Chief among this writer's objectives is to show that the Synoptic Gospels are "synoptic" precisely because they share common structures and themes rooted in Israel's stories about itself. Common to the synoptic stories are traditions about Israel's past that defined it throughout the centuries: Exodus and Sinai, Way/Conquest, Temple, and Kingship.

This fascinating, illuminating work deserves, indeed demands, the attention of scholars who are concerned with the relation between the two parts of the Christian canon: Old Testament and New Testament. Swartley persuasively shows that major Old Testament streams of tradi- tion (Exodus-Sinai, movement into the land, temple, and kingship) have helped to shape the content and structure of each of the three Synoptic Gospels, and at the same time have undergone transformation under the impact of the Christian good news. The exposition displays careful, sensitive attention to the texts of the Synoptic Gospels and at the same time engages a wide range of scholarship. Readers will gain a new appreciation of the dialectic of continuity/discontinuity in the Christian appropriation of Israel's scriptural traditions. In my judg ment, this work has exciting implications for biblical theology.