Mark P. Shea: Books

Books and Tapes

Thanks to the miracle of PayPal, you can order a copy of any or all of my books or tapes directly from me! If it's a book, I'll even sign it! For your convenience, I take Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express and ECheck. Or, if you don't prefer the PayPal method of payment, simply drop me a line and tell me what you'd like to order.

G. K. Chesterton's The Surprise - DVD

Adapted for television by the delightful Dale Ahlquist, President and Supreme Intergalactic Plenipotentiary of the American Chesterton Society, this wonderful, wise and funny two act play by the Master himself gives us Chesterton's hilarious perspective on creativity, free will, the problem of evil and the need for the incarnation of the Great Playwright in the Great Play. The last line says of the play says it all.

Oh, and it marks the television acting debut of yours truly as The Captain of the Guard.

Power in the Blood: The Life-Changing Power of the Eucharist

To receive Communion is to experience the most powerful, personal encounter with Christ you could ever hope to have. Are you getting everything you could out of your relationship with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament?

In this four tape series of conversations between me and popular radio host and family therapist Dr. Greg Popcak, you will discover how a true appreciation of the power of Christ in the Eucharist will compel you to develop a completely different view of work, play, relationships, and creation itself! Discover how developing a Eucharistic worldview can change your life forever! Whether you are new to the Faith, or have been Catholic all your life, Power in the Blood will show you what you've been missing and take your relationship with Christ, and your life, to a whole new level!

Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did (Basilica) Reading the Bible in a way as old as Scripture itself, this book takes the reader on a "fly-over" of the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation and invites us to explore the literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical senses of Scripture. Whether you've been studying Scripture for years or are encountering it for the very first time, Making Senses Out of Scripture is an invaluable tool that will help you see biblical revelation afresh—as Christians have done for 2000 years. Click here to see reviews.

The Allegorical Sense of Scripture
(excerpted from Chapter 7 of Making Senses Out of Scripture)

This means something. This is important. - Roy Neary, contemplating his sculpted pile of mashed potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

As we mentioned in the last chapter, one of the standing temptations of the biblical student is to oversimplify by seizing on one truth and using it to discount other, equally important truths. One such oversimplification consists of the habit some modern people have of exalting the primacy of the literal sense of Scripture into a flat denial of the possibility of any other senses of Scripture at all. This posture of "liberal fundamentalism" says, in effect, "The human author said it. There's nothing more to it. That settles it." According to this notion, all attempts to seek any second meanings in Scripture are to be dismissed (in the words of one modern scholar) as "a sort of weasel word" whereby the reader can make the biblical text mean anything he likes.

This denial of a second sense in Scripture can lead to curious results, as a friend of mine discovered one evening watching one of those "Mysteries of the Bible" shows on TV. On the show were a couple of theologians eager to get their 15 minutes of fame on the tube. So rather than talk about the Faith, they obligingly told the camera that Jesus was not born of a virgin and based their claim on the allegation that St. Matthew misunderstood the prophet Isaiah.

It's like this, said the scholars: A couple of centuries after Isaiah wrote, the Hebrew Bible (including the book of Isaiah) was translated into Greek (since many Jews were spread over the Greek-speaking ancient world and were forgetting their Hebrew just as European immigrants to the United States forgot their Yiddish in an English-speaking culture). This Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (that is, the Old Testament) is called the Septuagint.

Now in the original Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 we read the prophecy that "the 'almah' shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name 'Immanuel.'" "Almah" means in Hebrew "young woman" and refers to any young woman, virgin or not. But when the Jewish translators of the Septuagint translated Isaiah into Greek (decades before the birth of Christ), they did not translate the term as "young woman" but as "parthenos" which means "virgin." Later on, after Christ comes, St. Matthew is reading this Greek translation, not the original Hebrew when he declares of the Virgin Birth, "All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.'" But, said the TV theologians, we now know St. Matthew was mistaken to believe in the Virgin Birth since Isaiah did not say "virgin" but "young woman." [To see the rest of the excerpt, go here.]

In addition to my book, check out the tapes of my

Making Senses Out of Scripture Workshop
(with a bonus tape of my conversion story "How I Got This Way")

This four-tape set contains the compleat workshop based on my book Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did. In this series of talks, you will get the Big Picture of Catholic revelation, starting from natural revelation (and what it all has to do with the game of Myst), through the five covenants of the Old Testament (five points if you can name them) to the New and Everlasting Covenant in Christ. Then you will be introduced to the Four Senses of Scripture, a fascinating way of reading Scripture that is as old as Scripture itself (and which, as you will discover, you already know something about). In addition, to all this you get a special bonus: How I Got This Way, the story of how the Holy Spirit led me a merry chase from pagan agnosticism through Evangelicalism till he caught me and brought me into full union with his Holy Catholic Church, the family of God.

And if this workshop floats your boat, why not have me come to your parish or conference and speak?

By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition (Our Sunday Visitor) A tale of spiritual and intellectual awakening that makes a different kind of conversion story. The book describes how, as an evangelical Protestant, I rejected tradition and held to the principle of "scripture alone" as the foundation of religious authority. But this principle crumbled in the face of attacks from modernist scholars who reject Christian doctrine and the authority of the Bible. This book chronicles how, at first reluctantly, then with mounting excitement, I discovered that Tradition as expressed by the Catholic Church is the only guarantee of the truth of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Click here to see reviews.

The Lens in My Eye
(Excerpted from Chapter 6 of By What Authority?)

I wondered: Is it really true that we Evangelicals never treat extrabiblical tradition as authoritative revelation? Is it really the case that all Evangelical belief is derived from the clear and unambiguous teaching of the Bible alone? Do we really speak forth only what Scripture speaks, keep silent where Scripture is silent, and never bind the conscience of the believer on those questions in which Scripture permits different interpretations?

I wondered. Especially since the living fossil of the Tradition of the Table of Contents still inexplicably swam like a coelacanth in the ocean of Evangelical faith precisely where we said tradition had gone extinct. What if there were other supposedly extinct extrabiblical coelacanths down there too?

To find out, I decided to try an experiment. I would look at Evangelical -- not Catholic -- belief and practice to see if there was any other evidence of tradition being treated like revelation. I would see if there were any other rock-bottom, non-negotiable, grade A, can't-do-without-'em beliefs which, like the Table of Contents, were not attested (or very weakly attested) in the Bible, yet which we orthodox Evangelicals treated like revelation. If I found such things, and if they had an ancient pedigree, it seemed to me this would be very strong evidence that the apostolic paradosis not only was larger than the Bible alone, but that it had -- somehow -- been handed down to the present.

So I started taking a good long look at non-negotiable Evangelical beliefs as they were actually lived out in my church and churches like it. To my surprise, I found several such weakly attested non-negotiables.[To see the rest of the excerpt, go here.]

This Is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers the Real Presence (Christendom). A popular apologetic written in terms accessible to lay Evangelicals. Its goal is to meet the Evangelical reader within the framework of his or her own basic truths, concerns and loves and show how Catholic Eucharistic belief is already latent in that framework. It addresses common Protestant objections and shows them to be logically flawed, exegetically untenable, or based upon predictable misconceptions as to what Catholic teaching really is. After dealing with the objections the book then positively and convincingly constructs the Catholic case.

Like the books? You'll love this audio recording:

An Evangelical Discovers the Catholic Faith

By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition. A fun, fast-paced overview (given to a fun crowd in New Zealand in April 1997) of how the Jesus Seminar, Dr. James Dobson, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, the Church Fathers, and assorted folks from various times, places and seasons united with unwitting unanimity to point me to the truth and common sense of Catholic Sacred Tradition.

This is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers the Real Presence. This talk (given to the same fun crowd in New Zealand in April 1997) tells the story of how I came to believe that the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist was not just a bunch of weird medieval superstition but was, in fact, what the biblical writers themselves believed and taught.

Behold Your Mother: An Evangelical Discovers the Blessed Virgin Mary. This talk (given at a parish in Seattle in May 2001) Explains not only the theological underpinnings of the four Marian dogmas in both Scripture and Tradition, but also discusses the peculiar effects that denial of these dogmas has on orthodox Christian faith. Examines the way in which cultural differences between Catholic "feminine" piety and Evangelical "masculine" piety tend to obscure discussion of real theological differences. Describes the way in which my own exploration of the Marian teaching of the Church led me to conclude that the Catholic vision of Mary is both biblical and beautiful. (Sorry. No book on this one--yet!)

or, if you prefer

The Best of Rock Solid, Volume 1

A CD with some of the best of my popular Catholic Exchange podcasts. Full of fun and informative listening on everything from soup to nuts and all related to the Catholic faith!

$10 (Includes cost of shipping and handling)

The Da Vinci Deception: 100 Questions About the Facts and Fiction of The Da Vinci Code

An easy-to-digest debunking of the silliness at work in Dan Brown's malicious attack on the Catholic Faith. For anybody who has ever suffered through the novel or the film and then listened to people proclaim, "Wow! I learned so much!" This book will do what The Da Vinci Code only pretends to do: educate you.

$9 (Includes cost of shipping and handling)

Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings

A bunch of interesting essays on these great film adaptations of Tolkien's even greater novel. Includes my whimsical piece "The Lord of the Rings: A Source-Criticism Analysis".

$25 (Includes cost of shipping and handling)

A Guide to the Passion: 100 Questions About The Passion of The Christ The definitive guide to understanding the message and the artistry behind Mel Gibson's powerful film, The Passion of the Christ. If you loved the film, you will want this book.

A Guide to Narnia: 100 Questions About The Chronicles of Narnia--The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

A fun walk-through of the book, highlighting C.S. Lewis' Christian message and linking the ideas in the novel with the depths of the rest of Lewis' work.

$9 (Includes cost of shipping and handling)

Shaken by Scandals: Catholics Speak Out About Priests' Sexual Abuse (Servant) Featuring essays by Raymond Arroyo, Rod Dreher, the Editors of Catholic World Report, Kristine Franklin, Al Kresta, Phillip Lawler, Mark Lowery, Michael Novak, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Greg Popcak, Leon Suprenant, Fr. Joseph F. Wilson, Paul Thigpen and yours truly. Your best source for a faithful, loving, sensible and orthodox response to the Scandal.

By the way, did I mention that you should have me come to your parish or conference and speak?