Title: Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
Author: Reza Aslan
Publisher:Random House
Year: 2013
327 pages
Like many books about Jesus (or, for that matter, HIV), the reviews are reasonably shrill, accusatory, and polarized. Aslan does a good job of contextualizing the period in which Jesus preached and making is accessible to the non-technical reader. I can't evaluate his contention that Jesus's activities can be understood as emerging from and buttressing the framework of zealotry, in its technical sense; I think he makes a case for this, but as I'm not a biblical scholar, I can't critique the argument. I felt that his analysis made more sense than most interpretations I've read, particularly his discussion of post-crucifixion politics and Paul's reinterpretation or reinvention of Jesus.
Read well by the author, but hunt up a visual copy for the end notes.
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