tive and the traditional perspective, he calls for the complete elimination of the basic terms upon which the conventional research community stands: "The Matthean, Markan, Lukan, and Johannine communities should disappear from the terminology of Gospels scholarship" (4). The book essentially argues, in fact, that such communities did not even exist, insofar as all the Christian groups interrelated to such an extent that it would be difficult to isolate any one community, Matthean, Markan, Lukan, etc.
Again, the evidence presented by Bauckham and the other writers do not support such a bold declaration. Bauckham does a disservice to his reasonable hypothesis by making such an outrageous claim. He may be making that claim to gain attention in his field, and to make it impossible for the traditional scholars to ignore him, but it still seems to be unnecessarily shrill and combative, and counter-productive to having his arguments taken seriously and examined soberly. His claim would seem to invite more heat than light in this particular area of research.
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