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The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
Random House
July 2013
On Sale: July 16, 2013
336 pages
ISBN: 140006922X
EAN: 9781400069224
Kindle: B00BRUQ7ZY
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History | Non-Fiction Religion
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 history’s 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 zealotry—a 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 Nazareth’s 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.
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