I read Reza Aslan's controversial book Zealot; The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (#348) at exactly the perfect time. I've been taking a course on the Hebrew Bible, so many of Aslan's citations were fresh in my memory and this book helped flesh out many of the things I've read and gave vivid examples of how the Jews at the time of Jesus interpreted the scriptures. To be clear, Reza Aslan is focused solely on what documentation can be found on the historical Jesus. He separates this from the gospels and apocrypha which were written at a remove of at least a generation, not from eye- witness accounts, and thus from the interpretations of who Jesus and his message was.
I did find much of what Reza Aslan had to say both interesting and intriguing, and for a Christian, possibly unsettling. If the object of his book is to make people think, he has succeeded admirably. But I read this as I would any history; that it is written with the facts interpreted to suit the writer's purposes and biases and that the reader must ultimately make up his or her own mind as to what to believe, and not take the contents as "gospel truth" as Aslan himself cautions.
Zealot is certainly worth reading from that perspective. You're bound to learn something that will lead you to explore further on your own.
By the way, is it just me, or does anyone else think that it is ironic that Reza Aslan's name is the same as Aslan, the Christ figure in C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series? Just thought I'd put it out there...
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