Most Christians are familiar with the story told in Mark's gospel, from the fishermen leaving their nets, to the miracle of the loaves and fishes, to the political rumblings and the crucifixion. But no one knows who Mark really was or why this gospel was written or why it's charged with such a sense of immediacy.

For noted Jesus scholar Marcus Borg, reading Mark is like meeting Jesus again for the first time. Individual readers and parish study groups will learn about this earliest gospel from the perspective of an important Anglican theologian.