New Testament scholars routinely claim that verbal agreement among parallel Synoptic pericopae is a reliable indicator of literary borrowing by the Synoptic Evangelists. In Oral Tradition and Synoptic Verbal Agreement, T. M. Derico presents a critical assessment of that claim through a consideration of the most recent empirical evidence concerning the kinds and amounts of verbal agreement that can be produced among independent performances of oral traditions. ""A remarkable book, the product of years of work, including doctoral study in Oxford and firsthand research among Arabic-speaking...

A critical study of the evidence for literary borrowing in the Synoptic Gospels, showing that oral tradition may also account for verbal agreement.