The Gospel In Brief
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $0.99
Publisher Description
Challenging the Christian church of the late nineteenth century Russia, Tolstoy comes up with the fusion of four Gospels. With forceful brevity he asserts that the teachings of Jesus provide an ultimate solution to problems of mankind in this tumultuous world. This revolutionary work challenged the long-held official-church doctrines and made Christianity a way of life. Exceptionally stimulating!Leo Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief (1896) combines elements from all four gospels and summarizes the life history of Jesus Christ. It also presents the life-altering process through which Tolstoy realized that Jesus is the one who would deliver humanity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tolstoy's no-frills, just-the-facts-ma'am version of the life of Jesus Christ and his teachings makes a readable account out of the four Gospels that begin the New Testament, but it bears little stylistic trace of the Tolstoy familiar to most readers. Starting with the conception by an "unknown father" (but glossing over the first 30 years of Jesus' life) and ending with the crucifixion (but avoiding the resurrection), Tolstoy's account is a tight, accessible, and refreshing distillation of Christ's teachings. The author eschews the miracles from Christ's story to focus instead on his messages. Those messages can be pedantic, but generally are conveyed with economy, although some of Christ's teachings for instance, his views on celibacy for bachelors are a hard sell today. Tolstoy's preface, in which he explains his conversion to Christianity and justifies his reconstruction of the Gospels by arguing that Jesus never wrote his own version, is a nice addition, as is the appendix of verses the Russian author draws on for his life of Christ.
