with whom I could have a deep and personal relationship. On the contrary, I burned with absolute devotion to my newfound faith.

Not that his conversion was a matter of convenience, Accepting him into my heart was as close as I could get to feeling truly American. He was the central figure in America’s national drama. My faith was a bruise, the most obvious symbol of my otherness it needed to be concealed. In the America of the 1980s, being a Muslim was like being from Mars. Why this book about Jesus?īy way of preliminaries, however, Reza Aslan recounts how, after migrating from Iran, he became a Christian at fifteen years of age and how this new identity happily served to strengthen his identify as an American. Aslan explains that his footnotes attempt to present some of the arguments of those who oppose his views in the body of the book. That’s a refreshing change from the way some scholars introduce their own work or criticize the works of others. To Aslan’s credit, he makes abundantly clear in his introductory “Author’s note” thatįor every well-attested, heavily researched, and eminently authoritative argument made about Jesus, there is an equally well-attested, equally researched, and equally authoritative argument opposing it. One knows one is in for a dramatic read.įor the more academically minded reader there are over fifty pages of endnotes detailing sources and additional explanations for what appears in the main text. 3)Īddressing the reader in the second person Aslan draws her into the colourful world Jewish worship at the Jerusalem temple and shocks her after half a dozen pages by having her witness the assassination of the high priest there in 56 C.E. The war with Rome begins not with a clang of swords but with the lick of a dagger drawn from an assassin’s cloak. Reza Aslan’s book about Jesus, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, opens its prologue like an historical novel:

Jesus of nazareth book reza aslan