The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus. By MICHAEL F. BIRD

‘T his volume is focused on the origins and development of the books we call “Gospel” in the context of the early church’ (p. ix), ‘mapping out how the Gospels emerged and why they took on the shape and character that they did’ (p. 5)—thus Bird declares his objective. The chapters follow a natural sequence: 2. ‘The Purpose and Preservation of the Jesus Tradition’; 3. ‘The Formation of the Jesus Tradition’; 4. ‘The Literary Genetics of the Gospels: The Synoptic Problem and Johannine Question’; 5. ‘The Genre and Goal of the Gospels: What is a Gospel and Why Write One?’; and 6. ‘The Fourfold Gospel of Jesus Christ: Why Four Gospels?’ Slightly disconcerting are the extensive excursus (in smaller type) attached to each chapter: 1. ‘From Oral Gospel to Written Gospel’; 2. ‘An Evangelical and Critical Approach to the Gospels’; 3. ‘The Failure of Form Criticism’; 4. ‘Patristic Quotations on the Order of the Gospels’; 5. ‘What about the “other” Gospels?’; and 6. ‘The Text of the Gospels in the Second Century’.