Zealot by Reza Aslan

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't think it's accurate to say that this is in any way an attack on Christian faith. Rather, it seems to me that whether or not you believe in the divinity of Jesus, and especially if you do, you would want to clearly understand what Jesus believed. Aslan is using both historical material and the Bible itself to determine what can be verified about Jesus's life and teachings. To those that think this is an attack on Jesus's divinity, simply because Aslan himself does not believe in that divinity, I would point out that Aslan leaves the question of Jesus's resurrection open because there is no historical evidence to the contrary and evidence that the apostles fervently believed in the resurrection. He's applying his examination of history even-handedly whether or not it falls in favor of or against modern Christian teaching.

I do think Aslan's mix of historical sources and the Bible itself make him subject to some criticism from scholarly readers because the Bible is not historically reliable, but this shouldn't make him subject to criticism from fundamentalist Christians.

Do I think Aslan gets it right? I think he gets the history correct. However, if Jesus himself was filled with great faith in God, which we have to assume he was if he was willing to die for his faith, the sense of that faith is somewhat missing from this book. Yes, he believed passionately in justice for the poor but he also believed in the Jewish singular God and that concept is not fully explored here. Yes, that's difficult and would have made the book much longer. Still, this book is worth reading and it is very compelling reading as well- you won't be bored at all.

Favorite quote: "The choice between James's vision of a Jewish religion anchored in the law of Moses and derived by a Jewish nationalist who fought against Rome, and Paul's vision of a Roman religion that divorced itself from Jewish provincialism and required nothing for salvation save belief in Christ, was not a difficult one for the second and third generations of Jesus's followers to make. Two thousand years later, the Christ of Paul's creation has utterly subsumed the Jesus of history."

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