This is an accessible work of history, looking at what the historical evidence tells us about Jesus of Nazareth and his times. Not knowing much about the context of those times, I found it enlightening, though it sometimes seems that the author overstates the certainty with which much of anything about the ancient world can be known. In the end much of the book is educated guessing – worth reading because it is very educated, but not much can be proven.

Part 1 covers the context of first-century Palestine, a far-flung Roman province bursting with discontent about tribute requirements, leading to high taxes, leading to exploitation of the poor. Many men claimed the mantle of messiah, or the chosen one who would liberate their land from the Romans and restore God’s kingdom. Eventually the Jews revolted in 66 C.E. and kicked out the Romans, only for the Romans to return and wipe out Jerusalem four years later. In this milieu, and given the way the Romans executed Jesus (crucifixion was the standard punishment for sedition and treason, as a warning to others), the author builds a case for interpreting him as a political revolutionary. For instance, an act such as overturning the moneylenders’ tables at the Temple would have been a protest against the priests’ collaboration with Rome and enrichment of themselves at the expense of the common people.

Part 2 is more focused on the information in the gospels: what is credible from a historical perspective, and how Jesus’s words would have been understood at the time. Finally, Part 3 is about the early church in the aftermath of his death, particularly the schism between James (Jesus’s brother, who led the Jerusalem assembly) and Paul, who comes across as a bit of an egomaniac who reinvented Jesus’s message entirely, transforming it from a Jewish sect into an entirely new religion. Jesus claimed that he had come to fulfill Jewish law, while Paul decreed that he had replaced it; when Jesus was originally referred to as “Son of God,” the author argues that this designation meant simply the “chosen one” (David was also a “Son of God”) while Paul interpreted it literally. During his lifetime Paul did not have great success, but his version of Christianity was better suited to take off in a post-Jerusalem world, where the Jews had become pariah and the Temple no longer existed.

I found this to be an interesting and thought-provoking book. While not a fast read, it provides an engaging narrative and is readable and accessible to the non-academic reader. The author’s arguments in general seem extensive researched, well-documented and persuasive. When discounting sources or filling in gaps in the record, he generally explains his analysis rather than simply stating his conclusions as if they were fact.

However, it isn’t a perfect book. The organization can be a bit scattershot, jumping around in time and between general historical background and Jesus, especially in the early sections. There are no footnotes, and some assertions are supported by extensive endnotes while others are not. While not representative of the book as a whole, there are some eyebrow-raising arguments to authority, stating that “the overwhelming consensus” (204) among scholars tells us something, or that another author has “definitively proven” (240) something else. It is helpful to know which ideas are subjects of controversy and which aren’t, and I don’t expect the author to perform independent research on every single topic surrounding life in the ancient world, but it is an odd phrasing for a book premised on the method of drawing conclusions from primary sources even if they differ from established dogma.

More broadly speaking, the book’s analysis left me with big questions unanswered. If the Gospels were written decades after Jesus’s death by people who didn’t know him, and who did not live in a society where fact-checking and documentation were a thing (though the Romans kept extensive records on issues of interest such as tax collection), and were written as testaments of faith with the intention of converting non-Jews to their religion rather than as historical documents, then why remove some politically-charged bits but not others? The author argues that the Gospel writers must have changed the agency in Jesus’s execution from the Roman governor to the Jews for palatability to their intended audience, given that Pilate cared little to nothing what his subject population thought about anything, but why then leave in the overturning of the moneylenders’ tables, the sermon on the mount (which the author argues would have been about the new social order in God’s kingdom on earth rather than a spiritual promise), and other statements targeting the Temple and the Roman government? 

And if the writers needed to transport Jesus’s birth to Bethlehem to argue that he fulfilled the prophecies, why would they have explained this through a census story that their readers would have known to be false, because the census not only didn’t happen at that time but did not work that way (the Roman census was about tallying up property in order to tax it, and putting the economy on hold for months for everyone to travel to their home village without said property would have been absurd)? It’s fair to say that I am hopelessly modern and nonreligious and can’t claim to understand the mindset of a first- or second-century convert, but immersion in a story to me depends on finding it at least plausible. It also seems likely that a new religion isn’t trying to recruit skeptics who will question its facts but rather true believers who will accept the religious leaders’ word. But there still seems to me to be a difference between facts that can be disproven, and unverifiable assertions that must be taken on faith, and why hand your opponents the former if you can avoid it?

So I wish the author would have delved more into the historicity of the Gospels as a whole rather than focusing on specific passages one at a time; for me at least it would have been helpful in evaluating the overall argument. Nevertheless, this is an interesting and educational book of reasonably short length, and I’m glad I read it.

[last book of 2015!]

So, this book took over a year for me to listen to because I was listening to it with my husband, which means we only moved forward on it when the following stars aligned: 1) We were together on a long drive; 2) neither of us wanted to sleep; and 3) my husband was not using drive time to work. Usually on long drives, I drive and he works, which means I listen to whatever I want. So times when we are both mentally and physically present to listen to the same book is reduced to once every few months -- and then my MP3 player that had this audiobook on it bit the dust, and I had to download it onto a new one, etc. etc.

All this is to say, this will be a less coherent review than if I had listened to or read this book in a more efficient manner. Still, this book's overall thesis was easy enough to pick up even after months away. This book bore a lot of similarities and even overlapped some theory/research with [book:How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee|20149192], except in this book the focus was not on whether Jesus' first followers believed him to be divine but on what Jesus and his first followers believed his mission to be. Aslan presents a Jesus who was concerned primarily with justice for the oppressed in Israel at a time of great political turmoil and corruption. It posits that Jesus was indeed a "Zealot" desirous of the overthrow of Roman occupation, but that this message became more and more muddled as the Gospel writers evangelized to the very people Jesus struggled against -- namely, the Romans. Thus, the message was transformed from one of political fervor to one of learning to live in peace alongside those who oppressed or opposed you.

While Aslan makes a convincing argument, to do so he must "cherry pick" from scripture, presenting some of it as if it is historically accurate and blatantly ignoring other passages. That was probably the biggest frustration for me in this book. Still, overall it offers an intriguing portrait of who Jesus the man could have been, as well as an insightful chronology of how we came to see him as someone potentially very different.

This jerk of a writer got my attention when a lot of religious deluded readers keep praising his crap books filled with lies and bullshit. 

So, it is not surprised that this jerk of a writer got found out that he not only lied in his books, he lied about a lot of other things including his credential, and about other writers way better than him.

While I don't really give this jerk much thought. I do considered this a public service for other readers to avoid any book of this jerk writer. 

"Among the Islamists and supporters of Sharia law, there is one individual in particular who has been capable of making money by misrepresenting himself and his credentials: the tireless self-promoter, Reza Aslan. After 9/11, Reza Aslan found the environment ripe in the United States to make profits by exaggerating and fabricating his qualifications."

Read on. 

The Character assassination of Sam Harris. A crime by Glenn GreenWald and Reza Aslan

If someone has asked me why I dislike Reza Aslan, the self congratulating asshole who wrote books that based on fictional religious books.

He might be well read in religious bullshit, but it would not make him wise, it make him so full of shit that he didn't realize he stink of shit.

But stinking of religious bullshit is okay. Dishonesty is not.

He could have try to debate Sam Harris rationality. He didn't. He preferred to talk shit about Sam Harris.

That's a big no no.

Update.

Someone complained that this review does not contain enough stuff about the book.

So I would break it down to two parts.

Part I would be about the book, and Part 2 about the writer's interview on Fox and other stuff.

Part I - the book

This book is boring. If you are looking for really contradicting stuff, you will be disappointed.

The writer relied a lot on the Bible itself to validate a supposing historical version of Jesus. But he relied too much on Paul's writing, and forgotten that Paul never met the supposing historical Jesus.

That's is the big mistake.

You know how eye witness could not be trusted to be accurate. And this is not even a friend of a friend version. This is someone who thought he see god, while having a mental breakdown and a hallucination, and then thought that he was someone special doing something for the non-existing god.

Mistake number 2, inconsistency. He should have known better. Gospel stories are not history, and should not be treated as such.

Duh!

If he found gospels to be inconsistent, yet relied on it as "historical proof", it would not make any sense. It does not make much sense to me how he treated the materials.

Make up your mind please.

The bit about if this supposing historical Jesus had lived after he was killed, was confusing. Where did he get the idea that the stories about some anti-Roman Jewish guy.

I thought everyone know this. There were quite a few Jewish spiritual leaders at the time, someone already wrote about that the Jesus in the Bible could be a composite of these men who have done good deeds for the Jews a that period of time.

OK. Enough said. Overall comment. Boring. Nothing new. Not worth the time.

Part II - the writer's interview on Fox and other more interesting stuff.

"...trumpets his credentials with an air of self-importance that one usually only finds in characters met in fairy tales -- or dreams." -- Sam Harris

Don't believe me?

See this interview. (I hate Fox news, but the writer is not doing so good either.)

REZA ASLAN stuns foxnews presenter about his book The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

And he got a lot of responses and attention.

Reza Aslan Knew Exactly What He Was Doing in That Fox News Interview

So full of himself.

This book is written by religious deluded of Islam on the main character in another bullshit religion.

Debate on virgin birth (fake). I don't like arrogant religious deluded, and it makes it hard to like the book.

For those who like this kind of thing.

One, being a religious deluded Muslim would not disqualify this writer to write about the fictional character of the Christian religion. It is the same shit. It is all bullshit.

The interview on Fox is bad. Doesn't mean the writer is good.

This writer is really full of himself. I would update this from time to time.

Here is one example.

Sam harris vs Reza Aslan

And for the two assholes who got deleted because they left troll comments. You could leave comment again if you have anything valuable to say besides trolling.

Which reminds me, why he could write a book on the fictional Jesus and not so with the prophet of Islam Mohammad.



Update.

Why are there so many trolls that said bullshit with the assumption that if I read this crap of a book, I wouldn't dislike it.

Here is the image fit for this book.



I would also remind these trolls that readers have rights too.



Update. Kind of related to the subject matter, but not so much to the book.