The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

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

This is a fascinating book. The sub-title is a great summary of the contents: "The Life and TImes of Jesus of Nazareth". Dr. Aslan presents a thorough, well researched, and excellent survey of the subject in an accessible and readable way. He overlays the major dimensions of the period during which the historic man we have come to know as Jesus lived. By dimensions I mean religious, sociological, political, geographical, historical, customs, etc. All these dimensions are overlaid with one another in an organized and logical manner to provide an interesting and enlightening study of much of what we know to be historically true about the man Jesus. I learned much from this book, even after being associated with "Christian" churches for much of my life. It is extremely interesting to me to see the vast number of facts about which the "church" is ignorant, or chooses to misrepresent, or to downright lie about. The dynamics of the life and death of Jesus, and the resulting groups of followers, are not as neat, tidy, and consistent as are presented in sunday school, or in so-called seminaries which take the Bible at face value, or even as literal, and ignore real history. And once again, I am fascinated at how many people who claim to be followers of Jesus don't know the critical facts about who he was and the times in which he lived. The last 100+ pages are thorough footnotes, which while not reading as easily as the main text, provide extensive references and explanation of the material in the main chapters. And unlike many authors, Dr. Aslan presents references to opposing views as well as his own. This book is a very worthwhile read if you care anything about this man who is called Jesus.


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