Sholem Asch’s Jewish Gospels
Seventy-five years ago, in 1943, the enormously popular Yiddish writer Sholem Asch published The Apostle, a long novel based on the life of St. Paul. Unlike all of Asch’s previous novels, which appeared in Yiddish and then later in English (and many other) translations, The Apostle was published only in English. At 754 pages the book might have struck some prospective readers as a weighty tome on an arcane subject. But the New York publisher, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, had no reservations about the project. It was bound to succeed, as had its immediate predecessor.
Asch’s previous novel, The Nazarene, was an American bestseller. It stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for months and sold 2 million copies within two years of publication. In a long review in the Times, The Nazarene was described as “a great novel in its large and noble conception and its exact and interesting detail.”