Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.

Faith & Religion

Nick Cave on the Gospel of Mark

Mark-NickcavePicked up a copy of “the gospel according to mark: with an introduction by nick cave” a while back. This introduction was one of the things that we were asked read in an introductory NT course that I did when I started my B.D. It was a really interesting read bringing the drama and humanity of Jesus out into connection with the real world in a way I hadn’t seen before. So I was glad to find the book on a secondhand shelf. Cave says,

The Christ that emerges from Mark, tramping through the haphazard events of His life, had a ringing intensity about him that I could not resist. Christ spoke to me through His isolation, through the burden of His death, through His rage at the mundane, through His sorrow. Christ, it seemed to me, was the victim of humanity’s lack of imagination, was hammered to the cross with the nails of creative vapidity.

(Complete text here and here.)

The book forms part of the Canongate/Text Publishing series “Pocket Canons” that has all sorts of people writing introductions to books of the Bible which then preface the KJV text. I’m now on the lookout for others. Canongate put them together in two boxed sets – Boxset – The Pocket Canon – Series I and Boxset – The Pocket Canons – Series II. In the latter series Bono writes about the Psalms.