He gained an extraordinary number of followers who believed in his faith healing, and yet he asked his followers not to call him by his real name, in order to protect him from dangerous Roman officials and possibly other healers, who might find his burgeoning religion a threat to their own livelihood and ideology.
Jesus quickly became a controversial figure. Though Jesus preached peace and kindness, he acted with surprising violence against the Roman Empire, encouraging his followers to take up their swords and fight for their freedom. It was common during this time for a sense of nationalism – what Aslan refers to as zealotry – to cause the Jews who were being occupied by the invasive Roman Empire to rise up against their colonizers, seizing power for themselves. Jesus, a Jewish preacher, was one of these cult preachers, and tales of his miracles followed him across the land. People feared coming death, and many cult religions and preachers claiming to be messiahs began to crop up in response to the impending fall of the Roman empire and the wild political and social situation that caused many to fear for their lives. Palestine during the first century was a chaotic and apocalyptic place. His new work comes from his thorough research into the social, political, and economic situation that lead to the rise of Jesus in first-century Palestine, and the circumstances leading to his trial as an enemy of the state and subsequent death. Most early Christian scholars commonly agree upon this. The novelty of Aslan's book isn't the claim that Jesus was a peasant or a religious zealot of his time. Because only Roman emperors could take the title of king, being referred to as such was treasonous and punishable by death – in the case of Jesus, this death was a crucifixion, a common method of capital punishment during the Roman era. Despite claims that this portrayal of Jesus is new, Aslan's thesis follows a relatively common interpretation of Jesus's life – he was a Jewish peasant turned preacher and miracle worker who walked across the sea of Galilee with followers in tow, and was subsequently punished by the Roman empire which feared his power, and because he was called the King of the Jews.
Aslan conducted thorough research not only into the life of Jesus, but also into the political and social situation in the Middle East during his rise to power and fame, in order to determine the factors that lead to his overwhelming popularity for centuries to come. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth is a controversial biography of the historical and religious figure of Jesus, written by Muslim scholar Reza Aslan.
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