The first gospel was not one of the four canonical gospels. It was probably Q, an early collection of Jesus' sayings used by Matthew and Luke to create their gospels. Q does not mention Jesus' death and resurrection, and it contains no birth or childhood stories. In Q, Jesus is pictured as a prophetic sage. The First Gospel provides a comprehensive introduction to the Q hypothesis. The author reviews and augments the arguments for the existence of Q. He concludes that the Q document was not merely a miscellaneous collection of sayings of Jesus that served as a source for Matthew and Luke. He sees it as a gospel in its own right, with its own history and own quite distinctive theology. An excellent, long-overdue, and extremely thorough analysis of Q, not just as a source for Matthew and Luke, but as a much earlier gospel in its own right, a gospel with its own redactional history and its own quite distinctive theology."" --John Dominic Crossan, author of 'The Historical Jesus' Arland D. Jacobson is Professor of New Testament and Director of the Charis Ecumenical Center at Concordia College (Moorhead, Minnesota).