There was quite a media kerfluffle over Zealot a couple of weeks ago. “How can a Muslim write a book about Jesus” etc. etc. So I bought the book to see for myself. That knee-jerk critique was way off the mark, as most people seemed to realize. Reza Aslan is a scholar. His agenda is that of a historian.
The book is very good. It doesn’t matter what faith (if any) you profess. If you like learning why things in our world are as they are, and if you read history to satisfy your curiosity, then this book will be a welcome addition. Whether you practice a religion or not, you must admit that religion has been a tremendously powerful force throughout the ages. It’s good to understand how.
I’ve been to Israel and have seen many of the places described in the book. It was a thrill to walk in places like the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and the Kidron Valley. Whatever actually happened over there 2,000 years ago was monumentally important in shaping our world.
This book throws considerable light on how those happenings were chronicled and, more importantly, how they were re-presented - “spun” is a good term here - by the writers of the Gospels. They did their work many years after Jesus lived, and wrote in the immediate aftermath of the massive Jewish Revolt against Rome.
This book also does a good job of laying out contexts, both of the writing of the Gospels and of the time when Jesus lived and preached. It tells about the power structure and how the Romans, their client kings, and the upper-crust religious authorities kept the vast majority of the people subjugated.
One thing I did learn when I was over there, and which has been corroborated by this book, is that the Pharisees were, by and large, pretty good guys. Jesus got along with most of them. The Pharisees didn’t like the Romans. The high priest Caiaphas was not a Pharisee; he was a big buddy of Pontius Pilate too. Those two SOBs needed each other.
That’s all I have to say for now. Or as Pilate (supposedly, probably didn’t) said, “What I have written, I have written.”
