This collection of essays on reading the gospel of Mark uses literary theory, most notably the writings of Roland Barthes, to examine some of the difficulties in the text. A series of close readings of the gospel of Mark is compared to similar texts, biblical and otherwise. Drawing on Mark's famous phrase that "to those who are outside all comes through parables" (Mark 4:11-12), these essays explore the boundaries between insiders and outsiders, those who can and those who cannot find a meaning in the text. This volume is part of a series which brings to the traditional field of biblical studies literary criticism, anthropology and gender-based approaches, thus reaching different ways of understanding biblical texts.