"Today, before we Christians begin to read a gospel, we already know the lines of the story. It was the same at the start. The first readers or hearers of each gospel knew the story as well as the evangelist. Each evangelist put a 'spin' on a familiar story. The reader will ask: why is he telling the story like this? One of the joys of studying the gospels is a growing appreciation of the literary sophistication of the evangelists."-From the introductionIn this popularly written, accessible book...
Explores the Gospel of Mark with emphasis on why Mark tells the story the way he does. The author backs up his appreciation of the literary sophistication of Mark by outlining his technique and discusses the centrality of the cross to Mark's account of Jesus.
Surveys scholarship since 1985 on Mark's Gospel, with particular emphasis on the new methods of interpretation for which Mark has so often served as a testing ground in recent times.
