What is Reddit's opinion of ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth?

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An excellent comment, it's so far down in the thread it will not get a lot of attention, but I'm glad you wrote it. I'm not religious, but I find this stuff fascinating. Your comment actually reminded me of a very interesting book I read, Zealot that tries to pin down as much of the historicity of the real person of Jesus, as much as such a thing is possible. It contains a lot of similar insights like the one you wrote here.

I can't really speak to how well it's been received by professionals, but I absolutely loved the book "Zealot" by Reza Aslan as a look into who the "real" Jesus would have been.

If you read Zealot by Reza Aslan we see that Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and James(Jesus's little brother [he is even referenced in the bible]) were all real people. You are correct that the story of the virgin birth was made up. It was likely made up by Jesus and his apostles as a way to legitimize his claim to being the son of God.

The book goes into great detail, but the gist of it is that in order to be the Messiah (a much prophesied Jewish savior/king/son of god) you had to meet a bunch of conditions. The whole nativity story, from the travel to Bethlehem, through the timing, and on to the gifts of the kings/wisemen is meant to fulfill some part of one or more of the prophesies surrounding the Messiah.

It's a good read. Really shows you how Christianity got started, and how things went from "Rome for Romans, Israel for Israelites" to "God for all."

Reza Aslan made some headlines with "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth", because he was muslim, and according to the religious right, that would make him biased against christianity.

It's not written in an edgy atheist style, if that's what you are looking for.

false. check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Everywhere Paul went to preach his blasphemy, James the Just would send someone to preach against Paul. When Paul went to Rome, James sent Peter to Rome to preach against him. And actually Paul's motive is very clear. He hated the Christian movement because it was a bunch of Jews challenging the power structure of Israel. He was going around killing a bunch of Christians but then on the road to Damascus he realized he wouldn't have to kill Christians if he could stop Jews from converting to it. So he went around preaching blasphemy, like: fuck Mosaic law we have a new law! Which Christianity wasn't about. Christianity was about how the Israel needed to coexist peacefully with the Romans or they'd be destroyed. Now of course Jesus did predict the destruction of Israel but it didn't have to be that way.

By preaching blasphemy and calling it Christianity, Paul was able to stop Jews from converting to the sect led by Jesus's brother, James the Just. So the Jews did not learn about what Jesus was about. The entire definition of Christianity is divorced by the movement started by Jesus and James the Just.

Reza Aslan's Zealot was really eye-opening to me. When you're raised as a Christian, you tend to miss glaringly obvious cues. I'll always remember the day that it hit me, "Holy cow, the whole thing is bullshit!" The weight of dissatisfaction with the church, playing the interpretation game, and jumping through logical loops to make sense of everything was finally lifted.

Cheers, thanks!

Yeah I agree 100%. There was a period of like 5 or so years where I was a full blown atheist. I don't think there is anything wrong with that perspective, but I definitely like having a very personal relationship with God, like I do now. I don't buy the whole "CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE AND MASTER PLANNER OF ALL THINGS" idea of God. The God I put credence in is more like a paternal figure that intervenes and gives you strength when you need it. Nothing more.

If you want a really good source on Jesus the man, and not Jesus Christ, then read this: http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375671861&sr=8-1&keywords=zealot

I don't know about Assasin's Creed. I'd have to think on a list of books, but one that covers a lot of this is "Zealot"

Edit: It's by Reza Aslan https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

I would like to watch a film about the life of Jesus, but with a script based on the book Zealot

https://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Som historiker kan jag tipsa om en ett litet annat perspektiv på Bibeln och kristendomens/lite av judendomens historia.

Först tittar du på det här klippet: https://youtu.be/f_0UkKHy1U4 (För oss med lite erfarenhet inom akademin är det vad jänkarna brukar kalla "hilarious")

Sen läser du hans riktigt intressanta bok om Jesus och hur han + myten uppstod. Väldigt läsvärd och relativt populärhistoria(dvs inte torrt akademisk)!

"ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth: Aslan, Reza: 9782523470201: Amazon.com: Books" https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Läs den innan du läser Bibeln så kommer du förstå saker ur en helt annan kontext.

Hälsningar historikern.

Interestingly, after I posted I looked up when they changed the system. Looks like Augustus changed it to a flat system prior to Jesus. So the tax farming system I described would have been in recent memory, but not in effect.

But as you pointed out, the other reason was working for the Great Satan, which never endears you to your fellow occupied people. Reza Aslan has a good book that talks a lot about the Jewish resistance to Roman rule and the crowds that Jesus and his followers likely moved in.

You know, I have a good book for you to read. Zealot is definitely something you should take a look at. Your religion is a sham that Paul made up.

Check out this book if you haven't already -- https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Aslan argues that there are a number of things about the Jesus story that don't make sense if there was never a guy. Like, the prophecies all say that Jesus will come from Bethlehem. Why is he known as Jesus of Nazareth rather than Jesus of Bethlehem? The earliest gospels don't even include Bethlehem in the narrative -- it appears to have been added to his story generations after he died.

The most likely answer is that there was a guy known as Jesus of Nazareth who was familiar to people of the day, and they changed his narrative to make him fit into the prophecies. If you were just making up the story from nothing, you would have just referred to him as "Jesus of Bethlehem" and been done with that prophecy.

 

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One of the most learned scholars

That's what Reza Aslan believes

https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

good book but obviously not perfect. author is definitely biased and a lot of his conclusions are wrong, but there’s solid historical evidence

https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

This is a great book about the very early history of Christianity and the social conditions that led to people like Jesus rebelling against Rome.

https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

I found the book Zealot helped as it’s trying to do just that. https://www.amazon.ca/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Read Zealot by Reza Aslan, his whole book is about this:

https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

I get this, I promise I do,

If you grew up in Mordor, you were taught that of course god is real and Jesus is real and the only question is about what organization represents their will.

But truth isn’t about feelings, truth is truth.

“The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources – which they also fail to identify.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/

You might say, wait a minute, the writers do identify themselves! But giving one name is hardly an identification, especially when all the gospels are believed to be written after the events described in the book of acts chronologically. And Paul’s epistles were written before the gospels... so there is that.

Jesus means Joshua... in 100 years my descendants could decide to write about a dude named Joshua who was special ln the eyes of god because of his name... and historians could say. Maybe This special Joshua was real... but maybe not... and believers could say, well we have record of someone named Joshua who lived during that time and because the world didn’t know about him they didn’t keep good records.

There were hundreds of people with that name. And there were at least three men who were contemporaries of the man described in the gospels who claimed to be messiah

Theudas (?- c. 46 CE), led an unsuccessful lived revolt against Rome somewhere between 44 and 46 CE. Mentioned by Josephus.

Simon of Peraea (?- died c. 5 BCE -15 CE), former slave of Herod the Great (74/73 BCE - c. 4 BCE), led a Jewish revolt. Mentioned by Josephus.

Athronges, leader of a Jewish insurrection against Herod Archelaus (23 BCE - c 18 CE).

Reza Aslan writes an interesting book about this issue

https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X pick it up if you can it’s really good

Anyone worth their mettle in religion understands the Bible has been largely exaggerated, and people who take the bible absolutely LITERALLY are the Fake-Catholics/Christians I am talking about.

We know the Bible was pretty much curated during the council of Nicaea in 325 A.D - where due to the impending collapse of the roman empire, Italy HAD TO be converted into Catholicism, or face absolute fucking Anarchy.

So any/all accounts of God/Jesus were erased, and now we have the Divine, hence why from 12-25 years of Jesus's life are missing, and when/why all religious holidays are decided, how to pray, etc.

Also, the Church was incredibly corrupt back in the day, controlling most of the World's currency, and Fate of entire countries.

The Modern Catholic, very much differs with the whole "concept" of religion most people seem to think - when I tell them "I'm religous", we pray and do everything else, but the modern church has changed drastically, to the point that we do believe in Aliens, Accept gays into church, and Pope Francis literally appoints special council hunting pedophiles - we believe in science too, Great Men of science like Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo (who literally defied the church), Georges Lemaitre (who worked with Einstein on his relativity equation - was a priest), and Many NASA Austronauts are devout catholics.

None of them, however, claimed that - literally - God spoke to them (as these bozos claim - like a full convo), No - when "God speaks to you" literaly means you were inspired by God from someone, through something - painters call this a "Muse" in Faith, we say "God Spoke" or "God has Spoken" - as in it's God's will.

When speaking about religion, try not to look at it from the literal point of view, when God speaks, he speaks through someone, your mom, dad, whoever - you hear the right thing, and you act.

Again, when someone literally says "God Spoke to me" and they had a "Conversation about what to do" - that's when the greatest crimes in history have been commited, not because he actually TOLD YOU and you REPLIED, but because you wanted to say he Spoke to you and YOU ONLY, and people will always have an Agenda, when speaking like that, hence their plane BS.

To your last point, we do have actual historical evidence as to when Catholicism came about - Reza Azlan, has a PH.D in religion and has actually written about this - https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Regardless of your beliefs, Jesus did indeed exist, and was a very prominent figure well known for prominent figure performing actual Miracles, like healing Lepers, and resurecting Lazarus (historical evidence of this is true) , and he founded his own Church through one of his Disciples - Peter (who became the first Pope Ever) around 30 AD - this is a historical fact.

We know too - Jesus was so prominent, he shows in other religious sacred texts, like Jewish, and the Quran, which his name is mentioned more times than Mohammed.

The new testament is written in a way that allows for many interpretations. You would like the book Zealot a lot I think.

Here's an exhaustively researched book that draws from primary sources which proves conclusively that you are wrong. It's a great read - https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Yeah, the Jesus of real life was probably a pretty cool dude. The made up god-thing Jesus that people worship fucking sucks (see also: ZEALOT (book) by Reza Aslan)

Yes, recomand cu caldura http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

Has anyone read the one star reviews on Amazon for this book? They're hilarious, if you want a good laugh go check it out.

Read this

https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

I think the Gospels are largely fiction and heavily censored, but Jesus did have a particular message that was contrary to most of the wannabe messiahs. He didn't want to fight the Romans, he fought the corruption within the Temple. He knew if the Jews kept on their trajectory Israel would be destroyed so he wanted to reform the Jews to get them to be more humble

I highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X

I haven't seen proper statistics, but given that the vast majority of Biblical scholars are Christian, it's not surprising that the consensus is that Jesus did indeed exist. Their religion and perhaps their jobs depend on it.

Reza Aslan, a muslim, wrote Zealot, which I haven't read, but the title gives you an idea of where the book goes. He's the one who did the infamous Fox News interview.

I'm suspicious that even the scholarly world is not immune to confirmation bias. Whether Christian, Muslim or Atheist, they will all likely have a bias toward what fits their world view. It's hard to say who and who is not at fault for confirmation bias.

edit: found an interview with Aslan for a cliffs notes version of his point of view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL6E4eMX-4k

The battle has now moved to AMAZON!

http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Look at the anger y reviewers lol.