The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels in the Text of the Revised Version

About this book

The object of this book is to place before English readers this Common Tradition, as being a tradition earlier than any of our existing Gospels, and consequently exhibiting the closest approximation we possess to some parts of the original narrative from which our Gospels are derived. . . . It is possible that for some time the Evangelistic records were handed down not in writing, but by means of oral tradition, like the Mishna of the Jews; which is said to have been editorially arranged about the end of the second century, but not committed to writing till afterwards. A tradition intended to be handed down orally might naturally aim at brevity; and the following extract from a condensed and interesting essay on the Mishna will shew that, at all events in Jewish tradition, brevity was occasionally accompanied by its proverbial danger, obscurity. -from the Introduction