesus to come out of Egypt for the same reason he needs him to be born in Bethlehem: to fulfill the scattered prophecies left behind by his ancestors for him...and to answer the challenge made by Jesus' detractors that this simple peasant who died without fulfilling the single most important of the messianic prophecies--the restoration of Israel--was in fact "the anointed one" (31) It would put the New Testament on the same level as mythology because of that embellishment, and the things that Matthew and Luke mentioned weren't true. Fortunately, Jesus was an actual historical figure!

I'm also surprised by how the Gospel writers also tried hard to appeal to the Romans within the empire, rather than the Jews. "Paul may have recognized Jesus as a descendant of King David, but he does not look to the scriptures to argue that Jesus was the Davidic liberator the Jews had been waiting...Paul's Christ is not even human, though he has taken on the likeness of one (188-89). After the Second Temple was destroyed, the Jews were scattered, and absorbed into the diaspora. To spread the new faith, some of Jesus' connections to Judaism were smothered, and we have a completely new character. Most notably, however, was how the evangelists blamed the Jews for killing Jesus--making the Romans “unwitting pawns of the high priest Caiaphas, who desperately wanted to murder Jesus but who did not have the legal means to do so" (151). especially with how some people would use this to justify anti-Semitism, it was pretty jarring.

Aslan talks about his journey in the beginning with becoming a Christian, only to learn more as time goes on "The more I probed the Bible to arm myself against the doubts of the unbelievers, the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history”. The intro was great--I'm not a religious scholar myself, but I'm curious about it. Growing up as a Christian, I had a relatively strong hold on my faith, but began having doubts when I grew up. I didn't like how people used religion to harm others or to discriminate. But I still maintained a thread to it, just out of curiosity.

And "Zealot" provides that, through its delving into historical texts and putting Jesus in context. It's a bit on the shorter side, and might have its inaccuracies, but it still packs a punch through it all.

Kathy Jedrzejczyk

I loved reading about the history of Jesus. Honestly, I was pretty ignorant about the political happenings of the time. I also don't know the Bible stories very well, since I am not religious. This book was insightful about the various things I remember hearing/learning about from different religions when I was younger. I can see how this would be insulting to some Christians, but I feel like it was well researched and seems to make sense to me.

Chris Aldrich

Over the past four years I've read several books, similar in concept to this one, including many by Bart Ehrman who possibly has the largest number of texts in the area including: Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them, From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early ChristianityThe New Testament, and a good portion of The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption & Restoration.

Of the group, which has a lot of overlap in general thesis and examples, this is by far the best in terms of presentation of a story and all the details. Aslan's writing is interesting, evocative, well-researched, and intrinsically entertaining. As a product, in part, of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, I'm loathe to acknowledge a graduate of Iowa's wriiting program, but Aslan certainly does great credit to his alma mater. He does a relatively good job of describing his own background for those interested in his viewpoint from a historical perspective. He also does an excellent job of pointing out what his own opinions are as well as highlighting where his though differs from that of other scholars in the field and where theirs differs from each other.

While this is most assuredly a popular-press title and aimed at a far broader audience (like many of Ehrman's works) than the more specialized scholarly treatises he references, I have to take Aslan (or far more likely his editors) to task for the poor presentation/layout of the notes provided in the back. The book would appear to be relatively well footnoted with exception to the fact that the footnotes don't appear within the text, nor do they appear even at the bottom of the pages. Even worse, the 50+ pages of excellent (and actually read-worthy) notes in the end are sorted by chapter and have no indicators to the portions of the main text to which they directly relate, which make them terrifically painful for other scholars to contemplate using in any functional way. Hopefully future editions will at least include numbered indicators in the main text that tie to the notes in the back. While this is aimed toward the masses, it's really a shame that the presentation of the notes within the book wasn't handled a bit better. At least the biblical references were included within the primary text - and these in themselves do a great job of indicating the synoptic nature of the New Testament gospels.

One thing that Aslan includes that I haven't seen thus far in much of my reading is a fantastic overview of first century Palestine from a sociological and political perspective to help put the balance of the story into context. All of the major players seem to be well represented and given reasonable weight. If only more histories could be written in this way, perhaps the world would read non-fiction for entertainment rather than the litany of romance, thrillers, sci-fi/fantasy, and general fiction that dominates the best-seller lists. His overview is not only interesting in and of itself, it takes up almost the first third of the text and continues on as necessary through the remainder of the text to provide continued context.

In summation, the book was well-researched, entertainingly presented and phenomenally interesting, even to someone who's read the majority of the details in the recent past. I would highly recommend this to anyone and everyone (regardless of their religious leanings), particularly as the subject concerns two of the most influential figures in all of western history/philosophy. Aslan presents some excellent facts, ideas, and thoughts that are assuredly not known by a majority of people, who really should be aware of them.

Karim Nas

It is amazing to think how a nationalist liberation movement, led by a Jewish revolutionary with only zeal as his weapon, became the largest religion on the planet. Aslan brilliantly wrote about how extraordinary circumstances, the men around him (and their ambitions), and the political movement, inadvertently made this man a god.

History is shaped by the victor. And the history of Christianity was not written by Jesus. It was by the greatest winner of this religion's several hundred years of theological battle. Saul of Tarsus, better known as St. Paul. He shaped Christianity as we know it today.

But as this book shown, the Jesus of history, the man who walked and preached his understanding of Judaism in Jerusalem more than 2000 years ago, was also a remarkable man. Like Aslan said in his words of the book, someone we can believe in.

b.andherbooks

Highly enjoyable and readable treatise on the historic Jesus. While not earth shattering material, Aslan gives voice to a man that when taken historically is really misunderstood by his current believers. He does this task with aplomb, and does not insult belittle, or deny faith in the "messiah" Christ. My only gripe is the lack of foot/endnotes. Instead Asland prefered to write bibliographic essays at the back of the text. I still wish those little numbers were there pointing me to the exact source he was referring too.

Sameer Vasta

I am not sure what Reza Aslan set out to do when he wrote Zealot, but whatever it may have been, he sure succeeded in getting exposure. This is what sits with me the entire time as I read the book: that this was a tome not meant to elucidate, but provoke. And that, inherently, is its biggest failing. It is a fascinating read because of the way Aslan weaves a story, but it is a vacuous one because it does not have a convincing argument. Nonetheless, it entertains—and I never thought I’d say that about a book about a religious figure.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

Ben Nathan

Holy crapballs this was good. So fascinating. This is coming from someone that has zero belief in the jesus person. The whole thing of taking in the stories in the gospel and explaining them in the context of history...fascinating. Stories that are seen as examples of what to do were often actually strikes against the jewish high priest. The stories of him in god-like form were added after the fact in contradictory manner to have him fit the narrative that was added years later. Paul is basically responsible for modern christianity and was kind of a dick (ok, he was a HUGE dick, but I didn't want to seem offensive). Lots of interesting stuff. I recommend highly.

Alex Deee

Really well written and a fantastic introduction to biblical stuff. I found myself getting tense as Paul split from the Jerusalem apostles, which caught me by surprise. And then I started reading reviews that criticized Aslan's academic rigour, which left me with lingering questions and the feeling that maybe it wasn't quite as incisive as I'd first thought.

Jorge Cimentada

Reza Aslan is cleared well versed on the academic history of Jesus and I could see that right away. However, the book verged on an academic manuscript sometimes, going deep into the context where things happened. That made me loose track a few times. However, some of his assertions seemed to me like really far stretched. If you're looking an academic biography of Jesus (which demystifies Jesus), this looks like a good. But be prepared to get very deep into the context of the time and to question all of his assertions.

Zealot The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

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