PREFACE

Summary

It is to be feared that this book will be regarded as heretical by the more advanced form-critics, since it is an attempt to deal with the Synoptic Gospels not as collections of anecdotes but as compilations of sources underlying Mark and the hypothetical Q, and also the matter peculiar to Luke and Matthew. The importance of the attempt is that it cuts down by some thirty years the supposed interval between the events recorded in the Gospels and their first appearance in a written form. If this can be established, it follows that we must allow a far greater historical reliability to the narratives than is usually admitted; the period of compilation can scarcely be later than A.D. 40 in at least two cases.

This does not mean that we can accept the stories as accurate history without further question. It would have been a miracle if a religious movement of the character described in the Gospels had not been accompanied by miracles; it would have been an even greater miracle, if those miracles had not been exaggerated. But modern experience shows that both processes begin during the actual life of the person to whom they are attributed; the fact that we may not believe them gives us no right to be sceptical as to the general reliability of Jesus' life and teaching as recorded by his disciples.