Through Mark’s Eyes has already been read by a wide variety of people: teens and children, seniors and adults, Church-goers and non-Christians, skeptics, clergy, educators, and the faithful. All have been drawn in by the opening scene of John the Baptizer approaching the Jordan River for another day of baptizing; all have been excited to go on and find out what happens next.

Pieter Van Winkle (a teacher & seeker)
I am someone who was raised in the Christian church, but never really developed "faith" in the Christian sense.  I am writing to tell you that I loved your book. I have dabbled in all sorts of religions, prayer, meditation, you name it - and, like, most people, feel I understand what it means to be faithful.

I have always loved art, especially movies, for its power to convey real truth, the truth that transforms us and reminds us that there are experiences in the world we need to have if we are to know our true purpose.  Movies like "The Motorcycle Diaries" and "On the Waterfront" made my heroes actors like Marlon Brando, and other activists and rebels, but Jesus was never a hero of mine.  I just didn't know him!

What your book did was brought the story alive the way a movie does.  I'd read and learned while back that Jesus' teachings were "subversive" but I never dreamed they could "turn me on" in the way the movies about Che Guevara or other "rebels" did.  In your book, every time Jesus spoke, aided by your skillful, wise and economic descriptions, there was that feeling again.  You know the one I mean.  The feeling of reality.  The feeling of being addressed.  This was a man so in love with life and with the world.  And he meant business.  Knowing this wonderful and humble fact makes his interactions with the truly faithful - the woman who anoints his head, the woman who touches his robe, the blind man - that much more stirring.  What joy it is to live life fully, to be faithful, we are reminded!

Thank you for bridging the gap between "truth" and "religion" for me.  I always believed in Jesus' teachings, but I think your book - oddly, in its attempt to humanize Jesus - broke through and showed me how truly amazing, and divine, this man was.  I don't know that I totally believe, in my brain, in his divinity in the fullest sense yet, but then, I don't yet believe in my own.  I guess that's a pretty good summary for my work and my journey as a man. 

Thank you for introducing me to a whole new facet of my spiritual journey: Christianity!

Joseph Hewes
I really liked your book, mainly because of your acknowledgement of the historical events surrounding Jesus. I have also read Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan and find them most enlightening. Thank you.

Yale Divinity School Alumni Magazine
With specific and lively descriptions, this ornamentation of the Gospel of Mark is a creative narrative written to inspire readers into imagining life with Jesus in ancient Palestine. Purnell uses this "recapitulation" format to emhapsize Christ as human being and to imagine his actions in real settings and terms.

Kent Quarterly
Kent School, in Kent, Connecticut, recently included two reviews of Through Mark's Eyes in their Spring edition of the Kent Quarterly. Click HERE to read the reviews in PDF format.

SoMA Review has published an independent review of Through Mark's Eyes. Their reviewer, Astrid Storm, calls Through Mark’s Eyes a “beautiful book, and well-worth the read,” noting that, “It’s no easy task Purnell set out for himself, augmenting a Gospel that is celebrated for its austerity. But he manages to make it work by sticking close the story, and by practicing enough restraint with his observations that it seems as though they aren’t anything Mark wouldn’t have added himself.”

Reading Mark’s Gospel Again for the First Time
 If you’re interested in discovering the historical Jesus—the man behind the myth—then Mark is the Gospel for you. Mark is the oldest of the canonical and non-canonical Gospels and, except for the writings of Paul, it provides the first-known narrative of Jesus’ life.

And Mark has been the subject of some of the most interesting, and most imaginative, books about Jesus in recent years. Earlier this year, for example, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan published The Last Week, a gripping day-by-day depiction of Jesus’ final week on Earth, guided by the scholars’ reading of Mark. (Read my brief review here.) And last year, New York artist and Episcopalian Steve Ross gave us Marked, a groundbreaking graphic novel set in an Orwellian future that bears a striking resemblance both to Jesus’ day and our own present. In Ross’ comic book version of Mark, John the Baptist is a homeless man who eats out of garbage cans, and Jesus, the book’s doomed liberator, is a bald, clean-shaven carpenter who looks more like a Buddhist monk (or, say, David Carradine’s Grasshopper in “Kung Fu”) than the bearded, blue-eyed Norwegian Jesus of traditional Christianity.

To read more of Storm’s review, "Resurrecting Jesus", click here.

The Rev'd L. William Countryman
"Mr. Purnell has managed to convey the roughness and immediacy of Mark in a more contemporary narrative mode. I like the vividness in the scene-setting and the sense of character that's developed. Purnell keeps Mark’s challenging quality?His work will offer people some new points of entry into the story and will stimulate reflection and discussion. I suspect it will also send some back to the Gospel of Mark itself to see what lies behind it."
~ The Rev. L. William Countryman, Sherman E. Johnson Professor of Biblical Studies, Church Divinity School of the Pacific; author of Good News of Jesus, Dirt, Greed, and Sex, and Biblical Authority or Biblical Tyranny.

John D. Spalding
"Recent historical research has provided a clearer picture of who Jesus was. Now Puck Purnell has imaginatively recast the Gospel of Mark in vivid detail to give readers a fresh sense of what it was like to be a follower of Jesus in ancient Palestine. True to Mark, Purnell emphasizes the humanity of Jesus, the radicalism of his religious and political vision, and the healing promise of his message that God is with us."
 ~ John D. Spalding, author of A Pilgrim’s Digress: My Perilous, Fumbling Quest for the Celestial City.

Frank Runyeon
"Fascinating. A very helpful window into the earthly reality of the Gospel text. Fills in details that 21st century readers might not otherwise imagine and so helps to provide an everyday context for each Gospel passage. Strengthens our gut sense that this-really-happened and suggests how it might have happened. Through Mark’s Eyes is in the great tradition of the Ignatian exercises of imagining yourself present in the middle of the Gospel scenes. A valuable and provocative literary flight of imagination."
~ Frank Runyeon, Actor: "Afraid: The Gospel of Mark," "L.A. Law," "As the World Turns."

The Rev. Caroline Fairless
"Puck Purnell has brought a vitality and immediacy to Jesus’ life and ministry. For young people who often equate faith with sitting on hard benches for endless hours of tedious readings from ancient scripture, Through Mark’s Eyes is as welcome as the water at Meribah. "You’ll like this Jesus,” I heard from the mouth of a ten year old. "He laughs out loud.” Purnell has captured a vibrancy in the story that will serve all of us well."
~ The Rev. Caroline Fairless, Director Children at Worship & Congregations in Bloom.

The Rt. Rev. Wilfredo Ramos-Orench
"Jesus becomes a real live person and one finds oneself becoming a part of the story told. The virtue [of Through Mark’s Eyes] is the simplicity of the language used. I think it can be a very useful resource in a family setting or in the context of a parish group Bible study."
~ The Rt. Rev. Wlifredo Ramos-Orench, Bishop of Equador Central.

Barbara Howe
"I was spellbound by Through Mark’s Eyes. I doubt I have ever read a gospel account from start to finish without interruption or desire for one."
~ Barbara Howe, Hartford, CT

The Rt. Rev. John S. Spong
"It is good work."
~ The Rt. Rev. John S. Spong, retired Bishop, Diocese of Newark, author of A New Christianity for a New World.

Alison Swayne
"I very much enjoyed reading Through Mark’s Eyes. I loved that the story was easy to follow. As for my plain, honest opinion, I can see people of my age reading, enjoying, and understanding this book."
 ~ Alison Swayne, 8th Grade, Henry James Middle School, Simsbury, CT.