For a long time mainstream gospel scholarship has assumed that the so-called Q material (the "double tradition") in Matthew and Luke represents a document or tradition that was almost exclusively orientated towards the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth, with little interest in a narrative about him.

This book argues, on the contrary, that the narrative material in the double tradition existed from the very beginning within a coherent Jesus narrative that ran from his baptism to his passion. Far from being inserted by Matthew and Luke into the framework of Mark, the double tradition is structured on the very same narrative framework as the Gospel of Mark (a framework that predates Mark). Conventional dichotomies in gospel origins, the historical Jesus, and the history of early Christianity are thus drawn into question.