Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Very interesting, quite a bit of pizzazz and gosh-darn shock for this lapsed Catholic. The first 12 years of my life were very, VERY Catholic, but I had NO IDEA Jesus had siblings. He had WHAT? James was his BROTHER?! WHAT!?!

Anyway, a lot of fun. Is it going to offend devout Christians? Oh gosh, maybe? I guess a devout Christian will just toss this out/ignore it. Because Reza Aslan's (revisionist?) book looks at the historical Jesus of Nazareth and richly contextualizes him (Him?!) in the hyper-violent, apocalyptic politics of the Middle East 2,000 years ago. Honestly, that context sounded brutal, and Jesus sounded a looot more hardcore, and completely unlike the rainbows and unicorns vibe the New Testament has had in my mind since Catholic school.

Because the context was this: Imperial Rome oppressing everyone, corrupt collaborator high priests/rich people, and apocalyptic Jewish “messiahs” calling for end times, the decimation of Rome and the unification of the twelve tribes of Israel. Apparently, there were lots of these folks: hating on Rome and the priests, and then ending up crucified for “sedition”. The ways Jesus fit into this pattern, and the ways he didn't, were super interesting. For example, the Old Testament/Torah/Jewish tradition had lots of attributes of the messiah, and the gospel writers spent a lot of time back-revising the Jesus biopic so that he either fit into them better or had a good reason for not fitting into them. (Apparently resurrection is NOT one of these attributes!)

So why do I, and many modern cultural Christians, have this peace-and-love vibe about Jesus and the New Testament? Apparently - and this blew.my.mind - the canny political genius of the late first century CE gospel writers had the forethought to revise Jesus's story so that it could be palatable and understandable to Romans and gentiles and little anxious girls in Pittsburgh PA. After the fall of Jerusalem (~40 years after Jesus died), the gospel writers knew that - for Jesus's ministry to survive - it had to become palatable, generic, apolitical. It had to lose all the “my Jewish God's gonna smite you, Roman bastards!!!” stuff. Hence you get a reluctant Pontius Pilate (who is a saint in the Coptic Church whaaaaat, but - historically - apparently executed so many people that his bosses back in Rome got complaints about it), a Jesus who preaches about the sick and suffering and MUCH PEACE AND LOVE, EVERYONE, and you get the evil, no-good, corrupt Jewish high priests. This political decision that the gospel writers made, in the light of Jerusalem's fall, yep, leads to 2k+ years of anti-Semitism. MADNESS!

The other madness, of course, is the wonderful, infuriating, crazy story of Paul. Would it be crazy to say that modern day Christianity owes as much (maybe more?!) to Paul as to Jesus? Because he certainly came on pretty strong following his conversion, and bent much of the church to his will - and then worked to spread that version - and changed a bunch of the story - etc etc. There's an interesting play about it by Howard Brenton. Eddie Izzard does a funny bit about his obnoxious letters. Anyway, Paul and Jesus's brother, James, apparently battled much for the soul (pardon the pun) of the church - and this section was v v interesting. So Paul was like, “screw this, I'm going to Rome!” where he found PETER - agent of James! I loved the in-fighting.

Sooo... Yeah. Read it! Lots of fun.