With the tools of far-reaching revolutions in literary theory and informed by the poetic sense of truth, William Franke offers a critical appreciation and philosophical reflection on a way of reading the Bible as theological revelation. Franke explores some of the principal literary genres of the Bible--Myth, Epic History, Prophecy, Apocalyptic, Writings, and Gospel--as building upon one another in composing a compactly unified edifice of writing that discloses prophetic and apocalyptic truth in a sense that is intelligible to the secular mind as well as to religious spirits. From Genesis to Gospel this revealed truth of the Bible is discovered as a universal heritage of humankind. Poetic literature becomes the light of revelation for a theology that is discerned as already inherent in humanity's tradition. The divine speaks directly to the human heart by means of infinitely open poetic powers of expression in words exceeding and released from the control of finite, human faculties and the authority of human institutions.

William Franke is a philosopher of the humanities and a professor of comparative literature at Vanderbilt University. He has also been Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macao (2013–2016); Fulbright-University of Salzburg Distinguished Chair in Intercultural Theology and the Study of Religion; and an Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung research fellow. His single-authored books have been published by the university presses of Chicago, Stanford, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Ohio State, and the State University of New York.