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The Living Text of the Gospels

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D.C.Parker has an established reputation in textual criticism, but this book is for laymen.

Over and above fascinating chapters focussed on each of the following:

the Our Father, the divorce sayings, the woman taken in adultery, parables are/not secrets,
the ending(s) of Mark, the last 3 chapters of Luke, the ending of John,

his main message is that since the invention of printing we assume there was one written
'original' of each inspired Gospel, that we can either find physically, or create by deduction,
(ie. a static model) .

But textual criticism shows us that each early Christian center possessed a variety of traditions,
(oral and/or written) all focussed on the same Jesus/Christ-event,
(ie a dynamic or Spirit-authorized model).

So if exegetes only study textual criticism's nearest approximation to the 'original' of
each Gospel, ignoring the contents of the many 'alternate versions', they miss the living
breathing reality of early Christianity, they are studying a modern abstraction.

Exegetes must themselves remain aware of all the alternate versions,
they cannot delegate this responsibility to professional textual critics.