Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy. Two-thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the "Kingdom of God". This was the age of zealotry - a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious "King of the Jews" whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime.. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new

Jesus as zealot, but not a member of the Zealot Party I've read the book (unlike so many of the "reviewers" who gave it one star) and here are some points.1) This is a popularization of recent (late 20th-early 21st century) reputable scholarship regarding Jesus. There's nothing in this book that would surprise a person (like myself) who has read pretty much all of the accessible scholarship on Jesus published in the last 30 or so years. Just going through the (extensive!) notes and bibliography at the end indicates to me that Aslan has done his homework.2) Aslan takes the position that Jesus was a zealot for God and God's Temple, but (and this. Good if occasionally tedious read. I read this book primarily because some of the negative reviews were so hysterical in their fear that I was curious what the big deal is. I still am.I am an ordained pastor with 15 years experience and five advanced degrees in theology. Aslan writes like what he is, a religious historian. His job as an academic is to present a thesis, develop it based on both evidence and his theories of meaning and then let the reading community judge it. He does this well. This is a good and thoughtful book. I disagree with some of Aslan's conclusions. His thesis makes sense but it is not without problems. "A very readable version of a Schweitzerian Jesus" according to R. Reed. Reza Aslan book is a readable defense of the Schweitzerian theory of Jesus (so called because it was popularized by Albert Schweitzer in his "Quest for the Historical Jesus"). Seeing ancient Palestine as a hot bed of revolutionary activity, he finds the most plausible explanation of the historical Jesus as one which sees Jesus as revolutionary who was ultimately crucified for his anti-roman views. The position is fairly common in Biblical Studies and a form of this argument is held by people like Bart Ehrman, N.T. Wright, John Meier, E.P. Sanders and many others. Aslan's version of it plays