I am not a religious person; I do not believe in God, and, in general, I am very cautious about any religion. I certainly see a significant difference between a deity and the institution of worship built around it. However, religions are a huge part of modern civilization; they have influenced the development of humanity and continue to do so to this day. Therefore, I have always been interested in what lay at the origins, where various teachings began, and what truth has reached us through the ages versus what is merely interpretation and speculation from later generations.
Christianity is over two thousand years old, and everyone except the laziest knows the canonical story of Jesus, but what truly happened? From a historical perspective, who was Jesus of Nazareth? What took place two thousand years ago? This question is explored by countless researchers, presenting history from various perspectives, sometimes creating masterpieces of literature (Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is worth mentioning). People try to find logical explanations for the contradictions in this history, as demonstrated in the recently described book The Gospel of Afranius by Kirill Yeskov.
But there are also works by genuine historians based on numerous sources. The book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan is one of them.
Read more
