270 Bulletin for Biblical Research 25.2 seen and what no ear has heard, and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind" (Gos. Thom. §17). Tuckett rightly concludes, pace pace Helmut Koester and Stephen Patterson, that the "written" saying that Paul quotes cannot have been from the Gospel of Thomas or from any written source containing Jesus' sayings. Tuckett wonders if Paul has modified a saying known to the Corinthian Christians that circulated in an apocryphal work that is now lost. In any event, "there is nothing to suggest that Paul knew the saying in the form of a saying of Jesus" (p. 356). In "Q and Thomas: Evidence of Primitive 'Wisdom Gospel'? A Response to Helmut Koester" Tuckett returns to themes that have already appeared in a few of his essays. Koester, who believes Thomas and Q are in some way connected (with Q representing the western collection of Jesus sayings, and Thomas rep resenting the eastern), builds on Robinson's ideas about wisdom in Q. Tuckett questions many of the parallels between Thomas and Q that Koester has as sembled and finds his interpretation of many of these forced and unconvincing and some of his reasoning circular. Koester also has a tendency to explain away parallels with Μ (Matthean special material) by gratuitously declaring them to have been part of Q. Tuckett reviews several parallels between Thomas and Q, including a few parables and finds "widespread evidence of dependence on the finished synoptic gospels that seems to be too deep-seated to be explained simply by scribal glosses in the later textual tradition of the text of" Thomas (p. 399). Tuckett's study originally appeared in 1991. Despite efforts by pupils of Robinson and Koester to demonstrate that much of the material in Thomas is early and independent of the canonical Gospels, ongoing research has led to findings that support Tuckett's position. Readers will especially want to see Simon Gathercole, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas (2012) and Mark Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels (2012), whose studies conclude, in agreement with Tuckett's earlier work, that Thomas was composed in the second century and was familiar with and dependent on the NT Gospels. The studies I have just described typify the kind of quality that scholars over the years have come to expect from Professor Tuckett, who has served for many years on the faculties of Manchester and Oxford. The book is fully indexed. Craig A. Evans Acadia Divinity College Alex Damm. Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem: Clarifying Markan Prior ity.ity. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 252. Leuven: Peeters, 2013. Pp. xxxviii + 396. ISBN 978-90-429-2699-8 cloth. $92.00 cloth. In this volume, Alex Damm utilizes the expanding field of rhetorical criti cism to test various solutions to the Synoptic problem. He examines plausible scenarios for how the Synoptics adapted and modified the rhetorical device known as the chreia. A chreia, according to R. F. Hock, is "a saying or action that is expressed concisely, attributed to a character, and regarded as useful for living" (p. xxiv). Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/biblical-research/article-pdf/25/2/270/1292011/bullbiblrese_25_2_270.pdf by guest on 06 February 2022