#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "A lucid intelligent page-turner" (Los Angeles Times) that
challenges long-held assumptions about Jesus from the host of Believer Two thousand years
ago an itinerant Jewish preacher 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 executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his
death his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking Reza Aslan
sheds new light on one of history's most enigmatic figures by examining Jesus through the lens
of the tumultuous era in which he lived. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the
historical sources Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion yet rife with
contradiction. He explores the reasons the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an
image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious
revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself the mystery
that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity. Zealot yields a fresh
perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and
transformative nature of Jesus' life and mission. Praise for Zealot "Riveting . . . Aslan
synthesizes Scripture and scholarship to create an original account."-The New Yorker
"Fascinatingly and convincingly drawn . . . Aslan may come as close as one can to respecting
those who revere Jesus as the peace-loving turn-the-other-cheek true son of God depicted in
modern Christianity even as he knocks down that image."-The Seattle Times "[Aslan's]
literary talent is as essential to the effect of Zealot as are his scholarly and journalistic
chops. . . . A vivid persuasive portrait."-Salon "This tough-minded deeply political book
does full justice to the real Jesus and honors him in the process."-San Francisco Chronicle
"A special and revealing work one that believer and skeptic alike will find surprising
engaging and original."-Jon Meacham Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The
Art of Power "Compulsively readable . . . This superb work is highly
recommended."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
