#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.