Knowable Word offers a foundation on why and how to study the Bible. Through a running study Genesis 1, this new edition illustrates how to Observe, Interpret, and Apply the Scripture-and gives the vision behind each step.

The earliest of the four Gospels, the book portrays Jesus as an enigmatic figure, struggling with enemies, his inner and external demons, and with his devoted but disconcerted disciples. Unlike other gospels, his parables are obscure, to be explained secretly to his followers. With an introduction by Nick Cave

In The Gospel of Mark Fathers Donahue and Harrington use an approach that can be expressed by two terms currently used in literary criticism: intratextuality and intertextuality. This intratextual and intertextual reading of Mark's Gospel helps us to appreciate the literary character, its setting in life, and its distinctive approaches to the Old Testament, Jesus, and early Christian theology. "Intratextuality" means we read Mark as Mark and by Mark. Such a reading expresses interest in the final form of the Gospel (not its source or literary history) and in its words and images, literary devices, literary forms, structures, characterization, and plot. Reading Mark by Mark gives particular attention to the distinctive vocabulary and themes that run throughout the Gospel and serve to hold it together as a unified literary production. "Intertextuality" comprises the relation between texts and a textual tradition, and also referring to contextual materials not usually classified as texts (e.g., archaeological data). "Intertextuality" is used to note the links of the text of Mark's Gospel to other texts (especially the Old Testament) and to the life of the Markan community and of the Christian community today.

What difference does it make to identify Mark's gospel as an ancient biography? Reading the gospels as ancient biographies makes a profound difference to the way that we interpret them. Biography immortalizes the memory of the subject, creating a literary monument to the person's life and teaching. Yet it is also a bid to legitimize a specific view of that figure and to position an author and his audience as appropriate "gatekeepers" of that memory. Biography was well suited to the articulation of shared values and commitments, the formation of group identity, and the binding together of a past story, present concerns, and future hopes. Helen Bond argues that Mark's author used the genre of biography to extend the gospel from an earlier narrow focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus so that it included the way of life of its founding figure. Situating Jesus at the heart of a biography was a bold step in outlining a radical form of Christian discipleship patterned on the life - and death - of Jesus.

Although the Gospel of Mark is in some respects similar to Greco-Roman novelistic genres, the author maintains that it compares more favorably with Jewish novelistic literature of the Hellenistic period, and that Mark writes within this narrative tradition. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

This book is about how to read and study the Bible. This book is about getting the non-Christian to learn how to study the Bible, and this book is for the Pastor and theologian who needs to have their "refresh" button pressed. This book is in fact for anybody desiring to know the Book of ages. If you are new to the Word or are a seasoned teacher. If you do not know where to begin, or you have tried countless times and feel overwhelmed and frustrated, this is the book for you!