Preface continued

In college, I learned the fact, in one of the courses that I was required to take, that no one should ever comment on a literary text without first knowing its literary form. Therefore, the Stories that you will read as parables in this book shame the Bible scholars, for they failed to put that truth into practice. Because of that failure, Christians have grown up unfortunately assuming that Jesus was a miracle worker and that the gift of the Spirit received by Peter, for example, allowed him to perform miraculous cures as well. Likewise, the Jews have grown up unfortunately assuming that Moses parted the sea and stood before God on a mountaintop. In the Stories written as parables, Jesus does not cleanse the leper of his sores, or heal the older boy from his epilepsy or raise a twelve-year-old child from the dead. The inspired writers had something much more important to present to us than that.
 

You will find out why and how I can say this to you as you read the pages of this book, for the secret of the kingdom of God spoken of by the inspired writers of the Mark gospel will be revealed to you. If you are a reader who preaches from the pulpit, be ready to receive a jolt, your flock relied on you to be faithful to the written word. They have been coming to you to have their spiritual hunger satisfied. Have your apologies ready, knowing that the truth will make all of us the stronger.

My hope is that in time the discovery of the literary form of the Scriptures will unite all Christian denominations, for the literary form explains the meaning and purpose of every verse within every Story, every parable. It seems reasonable that when all the various denominations have in common the same understanding of the Scriptures that they will choose to be one with one another. The literary form should bring all religions closer together. We have a lot more in common than we had previously thought, for the literary form and the written word of the Septuagint gave birth to the written word of the Christian Scriptures in the identical literary form. We may even have a few more surprises in store for us. I enjoy reading the parables of Nasruddin that are written in a slightly different literary form.

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