Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth - Hardcover

'A bold, powerfully argued revisioning of the most consequential life ever lived' Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize - winning author of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief 'This is a 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 'In Zealot, Reza Aslan doesn't just synthesize research and reimagine a lost world, though he does those things very well. He does for religious history what Bertolt Brecht did for playwriting. Aslan rips Jesus out of all the contexts we thought he belonged in and holds him forth as someone entirely new. This is Jesus as a passionate Jew, a violent revolutionary, a fanatical ideologue, an odd and scary and extraordinarily interesting man.' Judith Shulevitz, author of The Sabbath World 'Aslan s riveting biography ... synthesises Scripture and scholarship to create an original account.' The New Yorker '...Aslan s insistence on human and historical actuality turns out to be far more interesting than dogmatic theology... This tough-minded, deeply political book does full justice to the real Jesus, and honors him in the process.' San Francisco Chronicle 'Reza Aslan s powerful new Zealot paints a vivid, accessible portrait of Jesus... a coherent and often convincing portrait of who Jesus was and what he wanted.' Tablet 'Compulsively readable ... this superb work is highly recommended.' Publishers Weekly 'A book of outstanding research and a gripping read. Page after page of excellent prose offer insight into what it was like to be living under Roman oppression and why there was a multitude of messiahs offering hope and freedom.' The Middle East in Europe

Who was the Jewish peasant who, two thousand years ago, walked across what is now Palestine to gather followers with the goal of establishing the Kingdom of God? 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.