Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER € €œA lucid, intelligent page-turner€ (Los Angeles Times) that challenges long-held assumptions about Jesus, from the host of Believer
 
Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the €œKingdom of God.€ The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his death, his followers would call him God.
 
Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history€s most enigmatic figures by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction. He explores the reasons 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€ life and mission.
 
Praise for Zealot
 
€œRiveting . . . Aslan synthesizes Scripture and scholarship to create an original account.€€"The New Yorker
 
€œFascinatingly and convincingly drawn . . . Aslan may come as close as one can to respecting those who revere Jesus as the peace-loving, turn-the-other-cheek, true son of God depicted in modern Christianity, even as he knocks down that image.€€"The Seattle Times
 
€œ[Aslan€s] literary talent is as essential to the effect of Zealot as are his scholarly and journalistic chops. . . . A vivid, persuasive portrait.€€"Salon
 
€œThis tough-minded, deeply political book does full justice to the real Jesus, and honors him in the process.€€"San Francisco Chronicle
 
€œA special and revealing work, one that believer and skeptic alike will find surprising, engaging, and original.€€"Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize€“winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
 
€œCompulsively readable . . . This superb work is highly recommended.€€"Publishers Weekly (starred review)