Gospel

This article is about the written accounts of the life of Jesus. For the Christian message, the "good news", see The gospel. For other uses, see Gospel (disambiguation).
"Evangel" redirects here. For the authors of the Gospel, see Four Evangelists.
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Papyrus 46, one of the oldest New Testament papyri, showing 2 Cor 11:33–12:9
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Fragment of a flyleaf with the title of the Gospel of Matthew, ευαγγελιον κ̣ατ̣α μαθ᾽θαιον (Euangelion kata Maththaion). From Papyrus 4 (c. AD 200), it is the earliest manuscript title for Matthew and one of the earliest manuscript titles for any gospel.

Gospel (Greek: εὐαγγέλιον; Latin: evangelium) originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported.[1] In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in his trial and death and concluding with various reports of his post-resurrection appearances.[2]

The gospels are a kind of bios, or ancient biography,[3] meant to convince people that Jesus was a charismatic miracle-working holy man, providing examples for readers to emulate.[4][5][6] As such, they present the Christian message of the second half of the first century AD,[7] and modern biblical scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically as historical documents, though according to E. P. Sanders "we have a good idea of [...] his public career."[8][note 1].[9][10][11][note 2] Critical study on the Historical Jesus has largely failed to distinguish the original ideas of Jesus from those of the later Christian authors,[12][13] and the focus of research has shifted to Jesus as remembered by his followers,[14][15][note 3][note 4] and understanding the Gospels themselves.[16]

The canonical gospels are the four which appear in the New Testament of the Bible. They were probably written between AD 66 and 110.[17][18][19] Most scholars hold that all four were anonymous (with the modern names of the "Four Evangelists" added in the 2nd century), almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses, and all are the end-products of long oral and written transmission.[20] According to the majority of scholars, Mark was the first to be written, using a variety of sources,[21][22] followed by Matthew and Luke, which both independently used Mark for their narrative of Jesus's career, supplementing it with a collection of sayings called "the Q source", and additional material unique to each.[23] There have been different views on the transmission of material that lead to the Synoptic Gospels, with various scholars arguing memory and orality reliably preserved traditions that ultimately go back to the Historical Jesus.[24][25][26][27] Other scholars have been more skeptical and see more changes in the traditions prior to the written Gospels.[28][29] There is near-consensus that John had its origins as the hypothetical Signs Gospel thought to have been circulated within a Johannine community.[30] In modern scholarship, the Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources for reconstructing Christ's ministry while John is used less since it differs from the synoptics.[10][note 5] However, according to the manuscript evidence and citation frequency by the early Church Fathers, Matthew and John were the most popular Gospels while Luke and Mark were less popular in the early centuries of the church.[31]

Many non-canonical gospels were also written, all later than the four canonical gospels, and like them advocating the particular theological views of their various authors.[32][33] Important examples include the gospels of Thomas, Peter, Judas, and Mary; infancy gospels such as that of James (the first to introduce the perpetual virginity of Mary); and gospel harmonies such as the Diatessaron.

  1. ^ Cross & Livingstone 2005, p. 697.
  2. ^ Alexander 2006, p. 16.
  3. ^ Lincoln 2004, p. 133.
  4. ^ Ehrman 1999, p. 52.
  5. ^ Dunn 2005, p. 174.
  6. ^ Vermes 2013, p. 32.
  7. ^ Keith & Le Donne 2012, p. [page needed].
  8. ^ Sanders 1995b, p. 4-5.
  9. ^ Schoeps 1968, p. 261–262.
  10. ^ a b Sanders 2010.
  11. ^ Ehrman 1999, p. 53.
  12. ^ Keith 2016.
  13. ^ Keith & Le Donne 2012.
  14. ^ Dunn 1995, pp. 371–372.
  15. ^ Dunn 2003.
  16. ^ Keith 2012.
  17. ^ Perkins 1998, p. 241.
  18. ^ Reddish 2011, pp. 108, 144.
  19. ^ Lincoln 2005, p. 18.
  20. ^ Reddish 2011, pp. 13, 42.
  21. ^ Goodacre 2001, p. 56.
  22. ^ Boring 2006, pp. 13–14.
  23. ^ Levine 2009, p. 6.
  24. ^ Dunn 1995.
  25. ^ Wright, NT (1998). "Early Traditions and the Origins of Christianity". Sewanee Theological Review. 41 (2).
  26. ^ Bockmuehl, Markus (2006). Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study. Baker Academic. p. 166-178. ISBN 978-0801027611.
  27. ^ McIver, Robert (2011). Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels. Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 978-1589835603.
  28. ^ Ehrman 1997.
  29. ^ Valantasis, Bleyle & Haugh 2009.
  30. ^ Burge 2014, p. 309.
  31. ^ Hill, Charles; Kruger, Michael (2012). "The Early Text of Matthew". The Early Text of the New Testament. Oxford University Press. p. 83. ISBN 9780199566365.
  32. ^ Petersen 2010, p. 51.
  33. ^ Culpepper 1999, p. 66.


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