My assumptions about the authorship and dating of these texts are generally accepted in New Testament scholarship and are presented as standard views in universities, seminaries and many Bible colleges. A detailed and balanced account may be found in E.P. Sanders and Margaret Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990). See also Steve Mason and Tom Robinson, eds., An Early Christian Reader (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, forthcoming).