Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels in the Text of the Revised Version

The object of this book is to place before English readers this Common Tradition as being a tradition earlier than any of our existing Gospels and consequently exhibiting the closest approximation we possess to some parts of the original narrative from which our Gospels are derived. . . . It is possible that for some time the Evangelistic records were handed down not in writing but by means of oral tradition like the Mishna of the Jews; which is said to have been editorially arranged about the end of the second century but not committed to writing till afterwards. A tradition intended to be handed down orally might naturally aim at brevity; and the following extract from a condensed and interesting essay on the Mishna will shew that at all events in Jewish tradition brevity was occasionally accompanied by its proverbial danger obscurity. --from the Introduction