Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Overall, I don't see what the big fuss about this book is about: there's nothing here that hasn't been discussed by other authors I've read. Of course, those other authors aren't Muslim, or of Middle-Eastern descent, which of course is the "big deal" here.
Great summation of what Aslan thinks we can possibly "know" about Jesus from careful reading of the gospels, the rest of the New Testament, early Christian writers, Roman historians, and the Hebrew Bible. His final take is that Jesus and Paul are not of the same mind, that Jesus was a revolutionary that both Jewish and Roman leaders worried would stir up (yet another) revolt and so had to be silenced, and Paul was not the first or even most important leader of the early Christians, and in fact was in pretty serious conflict with those leaders.
Good, well-written for the most part, and FULL of source notes.
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