Between truth and fiction: a narrative reader in literature and theology

Literary theology. Colossians 1.15-20 ; On Christian teaching / Augustine of Hippo ; The interior castle / Teresa of Avila ; An essay on the development of Christian doctrine / John Henry Newman ; The seven storey mountain / Thomas Merton

Fiction. Luke 10.29-37 (The parable of the good Samaritan) ; The golden legend : readings on the saints / Jacobus de Voragine ; Moby-Dick, or The white whale / Herman Melville ; Monsignor Quixote / Graham Greene ; The handmaid's tale / Margaret Atwood

Autobiography. 2 Corinthians 11.22-31 ; The confessions / Augustine of Hippo ; Vita brevis : a letter to St. Augustine / Jostein Gaarder ; Revelations of divine love / Julian of Norwich ; A heartbreaking work of staggering genius / Dave Eggers

Lyric, poetry and songs. Song of songs 8.6-7, 10-14 ; 1 Corinthians 13 ; 'Love (III)' / George Herbert ; 'The joy of church fellowship rightly attended' / Edward Taylor ; 'Poetry' / Marianne Moore

Drama. 1 Corinthians 11.20-26 ; An Easter resurrection play / Ethelwold ; Henry V / William Shakespeare ; Uncle Vania / Anton Chekhov ; Our town / Thornton Wilder ; Waiting for Godot / Samuel Beckett

Essays and aphorisms. Ecclesiastes 1.1-11 ; 'The translators to the reader' : The King James Bible ; 'Of truth' / Francis, Lord Bacon ; 'Solitude' / Henry David Thoreau ; 'Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote' / Jorge Luis Borges

Sermons. Acts of the apostles 2.14-38 ; 'Funeral oration for his sister Gorgonia' / Gregory of Nazianzus ; 'Sinners in the hands of an angry God' / Jonathan Edwards ; 'A grasp of the hand' / Austin Farrer ; 'I have a dream' / Martin Luther King Jr

Post-colonial literature. Psalm 137 ; The curse of Cain : the violent legacy of monotheism / Regina M. Schwartz ; Midnight's children / Salman Rushdie ; 'Oral history' / Nadine Gordimer ; Devil on the cross / Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o ; 'Arrival of the snake woman' / Olive Senior

Feminist literature. John 20.1-18 ; The wild girl / Michèle Roberts ; The woman's Bible part II / Phebe A. Hanaford ; A room of one's own / Virginia Woolf ; 'Song' / Adrienne Rich

The postmodern text. Revelation 5.1-5, 1.9-10 ; The life and opinions of Tristam Shandy / Laurence Sterne ; Erring : a postmodern a/theology / Mark C. Taylor ; A brief history of time / Stephen Hawking ; Landscape painted with tea / Milorad Pavić.