New Testament scholars often talk about oral tradition as a means by which material about Jesus reached the writers of the Gospels; but despite the recent flowering of interest in oral tradition, the study of memory, and the role of eye-witnesses, the latest scholarly advances have yet to fully penetrate the mainstream of academic Gospels scholarship, let alone the wider public. There is no convenient book-length treatment that can be used by students, or indeed by anyone else wishing to be informed about this crucial topic.

Behind the Gospels fills this gap, both by offering a general theoretical discussion of the nature of oral tradition and the formation of ancient texts, and by providing a critical survey of the field, from classical form-criticism down to the present day.