for the content that eventually made up the Gospels is a matter of pure speculation. It is at least as likely that the facts of Jesus’ life and teachings first circulated as stories. But regardless of how the eventual Gospels originated, their final written form is not a series of sermons or a collection of proverbs (even though these appear in the Gospels). The primary form of the Gospels is story, or narrative. We immediately need to make the concession that approximately half of the Gospels is