This book is an analysis of inner-biblical exegesis which ordinarily involves examination of the intertextual relationship between two texts within the biblical corpus. The direction of dependence between texts of this kind is not as important in the present study as the direction in which these texts were meant to be read by those who gave them their final shape.

This landmark study of the literary relationship between the gospel of John and the synoptic gospels presents compelling evidence for the existence of a written pre-canonical Alpha gospel that contained almost all of the main episodes in the adult life of Jesus and which became the written source for the core biography of Jesus in all four gospels.