Download or read book The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels in the Text of the Revised Version written by Edwin A. Abbott and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2006-02-10 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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