The Genesis of Secrecy
"Brilliant...this book should encourage more literary critics to pick up their Bibles."--Howard Eiland, Partisan Review The celebrated critic deciphers the cryptic passages and concealed meanings in literature sacred and profane. In a passage from the Gospel of Mark that has spawned more exegetical disputes than perhaps any other, the disciples question Jesus about why he so often speaks in parables. "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God," he replies, "but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand." The ostensible meaning of this passage seems shockingly unchristian: the true sense of Je