Reading With a Passion: Rhetoric, Autobiography, and the American West in the Gospel of John

In this strikingly personal account of recent literary approaches to the Bible, Jeffrey Staley shows how people's life experiences relate to what they read in the Scriptures. He illustrates his argument from theories of autobiography, where recent literary and feminist critiques provide him with tools for reflecting upon his childhood on a Navajo reservation and his family's five generations of contact with the Navajo people in northern Arizona and New Mexico.Using Tony Hillerman's popular detective novels as a lens to refract his own childhood memories, Staley investigates how his cross-cultural childhood and family history have contributed to his understanding of the Fourth Gospel.By combining such diverse materials as popular fiction, medieval passion plays, cultural anthropology, rhetorical studies, and autobiographical reflection, Staley takes his readers on a fascinating spiritual and intellectual journey through the Gospel of John.