Killing Jesus : A History by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

Im not going into the politics of the death of Jesus , but this book helps to understood the religious and political situation during Jesus's crucifixion. The authors tries to explain the human nature of the Christ . As mentioned  by the authors its a historical account of Jesus's Killing not a biography or religious text.

For me, many of the information in this book is new. I knew the story of Jesus crucifixion only through the Bible, but this books gives lots of historical information which im not sure correct or not. Definitely there are some fictional elements there in this killing story of this author. Though the book focus mainly on the killing of Jesus, the authors did not include the vital information about Jesus's beliefs ,in fact they missed many of Jesus sayings and teachings.

The authors explains the ruthlessness of the various Roman rulers and their tensed relationship with Jews.The authors gives lots of details about Caesar, Tiberius , Cleopatra ,Octavius etc which is interesting and give some perspective of the situation during Jesus's time. In fact all these characters were introduced one by one and each one played a role in Jesus's killing. The authors wrote little more than needed about the sexual lives of those Roman rulers.

The roles played by leaders of the Jews specially Annas and Caiaphas and their close relationship with Roman rulers were told realistically.The authors explains how the high priests and his family controlled the temple's wealth specially during the Passover.  The Passover rituals and how people /mob behaved during that time  were explained very clearly . The authors also give some information about Jews Sanhedrin - the assembly of seventy one Jew leaders and how Caiaphas made use of the Sanhedrin to sentence Jesus.(Since I have not read any book other than Bible I can not argue anything about these informations yet !!)

This book is definitely readable history book written in simple language and style. Various places and roads Jesus and his disciples visited  'comes alive'  as the authors explains the Jesus's journey into Jerusalem.  Since most of the details are taken directly from the Bible its like reading the Bible itself. Its better for any reader like me to fall back on Bible for more details about various events explained in this book. It seems some of the events explained in this book contradicts the Bible's version.

Definitely a good read.