The awards recognise books CT believes will shape evangelical life, thought and culture in the next year.

Michael Bird, lecturer in theology and biblical studies at Ridley College Melbourne took out the Biblical Studies Award for his August release The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus.

Mark Sayers, a Melbourne-based pastor and cultural analyst, was runner-up for the Christianity and Culture Award for Facing Leviathan: Leadership, Influence, and Creating in a Cultural Storm. For a different perspective on his book, read our review here.

Mike’s book The Gospel of the Lord is aimed at students of the Bible who are looking to understand how the gospels came to be written. Eternity spoke to Mike about his book and receiving the award.

Sophie Timothy: Why did you feel this book was necessary?

Michael Bird: I thought it was necessary to try and give a comprehensive account of how the Gospels came to be. On the one hand, the Gospels didn’t fall out of the sky, bound in leather, with Jesus’ words in red ink, complete with Scofield footnotes. On the other hand, they weren’t written as conspiracies to cover up the real story about Jesus the new age philosopher and his smoking-hot wife Mary Magdalene. I wanted to explain how the stories from Jesus and then stories about Jesus became the four books that we call Gospels.

What is the main message of the book?

It doesn’t really have a main message. In many ways, it is the attempt to explain how the jigsaw puzzle got put together. I address several questions like: Was the oral tradition about Jesus reliable or did it get messed up like a game of Chinese whispers? What is the genre of the Gospels? Which Gospel was written first? Why is John’s Gospel so different to the other three? What are the “other” Gospels like Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Peter and how do they relate to our canonical Gospels?

How does it approach the old topic of the formation of the gospels in a new way?

In several ways. For a start, I try to show that social memory theory might constitute a helpful framework for explaining how the Jesus tradition (i.e. oral and written sources about Jesus) was both faithful and yet flexible in its transmission of information about Jesus. I also boldly propose a minority view of the Synoptic problem whereby Mark was written first, Matthew used Mark and a source called “Q”, and Luke used Mark, Matthew, and “Q”. I also try to get people to appreciate the texture of “fourness” when it comes to the Gospels and that it means that we have a fourfold witness to the one Gospel of Jesus.

What is your reaction to winning the award?

Mixed, to be honest. I woke up today to learn that two hostages and a gunman had died in the Sydney siege and also that I’d won a very prestigious and coveted award in biblical studies. I’m surprised–I didn’t even know that I had been nominated, but am very thankful that some of my work is getting recognition and praise from my peers.