Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard - A 15-minute Instaread Summary: A History

• Overview of the entire book
• Introduction to the important people in the book
• Summary and analysis of all the chapters in the book
• Key Takeaways of the book
• A Reader's Perspective

O’Reilly explains that he and Martin Dugard wrote this book with one goal in mind, to share the truth about who Jesus was. He emphasizes that it is important to understand the tumultuous times that Jesus lived in if a person hopes to understand who he was and what he stood for. O’Reilly and Dugard hope to shed some new light upon the struggle between dominant Roman leaders and the legendary man called Jesus.

In 5 BC soldiers in Bethlehem, Judea, were ordered by King Herod to find and kill baby Jesus. Herod, age sixty-nine and suffering from many physical ailments, had grown insecure about rumors that a new King of the Jews had been born. To make certain the child would be murdered, Herod ordered the slaughter of every male less than two years old. Nobody questioned his decree because all knew of his thirty-year reign of terror. Even his own soldiers feared Herod’s wrath. Despite two visits to Jerusalem by Jesus and his family in his first month and a half of life, they managed to escape undetected by Herod and his soldiers.