ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Hardcover – Illustrated, July 16, 2013

This is a fascinating book that seeks to uncover Jesus the man, as a historical figure, versus Jesus the Christ, in his mythologized form. The gullible, of course, can continue to simply read the New Testament as literal truth, believing that miracles, resurrections, and the casting of demons into pigs actually happened. The rest of us, however—who are more curious about a man who, for better or worse, changed the course of human history—appreciate a more nuanced and realistic analysis, grounded in the history of the times.Reza Aslan, in addition to writing a gripping account that reads like fiction, makes a strong case that Jesus was, in fact, a political revolutionary seeking to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth (as many historical figures prior to Jesus also attempted). He failed, of course, so subsequent Church history had to change the narrative, but at the time, there seemed to be real conviction that the Kingdom of God was imminent in Jesus’s own lifetime, as Jesus himself is purported to have said: "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place (Matthew 24:34),” in reference to the end times and the establishment of God’s kingdom (the meek, Jesus said, shall inherit the Earth).Of course, the evidence for what Jesus actually said and did is scarce: the four Gospel accounts, which were written decades after Jesus’s death and created for theological, not historical, purposes, are the best sources we have. So it’s easy to conjure up competing hypotheses, all of which are subject to doubt.But when one looks closely at the evidence and the history of the times, the picture of Jesus as a political revolutionary does start to emerge quite clearly. One particular example demonstrates the point: namely, Jesus’s vandalism of the Temple, where he flips over tables, drives out money-changers, and releases sacrificial animals. Now, for those who view Jesus as an apolitical prophet of peace, this act of violence—again, reported in all four Gospels—is puzzling and seemingly out of character. But maybe it wasn’t out of character. Maybe the “prince of peace” persona was simply retrofitted to Jesus later on when the religion of Christianity attempted greater universality. Aslan makes a persuasive case that this is exactly what happened,As Aslan shows, the commands to “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies,” more than likely, applied only to one’s fellow Jews, as had been the case in the Old Testament. (If you doubt this, note how, in the Old Testament, God commands the Jews to exterminate entire populations after entering the promised land—even after receiving the Ten Commandments, which included the prohibition on killing).There are several verses in the Gospels that depict a belligerent, intolerant, violent Jesus, who sought to split up families, drive out enemies, and cast people into eternal fire, all of which make sense only in the context of the establishment of an earthly Kingdom of God for Jews (and to perhaps include sincere pagan converts).If Alsan is right, we’ve been reading the Gospels wrong all along; we’ve overemphasized his universal pacifism, while explaining away the violent parts that would have made more historical sense. The Jesus worshipped by Christians today is therefore a figment of the imagination (mostly Paul’s imagination)—one developed alongside the evolution of Western moral thinking over the centuries—and not of the actual historical figure who had ambitious political objectives.For what it’s worth, I think this is probably correct. I’m no Christian, nor am I a scholar of early Christianity, but I have read the New Testament, along with some historical accounts of the time, and I have always found it hard to reconcile things like “Jesus’s cleansing of the temple” with his more conventional pacifist persona. This book made these kinds of incongruencies finally make sense to me. And in any case, Jesus the historical figure is far more complex—and interesting—than anything you’ll hear about in Church.The other important point that Aslan emphasizes is that the true successor to Jesus, his own brother James, is much more likely to have represented his views than was Paul, who, in addition to never having met Jesus, was in open conflict with most of the leaders of Jerusalem. As Aslan wrote, when the Bishops finally got around to officially canonizing the New Testament in 398 CE:“They chose to include in the Christian scriptures one letter from James, the brother and successor of Jesus, two letters from Peter, the chief apostle and first among the Twelve, three letters from John, the beloved disciple and pillar of the church, and fourteen letters from Paul, the deviant and outcast who was rejected and scorned by the leaders in Jerusalem. In fact, more than half of the twenty-seven books that now make up the New Testament are either by or about Paul.This is a historical tragedy, from my perspective. Whereas Paul was, as Thomas Jefferson would later write, “the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus, " largely prioritizing faith alone, James emphasized instead what Jesus himself often directly taught; namely, that faith in God is best demonstrated through helping the poor and those in need; in other words, the primacy of works over faith. Had Christianity followed James—and by extension, the historical Jesus—rather than Paul, we would have all been better off.

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 is repeated several times in the book) he was not a member of the Zealot Party, which wouldn't arise until over 30 years after Jesus' death. In this, Jesus was just one of a number of people who arose in the period from the reign of Herod the Great to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and his fate was like those others. In short, Jesus was killed for his zealotry, which was perceived as a threat to the Roman authorities and particularly to the Jewish sycophants who ran the Temple (and profited nicely from it). This is not a position shared by many members of the religious scholarship fraternity, who have attempted to carve out a position for Jesus where he's a religious figure who did not delve at all into politics. It's an interesting argument that I can't do justice in a few short sentences. If you're interested, you'll have to read the book yourself and decide if Aslan makes his case.3) Aslan doesn't stop with the death of Jesus, and, as someone writing history, not hagiography, he carefully notes that he can't pass judgment on whether Jesus' resurrection occurred, because it is not a historical event but an event of faith. He then pushes on to a discussion of the earliest Christians and, in particular, the conflict between James the Just, described as the brother of Jesus and the head of the Jerusalem Christians, and Paul of Tarsus, the evangelizer of the Gentile world. This part is definitely worth the read, because it brings out the fact that the early Christians were not "in one accord" but were in fact fractiously divided over what Jesus taught and what it all meant.4) My only serious factual gripe about the book comes from the first paragraph of Chapter 15, where Aslan describes James the Just as follows: "He himself owned nothing, not even the clothes he wore--simple garments made of linen, not wool." The problem is that historically linen was an elite fabric, not the fabric of the poor. (For example, Luke 16:19 points out that the rich man in Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus wore purple and fine linen and all four gospels are agreed that Jesus was buried in linen.) Making linen from flax took a lot of preparation as compared to wool, which can be spun practically straight from the sheep. But getting back to James the Just: The sources, by putting James in linen, were more likely comparing James to the Temple High Priest, who would have worn linen for the sacrifices.5) I'm knocking off one star for not being footnoted. Granted, there is an extensive set of chapter-based endnotes (and I strongly suggest reading them, they're as engaging as the book itself), but the lack of footnotes is a serious flaw. Even if the book is intended for a popular audience, it should have been footnoted.6) As for the assertion that the book is fatally flawed because it's influenced by Aslan's Muslim background: That is flatly false. Let me state again that there is nothing in this book that can't be read in the scholarship done by *Christians* published over the past several decades. Moreover, if Aslan was pushing Islam, you'd think that he'd make a point of saying, "Well, Islam considers Jesus a prophet," but he doesn't. Not at all. The reviews which make the assertion that the book is terrible, horrible and awful because of "OOOOH EVIL ISLAM!!!!" appear to have been influenced by Fox News' promotion of a screed by John Dickerson. As a former journalist for Phoenix New Times, Dickerson should know better, but perhaps that's why Dickerson is no longer a journalist but now pastors a church in Prescott, AZ and churning out inaccurate and inflammatory junk for the fearful faithful.