Forsyth, Georgia – Reading Feeds the Brain, the Spirit & the Soul

Reference Information for the Book

• Name of Book: The Greatest Story Ever Told
• Author Name: Fulton Oursler
• Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc.
• Year Released and/or ISBN Number: 1949

Type of Book

• A narrative non-fiction

About the Writing

• The book began as a radio show in 1947 and aired on ABC on Sunday at 6:30 P.M. The script was read, corrected, and approved by Monsignor Joseph A. Nelson, of St. Patrick's Cathedral staff in New York; Rev. Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, rector of Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church, and Rev. Dr. Paul Wolfe, minister of Brick Presbyterian church, New York. With them has been associated Mr. Otto Frankfurter, brother of Justice Felix Frankfurter of the United States Supreme Court. Nothing has appeared on programs without the approval of these four. This is the story of Jesus, a tale of the greatest life ever lived.

About the Author

The late Fulton Oursler had a long and fruitful career as a novelist, editor, journalist, and playwright. He was formerly editor of Liberty and then senior editor of Reader's Digest. He was widely known for his column, Modern Parables," which appeared in nearly a hundred newspapers and was the author of several book of fiction and non-fiction, and five plays. The Greatest Story Ever Told and it companion volume, The Greatest Book Ever Written, are two of his best known and most beloved works. Together they are a reverent and absorbing retelling of the stories of the New and Old Testaments.

Oursler began writing this book in 1935 when, after two extensive tours of the Holy Land, he experienced a spiritual rebirth and turned from agnosticism to devout faith.

Some Quotes about the Book

• Chapter 28 THE FIRST CLASH
  "From then on the first five disciples were constantly at His side, serving and helping when He would let them. They saw Him heal, and exorcise and teach until they feared He would faint with fatigue. At such times He would invariably go off by himself to a desert spot; from such brief sessions of solitary prayer He would come back invigorated, as if within the space of an hour He had concentrated the benefit of a rest cure or a whole summer's vacation.

  The five friends could not restore themselves. They were tired out when finally Jesus had completed His tour of the lake cities. But He came back to Capernaum the very image of strong, magnetic health."

Why I Enjoyed Reading the Book

• After more than a decade of reading the Bible this narration of the New Testament was like being there in Palestine as the three year teaching life of Jesus unfolded. Coupled with the fact that I visited Israel on a pilgrimage in December of 2006 the vividness of this author's simple narrative has riveted what is most assuredly, the greatest story ever told. In less than two days I was able to relive the story of Jesus Christ with the assurance that it was verified and corroborated by theologians of all religions. Each one of the readers made changes to the narrative and after doing so they all met and agreed on the accuracy of sticking to the scriptural foundation of the mainstream religions

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

• In the telling of this tale the author has the uncanny knack for piecing together a logical and sequential understanding of what is quite disjointed when one reads each of the Gospels and tries to put the story together for themselves. Each of the people in Jesus' life comes alive and develops their own humanity from the time of his birth until his crucifixion. The bad and the ugly were all about the last week of His life on earth. If you have always wanted to really understand the New Testament this is the way to start doing it without tedium with your imagination in high gear.