of performance—recollection and celebration of, and instruction and reflection on, Jesus tradition already familiar to the disciple groups. And all this would happen in oral mode. Second, as already indicated, oral tradition is essentially communal in character. On the literary paradigm we envisage an author writing for a reader. We speak of the intended reader, the ideal reader, the implied reader. We envisage the characteristic context of communication as the individual reader poring over the text,