In The Nazarene Gospels Restored, Graves, one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th century, and Hebrew scholar and coauthor Joshua Podro, argue that the New Testament's four gospels were corrupted documents. According to Presley, Graves provides a catalog of the ways error was introduced into the Gospels along with examples of this error. Graves contends that the error was the result of: 1) editorial carelessness such as miscopying, misunderstanding the Aramaic original, and misreading of the Nazarene subject-arrangement for a chronological one; 2) doctrinal piety or perversity, such as conversion of Jesus' symbolic acts into miracles and removal of references to his humanity; and 3) polemical shrewdness, such as attempts to dissociate Jesus from Judaism by omitting nearly all his quotations from the Law and the prophets, and attempts to fasten the blame for his death on the Jews.

Presley and Graves' family have high hopes that the argument put forth in The Nazarene Gospels Restored will reach a new audience, and Presley is eager to help bring back the work of an author he began studying as a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University in 1974. Presley recalls that when he was searching for his dissertation topic, he considered such literary giants as D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce; however, a new collection purchased by the SIU library—the Graves Collection—caught his attention. For his dissertation, Presley took on the task of indexing that collection, and that was the beginning of Presley’s rise to become one of the foremost Graves scholars in the world. Presley says he doesn't worry that the book will stir controversy; in fact, the only danger he sees in publishing this work now is that given the recent popularity of works like The Davinci Code, Graves' scholarship, which actually presaged modern Jesus scholarship, may now seem somewhat passé.

So, just where does a university provost find the time to tackle such a major literary feat? Presley says that since becoming an administrator, he tries to write at least two pages of scholarship each day and read at least ten. The Nazarene Gospels Restored was over 1,000 pages, so just rereading the work was a challenge, but Presley contends it was a welcome change in his evenings to the mountains of memos and e-mails he reads during the day—a pattern not too different from the faculty member who teaches classes, attends meetings, and holds office hours during the day, only to work on research during the evening. Presley says his family room at home is filled with materials and manuscripts related to the Graves project. The Graves project is worth all the extra work to Presley because he believes Graves set out to set the record straight and was met with stiff resistance 50 years ago. Graves considered this his most important work, so there would be no greater tribute than to reissue the book and establish it in its rightful place alongside, if not ahead of, other Jesus scholarship.

Provost Presley holds the rank of Professor in the Department of English, one of the largest departments in the College of Arts and Sciences.