McCracken argues that the gospels are in an important sense `occasions for offence', and that the Jesus of the gospels is a scandal (skandalon in the original Greek) and never more scandalous than when he speaks in parables. McCracken seeks to recover the gospels' narrative sense of Jesus as skandalon.

This book argues that the gospels are in an important sense "occasions for offense." The Jesus of the gospels is a scandal (skandalon, in the original Greek) and he is never more scandalous than when he is speaking in parables. Interpreters of the gospels over the centuries have consistently labored to domesticate the offense or to eliminate it entirely. David McCracken, focusing on parables, Matthew's narrative contexts, and the gospel of John, seeks to recover the gospels' sense of Jesus as skandalon. To this end, he enlists the help of Kierkegaard, the philosopher of offense, and to a lesser extent that of Bakhtin, both of whom prove to be surprisingly apt conversation partners for the evangelists.

'The freshest aspect of the study is its brief concluding incursion into the Fourth Gospel, thought-provokingly portrayed as a narrative of offence ... a book to ponder, not least in so far as our residual experience of its emphasis has been reduced to the weekly hearing of liturgical snippets too often badly rendered.' Neville Clark, The Expository Times