num_pages: 296
description: From the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating provocative and meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth. 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. The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured tortured and executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his shameful death his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of historys most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets preachers and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotrya fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. 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. 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. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity. Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus of Nazareths life and mission. The result is a thought-provoking elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel: a singularly brilliant portrait of a man a time and the birth of a religion.
language: English
title: ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
publisher: Random House (NY)