Book excerpt: "A fresh, vigorous new translation of the Gospel of Mark."—The American Conservative "Professor Pakaluk provides not only a thrilling new rendering of the ancient Greek text but also provides lively scholarship in the commentary that follows his translation of Mark's sixteen chapters."—The Catholic Thing "This is a very rewarding version of Mark, and even those who have made long study of the text will find a wise and sensitive guide in Michael Pakaluk."—National Catholic Register "Pakaluk's translation and commentary offers us a wonderful way to immerse ourselves anew..."—The B.C. Catholic "Like his translation, Pakaluk's notes do a lot to bring St. Mark and his gospel alive for us."—Aleteia The Gospel as You Have Never Heard It Before... At a distance of twenty centuries, the figure of Jesus of Nazareth can seem impossibly obscure—indeed, some skeptics even question whether he existed. And yet we have an eyewitness account of his life, death, and resurrection from one of his closest companions, the sherman Simon Bar-Jona, better known as the Apostle Peter. Writers from the earliest days of the Church tell us that Peter’s disciple Mark wrote down the apostle’s account of the life of Jesus as he told it to the first Christians in Rome. The vivid, detailed, unadorned prose of the Gospel of Mark conveys the unmistakable immediacy of a first-hand account. For most readers, however, this immediacy is hidden behind a veil of Greek, the language of the New Testament writers. Four centuries of English translations have achieved nobility of cadence or, more recently, idiomatic accessibility, but the voice of Peter himself has never fully emerged. Until now. In this strikingly original translation, atten- tive to Peter’s concern to show what it was like to be there, Michael Pakaluk captures the tone and texture of the sherman’s evocative account, leading the reader to a bracing new encounter with Jesus. The accompanying verse-by-verse commentary—less theological than historical—will equip you to experience Mark’s Gospel as the narrative of an eyewitness, drawing you into its scenes, where you will come to know Jesus of Nazareth with new intimacy. A stunning work of scholarship readily accessible to the layman, The Memoirs of St. Peter belongs on the bookshelf of every serious Christian.