ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

In a most charming and incisive TED presentation, Chimamanda Adichie reminded her listeners of "The Danger of a Single-Story.” This is nowhere more true than in the cultural identity narratives created by religion and reactions to them. If one were to take an overview of these reactions we might come up with rough categories like: 1. Those whose faith is part and parcel of their full culture and daily existence, an unquestioned identity narrative. “It’s life.” 2. Those who consciously chose, commit to and practice a religion or spirituality inherited or chosen. "I believe… I practice...” 3. Those who have religion in their inherited identity narrative but for whom it rarely invades every day life in a conscious way. "I'm not a practicing…" 4. Those who are aware of it, but have no sense of belonging to it. “I know it's there, but I'm not involved in it.” 5. Those who consciously reject any specific religious belief with a contrary belief system (atheism) about the nonexistence of a god and irrelevance of religion and either passively or militantly resist it. "There's no compelling evidence." Or, "It's a pack of lies.” 6. Those who proclaim they cannot or do not know about the existence of a god or the validity of a religious belief system (agnosticism). "I dunno’.” Both commitment and resistance stemming from one or more of the positions stated above have complicated the hard work of the search for the historical Jesus. Aslan’s book takes us to a new level, perhaps a new perspective to add to the existing ones. This perspective is made by the most powerful unified presentation that I've seen to date, both scholarly and readable (even the endnotes are compelling) of the social, cultural, political, economic and religious context that Jesus was born into, how it evolved during his short life, and in which he carried out his activity. It is a context of military occupation, repression and oppression, social inequality, religious and financial elitism, popular and revolutionary movements, messiahs, gurus, magicians and charlatans. It is credible to the reader not only because of the historical evidence provided, but because it could be a description of times much like our own, testimony to the fact that human behavior has not changed a lot, if any. In other words Aslan’s detailed contextual account gives us a much better sense of the historical Jesus than we are likely to come by elsewhere. Jesus is not the sole subject of Aslan’s presentation. Rather, Jesus can be understood neither historically nor in his influence on history without a close look at the other figures both contemporary and subsequent. Thus there is incisive treatment of such characters as James the brother of Jesus, Paul the "Apostle to the Gentiles" and those Roman and Jewish figures who were actors in the context and affected the course of how the identity of Jesus was perceived and developed in subsequent generations and centuries. Is the Jesus of history less credible than the Jesus of faith? If history can show accretions and shifts, even the contradictions that have gone into the documents and built traditions of Christianity from the very outset, what then do we make of the Jesus of faith? Should we assume a naked scientific bias and declare that it is all poppycock? Or, should we be cynical about the historians like Napoleon who insisted that, "History is a set of lies that we all agree on," perhaps echoing Voltaire's view of history as, “the pack of lies we play on the dead.” Or, should we take a "true believer" perspective and dismiss the historians as somehow depraved and lost in the past, deprived of meaningful faith? Is there a peaceful, even enriching coexistence possible between the two? Perhaps the life story of the author, revealed in the opening pages of the book, provides a clue as to how we manage not just a religious identity, but the many cultural identities we bear that vacillate between data and aspiration. Born into a dispossessed Muslim heritage, Aslan became what one would describe as a "true believer" in a rather fundamentalist Christianity. When the logic of this was no longer tenable, he abandoned it, but later renewed his research into the meaning of this Jesus, who shaped so much of history, to discover how he himself and the Jesus of his research were shaped by history. In other words, our identity will, throughout a lifetime, travel like rivers merged from many streams. Our identity waters may become dammed up by contradictions in places and may cut paths through unfamiliar places to arrive at the sea of our current if not ultimate meaning and destination. Aslan’s closing line is both personal and reassuring: "… Jesus of Nazareth – Jesus the man – is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as is Jesus the Christ. He is, in short, someone worth believing in.” Aslan’s Jesus-in-context will provide relief and new perspectives to many readers. It may appear blasphemous to others. Yet here, in both the author's story and the story he tells of Jesus, it seems to me that we have a clue into how we both develop and live out our cultural identities, religious ones as well as the many others we carry with us or enter into. Frederick Douglass (US Abolitionist, 1818-1895) insightfully remarked, “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present.” This is what both religious believers and historical researchers attempt to do while as practitioners they bear a common human propensity for deviations into dogmatism, possessiveness, power, pied pipers and dictators, corrupt practice and the dismissal or repression of others. Neither religious belief nor scientific assertions relieve the itch for fleeing complexity. Inevitably we are all, at our best, both believers and searchers. Whether searching for the truth in tradition or claiming that tradition is truth, we continue to build our identity narratives, inevitably shaped by the contexts we are immersed in. Conflict about these things can lead to further enlightenment as well deteriorate into violent jihad, crusades, and genocide. Both science and faith have shown their capacity for creating tools that can be used in either direction. Aslan thus confirmed for me that there can be a rich co-existence if not intermarriage between history and faith. In the case of Jesus, this belief led me to create a Christmas message last year for my friends, wedding both history and tradition, as I take meaning and inspiration from them. It read as follows: “Do you know this guy? He’s having a birthday soon and a lot of my friends are marking it. If you are making merry, enjoy the celebration and think a bit about the kind of guy he was... • He had impressive ancestry, but was born under suspicious circumstances into a small-town, working class family. • Lived in an occupied country, run by an insecure, ruthless puppet governor. • Was a child refugee in a foreign country, yet became a precocious student. • Followed an activist who was jailed and executed. • Achieved insight through meditation, discipline and self-denial. • Refused to be tempted by consumerism, lived on the road, advocated simple lifestyle. • Went by foot or used inexpensive, shared transportation. • Loved and admired by his friends, he could attract a crowd and hold their attention. • Demonstrated how sharing creates abundance, had a healing touch. • Protested the abuse of women, loved his buddies, was good with kids. • Partied with disreputable riff-raff, unflagging advocate of poor folk and the down and out. • Told great stories, delegated well to his team, calmed turbulent waters. • Prized humility, revolution and peacemaking, probity, transparency and generosity. • Respected tradition and decried its perversion and corruption. • Fished up enough money to pay his taxes. • Overcame ethnic bias, accepted and assisted outsiders and foreigners. • Opposed oppressive legislation and legalism, saddle burr of the rich and powerful. • Blew the whistle on hypocrisy, upset the high and mighty. Could hold his own in an argument. • Betrayed by a trusted friend for hard cash, condemned by a kangaroo court, tortured and executed as a political prisoner. • Down for the count of three, he made a comeback and lives on in those who share his spirit.” Aslan's book does not explain in any great detail why the movement initiated by Jesus of Nazareth succeeded in his times and why Christian identity narratives persistently morphed their way into the present, while those of so many Messianic and revolutionary activists before, during and after Jesus' life were short-lived and disappeared. This is another book, no doubt, but I want to read it when it is written.

I never had any intention of reading Zealot. I probably would never have heard of it were it not for the cringe-worthy interview of the author by Fox News correspondent, Lauren Green. She is single handedly responsible for publicizing the book to an extent that any author or public relations firm could only dream about. The only things you could be sure of at the conclusion of the interview were that Aslan is a well-educated scholar and a class act and Green is a religiously-biased idiot who clearly had not read the book. After seeing the interview, I went out on Amazon to read the reviews. The first thing I noticed was that the older reviews tended to be serious, well-written, and generally clustered in the four to five star range. The newer reviews were mostly one star, clearly written by people who had not read Zealot, and were noteworthy for rehashing Fox talking points. I posted comments challenging the "reviewers" where it was obvious that he or she had not read the book and I tracked the responses. I challenged one reviewer, who took offense at the book's imagined attack on his deeply-held religious beliefs, to actually read the book and post a real review, which I promised to read with an open mind. He agreed to do so, and then challenged me to do the same. Fair enough. I bought my hard copy from Amazon the same day. I procrastinated reading the book, looking forward to it with the same level of enthusiasm I would have for a root canal. I'm sorry I did. It is an engaging and well-written book that makes history come alive for those of us who are not religious scholars. This book will keep your attention because it is interesting. I was sucked in by the first sentence and was happily surprised to find that in addition to being meticulously researched, this book is an enjoyable read. Zealot is a story about Jesus of Nazareth - not Jesus the Christ - placed in historical context. It debunks some oft-repeated beliefs that may make devout Christians uncomfortable, but is in no way an attack on their faith. Jesus was a Jew who was almost certainly born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem; he was dirt poor and probably illiterate; he had brothers and sisters; and he was baptized by, and was a disciple of John the Baptist. While there is every reason to believe he was crucified, that in no way made him special; at the time, crucifixion was a common punishment meted out by the Roman occupiers in staggering numbers. For that reason, the probability that he appeared before Pontius Pilate to be judged is vanishingly small. Jesus of Nazareth was just one more in a long line of rebellious "messiahs" railing against the Roman occupation of Judea and the corrupt high priests who controlled the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus wanted the Romans to leave, the corrupt priests out of the Temple, and the land returned to God (an earthly kingdom as opposed to the heavenly kingdom that later Gospels proclaimed). Jesus was crucified for sedition - for taking this message on the road, fomenting insurrection. This book places Jesus of Nazareth and his life and death in historical context. Little to nothing was written about him in his lifetime; the Gospels were written long after he had died. It is what happened after Jesus' death that is noteworthy. His brother, James the Just along with the apostles continued Jesus' message of Torah-based Judaism. Jesus never claimed he was the Son of God, but rather the Son of Man. Taken to its logical conclusion, this version of Christianity would have been just another Jewish sect that almost certainly would have disappeared over time. Modern Christianity (or at least the seeds of it) was a product of the repackaging of Jesus' life by Paul (Saul of Tarsus). He never met Jesus, had no use for Jewish tradition, and reinterpreted the story of Jesus' life and death making him appear to be a man of peace and love and more otherworldly - the Son of God. Paul's Christianity was a new religion that was less reliant on the laws of Moses, more palatable to Rome, and more likely to attract better-educated, non-Jewish converts. Despite the concerted efforts of James the Just, Paul's largely-fabricated version of the life and death of Jesus gradually became the accepted version. Devout Christians reading this book will find that it is not an attack on or a threat to their faith. This is a book about a famous man placed in context historically. It fleshes out and complements the stories in the Bible. As an example, Aslan makes no attempt to debunk the Resurrection, but rather says that it is a matter of faith. He does note that many people who claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus were later executed just for saying so. They could have been spared their fate had they recanted. None did. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose by denying what they said they had seen, but they would not because it was something they had actually experienced and not just heard about secondhand. There is still room for mystery and you can make of that what you will. This was an excellent, well-written, thought-provoking book. If you want to learn something, read it. (By way of background, I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic schools through high school, and all of the colleges I attended were secular by choice. By the time I graduated high school, I considered myself agnostic on a good day and leaning atheist the rest of the time. Still do.)

Me encantó el libro electrónico y también el contenido del libro. Es apenas el segundo libro electrónico que leo, y encuentro que ofrece muchas posibilidades. Leo en mi PC o tablet, ajusto las letras a mis necesidades, puedo subrayar, hago anotaciones, cuento con diccionario y traductor de palabras, etc. Busco títulos de libros que me interesan, puedo "hojearlos" y con un click los tengo al instante. ahora, específicamente referente al libro es un análisis del Cristo histórico para aquel que quiera entender un poco nuestra cultura occidental, creyentes o no, escrito por un autor de origen persa, que ha sido musulmán y fue educado en un medio cristiano. El punto de vista no es ni religioso ni ateo, sino histórico.

REZA Aslan, has written one of the best books of this type that I have read on the topic of historical Jesus of Nazareth. It is comprehensive and comes at the topic from all angles. It is a good account and puts the events into a historical context. Whilst Aslan is hard hitting and pulls no punches, he does not set out to destroy faith. Unlike so many other commentaries of the type. I am not big on history, but this one kept me reading.

Nice book

Ich habe diese Bewertung gewählt, weil das Buch spannend und für Fremdsprachige verständlich geschrieben ist. Ein bisschen historischen Hintergrund über die Zeit Jesu zu erfahren, kann nicht schaden. Wen der spirituelle Jesus interessiert, sollte dieses Buch nicht lesen - er kommt nicht vor. Ich verstehe nicht, warum das Buch so ein Aufreger war, es ist seriös verfasst und die Fakten, dass Jesus politisch für sein Volk tätig war, sprechen doch für ihn. Ein bisschen oft wird das provokante Wort (zealous, zealot) bedient, womit man davon ausgehen kann, dass der Autor ein eckiges, nicht gewohnt sanftes Bild von Jesus und seinen frühen Anhängern und entwerfen wollte. Wenn Christus eine Art Robin Hood war, fühle ich mich gut Aufgehoben im katholischen Glauben. Hinweise, dass die in der Bibel geschilderten Wunder nicht echt passiert sind und empirisch nachvollziehbare Ersatz-Szenarien brauche ich hingegen nicht. Ich mag dieses Buch, weil es den Leser trotz wissenschaftlicher Redlichkeit nicht langweilt.

Una opera solida, di un accademico solido. Ben scritto, di sicuro interesse per gli amanti del genere storico, filosofico e religioso. L'argomento non necessita di presentazioni e l'autore procede con metodo serio e cauto, ma deciso, verso tesi e concetti che presenta con la dovuta preparazione. L'articolato delle tesi, delle alternative interpretative proposte, non è monoliticamente accettabile: ognuno dei lettori potrebbe o meno essere d'accordo con alcuni differenti segmenti interpretativi della linea seguita dall'autore. Tuttavia, e questo è anche il bello dell'opera, essa non necessita nemmeno di essere monoliticamente accettata. Molto consigliato. Perché non 5 stelle? Ve ne accorgerete, dopo un interessantissimo e piacevole viaggio accanto alla figura di Gesù di Nazareth. Alla fine di quel viaggio c'era un ultimo passo da fare, nella mia modesta opinione, l'autore però non ha avuto il coraggio di imprimere nella strada della sua vita, prima che nel libro, quell'ultimo, inevitabile, passo.