This is a welcome attempt to make the debate about the origins of the four-gospel collection accessible to a wider popular audience without skimping on scholarly attention to detail. As is well-known, especially in the United States, the popular writings of Bart D. Ehrman (for example Lost Scriptures and Lost Christianities) and others have sought to argue for a late origin of the canonical Gospel collection: this isolation of these New Testament Gospels involved suppression or destruction of others and irrational, politically-motivated contentions on behalf of the four which came to be regarded as orthodox. Far from minimising the volume of the voices taking opposing views, Hill begins with copious citation of those with a more Bauerian orientation. He makes a number of telling points which are not given sufficient attention, or are even distorted, by proponents of more conspiratorial views of the matter. For example, Hill effectively argues (pp. 107–9) against the view of W. Petersen that the production of the Diatessaron implies that the Gospels do not have an authoritative status (Hill arguing the precise opposite). He musters in chapter vii the disparate pieces of evidence for the public availability of the Gospels in Justin's representation of an Antoninus who could read the Gospels, a Crescens who might have, and a Trypho who had (1 Apologies 28.1; 2 Apologies 3.3; Dialogue with Trypho 10; cf. Origen, Contra Celsum 2.16, 34, 37, 74, 77 etc.). Here Hill helpfully collects information which is not often found discussed together. Overall, the argument is well constructed. It proceeds in reverse chronological order, arguing that Irenaeus cannot be regarded as the originator of the collection because of his various contemporaries (Clement, the author of the Muratorian fragment, Tatian, as well as – less widely discussed in this regard – Theophilus of Antioch) taking the same view. Again, Justin and even the apostolic Fathers are argued as portraying widely held views rather than trying to contend for a particular view of the Gospel collection. The argument thus gradually closes in on Hill's final conclusion (which is wisely not accorded too high a level of certainty) that, according to Eusebius' testimonium to Papias, John the elder/Apostle himself may have received the three Synoptic Gospels and crowned them with his own recollections. Overall Hill's book is certainly successful in its attempt to provide a corrective to the more sensationalising approaches of many prominent writers. His charitable rather than suspicious attitude to the sources is welcome, and he is optimistic, though not overly maximalist, in his conclusions about the evidence for the Gospels that they might yield. There are some effective maps, photographs and tables (including one table showing that the ratio of Clement's citation of canonical to non-canonical Gospels is 120:1). It is certainly a desideratum that this book receive at least as wide a readership as does Ehrman, and to that end the Oxford University Press has produced an attractive volume. It is also highly commendable that the book is on sale at such a low price.