The Gospel in Brief: The Life of Jesus

by Leo Tolstoy, Dustin Condren

Overview

“The Gospel in Brief lives at the center of Leo Tolstoy’s thinking about the meaning of life. ... Beautifully translated by Dustin Condren. ... Although little known, this book remains hugely important.” --Jay Parini, author of The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year

The most celebrated novelist of all time, the author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, retells "the greatest story ever told," integrating the four Gospels into a single twelve-chapter narrative of the life of Jesus. Based on his study of early Christian texts, Leo Tolstoy's remarkable The Gospel in Brief—virtually unknown to English readers until this landmark new translation by Dustin Condren—makes accessible the powerful, mystical truth of Jesus's spiritual teaching, stripped of artificial church doctrine. "If you are not acquainted with The Gospel in Brief," wrote the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose life was profoundly influenced by it, "then you cannot imagine what an effect it can have upon a person."

“A fresh translation destined to introduce a new generation to a fuller understanding of Tolstoy’s mind.” --Kirkus Reviews

“Dustin Condren captures, in this fresh idiomatic translation, the dazzlingly audacious achievement of The Gospel in Brief, Tolstoy’s daring synthesis the New Testament accounts of Jesus.” --Edward E. Ericson, Jr., editor of The Solzhenitsyn Reader

“Newly translated by Dustin Condren, Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief offers us a Jesus stripped of the overlay of Christian dogma and ancient metaphysics: his Jesus confronts readers with a real challenge and a call to change their lives.” --George Pattison, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford, and canon of Christ Church Cathedral

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061993459
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/15/2011
Pages:	180
Sales rank:	211,474
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is the author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, and other classics of Russian literature.

Date of Birth:

September 9, 1828

Date of Death:

November 2, 1910

Place of Birth:

Tula Province, Russia

Place of Death:

Astapovo, Russia

Education:

Privately educated by French and German tutors; attended the University of Kazan, 1844-47

What People are Saying About This

Jay Parini

“The Gospel in Brief lives at the center of Leo Tolstoy’s thinking about the meaning of life. ... Beautifully translated by Dustin Condren. ... Although little known, this book remains hugely important.”

Edward E. Ericson

“Dustin Condren captures, in this fresh idiomatic translation, the dazzlingly audacious achievement of The Gospel in Brief, Tolstoy’s daring synthesis the New Testament accounts of Jesus.”

Editorial Reviews

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. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

A fascinating and thoroughly unorthodox rewriting of the Gospels and restatement of Christianity.

Booklist

Dustin Condren captures, in this fresh idiomatic translation, the dazzlingly audacious achievement of The Gospel in Brief, Tolstoy’s daring synthesis the New Testament accounts of Jesus.

Edward E. Ericson

The Gospel in Brief lives at the center of Leo Tolstoy’s thinking about the meaning of life. ... Beautifully translated by Dustin Condren. ... Although little known, this book remains hugely important.

Jay Parini

This is the first English translation in more than a century; Condren worked from Tolstoy’s original version and restored material deleted in previous translations. The result is not unlike Hermann Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha’ — the story of a life that illustrates a path.

Los Angeles Times

Newly translated by Dustin Condren, Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief offers us a Jesus stripped of the overlay of Christian dogma and ancient metaphysics: his Jesus confronts readers with a real challenge and a call to change their lives.

George Pattison

A new translation of Tolstoy's rewriting of the Christian Gospels, first completed in 1881.

Most English translations of this work are now over a century old and of questionable quality. Translator Condren has gone back to the original text in an attempt to reintroduce this important but largely forgotten work to English-speaking readers. The result is an admirably clear and lucid translation of Tolstoy's short but complex book. Reflecting the intense spiritual journey he underwent in his later life, the narrative is an attempt to synthesize the author's findings regarding a close examination of the Christian faith. It also represents his desire to reach the common Russian believer with his own heterodox beliefs. Tolstoy broke the Gospels into 12 short chapters, each one committed to a specific lesson of Jesus' teachings. Each chapter begins with an introduction by Tolstoy, marked by italics in this text. Tolstoy rejects the miraculous and divine aspects of the Gospels in an obvious response to 19th-century criticisms of the Bible, which deeply influenced his own study of the book. Instead, the author focuses entirely on Jesus' social teachings. Of special interest is "False Life," which reflects Tolstoy's growing belief in asceticism. In the story of the rich young ruler, for instance, Tolstoy's retelling is much harsher than that in the original Gospels. Whereas the Gospel of Mark, for instance, has Jesus simply saying, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" Tolstoy elaborates with, "there is no way to be rich and to fulfill your father's will...It is impossible for him who holds his own property to be within the father's will." In Tolstoy's theology, understanding and living out the ethical and moral commands of the Gospels are ofprimary importance; belief in Christ's divinity and other points of traditional Christian dogma are merely a matter of personal preference.

Fresh translation destined to introduce a new generation to a fuller understanding of Tolstoy's mind.

Kirkus Reviews