[Book Review] Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

06 Sep, 2024

zelot

Twice upon a time, I used to be a crate digger¹, and in many ways, I still am. However, instead of records, I now dig for books: from classics to modern titles. My rule when digging books and expanding my library is modeled after the following advice:

“It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones."
--- C.S Lewis

And there I was, at the bookstore, with a stack of books, and on my way out; a book jumped out at me: "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" by Reza Aslan. Being a prior crate digger, you sort of pick up a knack for choosing records based on:

how the cover looks
the actual artist or band
era of music
reading the music credits and looking for famous studio musicians
the record company

In this case, since I did not know the author, and the title itself grabbed me, I searched for the publishing house. This book was published by Random House New York and this publishing house is known for carrying loads of literary gems. Thus, I picked it up, and as they say ... the rest is history.

Why you should read this book

Simple: it is a well researched and phenomenally written piece of work!

I could say that I was sort of primed for this subject, since about two books prior to this one, I read Asimov's Guide to the Bible and the main thesis in Aslan's book coincided with the same questions I asked while reading Asimov's work. That is:

if Jesus was a Jew, why did Christianity morphed so far away from Judaism?
why were the Synoptic Gospels so different from the Gospel of John?
how come the early Christians (led by James (Jesus brother)) had a different message than the one that Paul evangelized throughout his travels?
how did Paul become such a prevalent figure?

Asimov deals with these questions very superficially and imbues onto the reader, a desire to dig more into the biblical history of the Bible; and Reza Aslan illuminates those questions for you in a succinctly, and without religious fervor manner, AND with receipts.

This book is without a doubt another gem in my library. I cannot recommend it enough for "you-would-be-history-buffs"

P.S: I started on his other titles (i.e. Islamic history) and they're also phenomenal.

Happy hacking,