James M. Robinson is characterized in these essays as a pathfinder, a charter of uncharted trajectories, a monopoly buster.

His pioneering work on Q is celebrated in essays by Betz, Kloppenborg, and Koester. His interest in the new quest for Jesus is probed afresh by Mack. His liberation of the Nag Hammadi library and his breaking of the canonical curtain is in evidence everywhere, but especially in essays by Sieber and Meyer on the Gospel of Thomas and Secret Mark. Kloppenborg and Pokorny address questions of ethics and social context, while Parrott, Wire, and Gillespie investigate prophets and prophecy in early Christianity—more themes integral to the scholarship of Professor Robinson.

And finally, Wisse exhibits the importance of foundational work in his essay on the textual reliability of early Christian documents. James Robinson is among the rare few who have contributed substantially to the textual database — the only one we possess — for the study of the primitive Christian movement.