Michael Bird's The Gospel of the Lord

The ever-active pen of one Michael F. Bird continues to spill prodigious amounts of ink as another compelling release, The Gospel of the Lord, will be released by Eerdmans in late February 2014.

Here is a description:

Balanced, comprehensive survey of the critical questions involved in studying the four Gospels In this book Michael Bird describes how the canonical Gospels originated from a process of oral tradition, literary composition, textual development, and reception in the early church with a view to showing what makes them among the most important writings in the New Testament. Bird explores how the Christian movement shaped the Gospels and, conversely, how these writings shaped the early church. He develops a distinctive evangelical-and-critical approach to the Gospels, deals with the Synoptic problem head-on, and explains the significance of the fourfold Gospel canon. The book includes a number of helpful excursuses on related topics. All in all, Bird's Gospel of the Lord clarifies the often-confusing debates over the origins of the Gospels and offers informed and soundly argued explanations that account for the content of the Gospels in the context of the wider Graeco-Roman world.

Weighing in at 424 pages, Bird's book is sure to be thorough and with his lucid writing style, a must-read.

HT: Cliff Kvidahl