Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search for the Historical Jesus

Zealot by Reza Aslan

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Bingo: Migrant. Jesus has often been identified as a migrant, although it is not likely he was born in Bethlehem and fled to Egypt; he was simply born in Nazareth. However, as he grew older, he likely did travel to local cities to work as a laborer. I have a mixed religious history. My grandfather was Jewish, and I am ethnically part Ashkanazi. I was raised a Catholic and while I stopped going to church in my teens, I remained a person of faith until […]

A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine

A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine by Reza Aslan

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I bought this for the children’s room I work in. And then I read it, because I am very much an “explain it to me like I’m six years old” person. The book very simply lays out the facts that led to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have been fairly outspoken about Palestinian rights, and most of my Jewish friends have been too, but I have some who stand up for Israel and I am trying to understand why. I don’t know that the book sold […]

omg

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I completely adored Aslan’s last book, Zealot, which examined the historical evidence we have for what Jesus of Nazareth, the historical Jesus, would have been like when you strip away all the modern beliefs and assumptions. It was incredibly fascinating and Aslan took us through the evidence piece by piece, drawing conclusions or best guesses along the way. Although I enjoyed God, it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting the same measured look at historical evidence and then conclusions drawn from that […]

I Was the Wrong Audience for this Book

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One of my colleagues asked me to read this book along with him to help him prepare a presentation for his religions and sociology course, and I wanted to like it, for his sake and my own, but I was hands-down the absolute worst audience for this book. This is a volume for someone who’s coming in with no prior knowledge, or knows a little bit about a lot of different religions. I unfortunately know an iceberg’s worth of information on my own religion, and […]

Rebel with a cause

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I’ve had this book sitting on my shelves since it came out in 2013 and I just got around to reading it. To be fair, when I bought it the first time, it wasn’t really because I was burning to read a book about the historical Jesus, it was more to do with the shitstorm of criticism Reza Aslan got from conservatives because he’s a Muslim daring to write a book about Jesus. Remember this? He was so well-spoken and intelligent that I ordered the […]



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