Since Jesus first gave his Sermon on the Mount, very few if any have devoted more years to practicing and teaching others to practice its precepts than Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy's take on the Sermon on the Mount stands apart in the history of Sermon on the Mount interpretation and has had enormous influence on others and other countries. Yet, often Gandhi gets the glory, or others. Tolstoy is remembered as a great writer, but his religious and philosophical works are by and large unknown or disparaged, even in Tolstoyan scholarly circles. It remains his contribution is substantially underappreciated and misunderstood. This project seeks to capture the particulars and dynamics of Tolstoy's interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount from a deliberately sympathetic vantage point. Underlying this project is shared belief with Tolstoy that the Sermon on the Mount is liveable and to be lived. This project assumes that from the vantage point of traditional orthodoxy Tolstoy got much wrong but there remains a lack of consideration of and appreciation for what he got right, radical obedience to the teachings of Jesus. After a careful overview of Tolstoy's post-conversion period, and his subsequent writings which constitute a Second Tolstoy corpus of literature, his hermeneutic is explored and his teachings treated generously. Tolstoy's interpretive adversaries and allies are given voice with the intention of better comprehending his interpretations and their perceived implications and failings. A new vocabulary is proposed to more precisely capture Tolstoyan lived theology, namely the political and social expressions of Tolstoyan Christianity, with the intention these theories and practices will gain a wider consideration, understanding and following.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:767336 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Hickey, Steve |
| Contributors | Brock, Brian |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=240035 |
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