This book represents an important new departure in Gospel studies and textual criticism. Parker offers a way of reading the Gospels which treats seriously the fact that they first existed as manuscripts. He argues that the search for an original text of the Gospels is a misunderstanding of the way in which the early church passed down its traditions. All serious New Testament scholars will have to read this book, but it can also be used as a primer of New Testament textual criticism as it does not assume any prior knowledge of the subject.