Bird (Evangelical Theology) is one of the younger leading scholars in New Testament studies, and this volume is one of the outstanding literary achievements of the year. With care, clarity, and thorough scholarship, the author discusses possibilities for the origins, the genre, and the goals of the four Gospels. Also considered are their tangled interrelationships as texts and narratives, alongside their role and meaning for the earliest days of the church. Bird includes fascinating excursus on topics such as "Patristic Quotations on the Order of the Gospels," form criticism, and the text of the Gospels as they were understood in the second century. VERDICT This work is scholarly but remarkably free of academese; it should be a perfect fit for seminary libraries, religious leaders, and scholars.