Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

[gollygee]

by Reza Aslan. The one with the FOX news interview where he has to remind the woman interviewing him that he did indeed "go to college" and knows what he's talking about.

I really liked it! My family was not a church-going family growing up and before reading this I knew pretty much nothing about Jesus, either the man or the myth, nor much about that period of time in general.

Has anyone more informed about this part of history read it? What did you think?

[pscot]

1. I'm wary of speculative bios

Everything we know about Jesus was written 100 years after he died.

[Skarbrowe]

2. Very late response...

I'm almost finished with "The Zealot" and I'm finding it a great read. It's true that nothing was being written about Jesus the man and that's why Resa Aslan did his research on what life was like for everyone else in those several towns around Nazareth during several years before BCE and several years after CE. Sorry if I have abreviated those incorrectly. Writing ain't my thing. If you are a very strong believer in a divine Jesus Christ this is not the book for you to find out any type of historical backing to help you with that belief.

I come to the book as an atheist and I like this book because of all the historical books or documents I have read on Jesus the man, this one helps me understand so much more about what was going on it that area for decades to centuries before a man called Jesus did the things we have been told by the Bible that he has done. There were many men calling themselves prophets, going around healing and doing what some called magic and others called miracles.

I get the impression that Jesus the man built a better network of true believers in "him" as a King of the Jews. He knew he would be crucified for preaching that he was to bring the Kingdom of God which happened to be called sedition by the Romans. The Romans had been crucifying Jews in great numbers for a long time for the crime of sedition, which was telling others just about anything that didn't include the total acceptance of Roman rule.

The part I found fascinating was that even in the history or the word of Jesus that we do have, is that he was JUST talking to other Jews. He never meant for gentiles to be a part of anything he was doing. He had the same disdain for gentiles that any "zealot" (extremely orthodox) Jewish person would have had at that time.

I haven't finished quite yet, but so far the Romans and the High Priest of the Jews, along with the more well to do Jews of the time, come off looking pretty bad. But, to me, that's just humans being humans.

[fadedrose]

3. As an atheist, you might enjoy

Last edited Sat Nov 2, 2013, 12:06 PM - Edit history (1)

JESUS AND THE RIDDLE OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS by Barbara Thiering, a professor at the U of Australia. She went to write a pro book about Jesus and it is not a book for the devout but is believable. The first I heard of it was either on the History Channel or Discovery, where they interviewed her on both Christmas and Easter of that year. It was panned by the magazine, Biblical Archeology the month it came out. I have lost the issue. That magazine has many devout Christians and Jews among its readers and I think they were afraid to offend the Christians if they treated it as reliable information.


It was heavily criticized by the clergy in the US (Harper Pub), but it is available used (Amazon) or thru a library. Hurryup and get it. I read it when it came out, in the 90's, and it lives within me still.

[jeffrey_pdx]

4. I can't put it down

I'm a fan of history. It's really well written. I was raised Catholic (atheist now), so some of the facts that we assume are true are really mind blowing.