Zealot The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the 'Kingdom of God'. The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God.

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against historical sources, Aslan describes a complex figure: a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity secret; and the seditious King of the Jews, whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his lifetime. Aslan explores why the early Church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary, and grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself.

This is a thought-provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel, and a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time and the birth of a religion.


#1 New York Times Bestseller

'riveting biography' - The New Yorker

'compulsively readable' - Publishers Weekly

'A vivid, persuasive portrait of the world and societies in which Jesus lived and the role he most likely played in both' - Salon


Reza Aslan is an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions. His first book, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, has been translated into thirteen languages and was named one of the 100 most important books of the decade. He is also the author of How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror, a contributing editor at the Daily Beast and founder of Aslan Media. Born in Iran, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons.