HOW MANY GOSPELS? HOW MANY GOSPELS? March 8, 2013 by Philip Jenkins 21 Comments In a post last year , I remarked how definitions of the Biblical canon had changed through the centuries. I’ve recently been working on the history of lost and alternative gospels, and how such texts continued to be available through the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Contrary to popular legend, the mainstream churches did not succeed in stamping out all competitors to the Big Four gospels in the fourth or fifth centuries, and numerous alternative works maintained their influence for at least a thousand years afterwards. This story is interesting enough in itself, but it also raises questions about the very idea of canonicity, and declaring what is and is not sacred scripture. By the fifth and sixth centuries, the churches had come to a broad consensus over what was and was not included in the New Testament canon. There were four gospels, no more, no less, and that should have been straightforward. The problem is that through the Middle Ages – roughly from 500 through 1500 – all churches continued to use many other texts generally classified as New Testament apocrypha, including some pseudo-gospels.

However counter-intuitive this may seem, some of these ancient texts remained so popular that they came close to overwhelming Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Such alternative gospels were read in liturgies from time to time, and elite clerical authors and scholars sometimes cited these texts as if they were canonical. “Other” gospels also formed the basis of religious popular culture, including mystery plays and devotional literature. They contributed mightily to shaping the standard Christian narrative available to the great majority of believers, and especially at the Christmas season. Of course, literacy rates were not high in this era, leaving ordinary believers to learn their lessons through visual symbols or religious drama. Stained glass windows, famously, were the “Bible of the Poor.” But these texts also found a large reading audience, and they were popularized through anthologies like the Golden Legend, which between 1470 and 1530 was by far the most popular book printed in Europe. Some texts stand out particularly, and most date from Late Antiquity, from between the second and fifth centuries.

I have already posted about the enduring influence of the Protevangelium , concerning the Virgin Mary, but we might also look at the very popular Infancy Gospels of Christ, or the overwhelming image of the Harrowing of Hell. This last story tells how Christ, after the Resurrection, broke the gates of Hell and rescued the souls of the righteous who had died before his time, including the great figures of the Old Testament narrative. Several Biblical texts point to some such event, although they do not describe it explicitly. The direct source of the Harrowing was a massively influential apocryphal gospel called the Acts of Pilate, often known in the Middle Ages as the Gospel of Nicodemus. So successful were these alternative texts, so influential, that they force us to reconsider our standard literary categories. A culture rooted in centuries of Protestantism tends to think of a sharp and obvious division between Holy Scripture and all other types of literature, whether religious in intent or not. Either something is within the canon, or it is not, and ever since the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church likewise has adopted that attitude. In earlier times, though, we have to think of more fluid boundaries.

Works like Nicodemus were absolutely central to Christian consciousness for at least a millennium – in fact, for over half the story of Christianity in Europe alone, never mind the wider world. If such alternative texts were not canonical, neither were they wholly excluded or condemned, and the term “apocryphal” goes nowhere near indicating their practical influence. In practical usage, to describe a story as “apocryphal” is more or less to dismiss it as spurious or even fantastic. Put another way: if churches treat a text exactly as if it’s a canonical scripture, and use it as fully authoritative, what prevents us from calling it canonical, at least for that particular community? If the Christian canon was not open, yet for long centuries it was much more flexible and accessible to alternative texts than we commonly think. About Philip Jenkins Andrew You’re correct that many other works, such as the ‘Acts’ of various Apostles and infancy Gospels, made a permanent mark on not only popular Christian storytelling but even found their way into Catholic theology (and some of it still remains).

That stated, it seems that many of these gained popularity because they were essentially Hellenized adventure stories (complete with magical battles between saints and sorcerers) given a Christian sheen. There are other non-canonical documents such as the Barnabas letter or Shepherd of Hermas that are earlier (late 1st, early 2nd century) and IMO more thoroughly Christian documents. Then you have the Gnostic Gospels, and very early Gospels composed at the same time or earlier than the Canonical ones that we only have fragments of (Gospel of the Hebrews, Oxyrhynchus 1224). And of course the oft-debated Gospel of Thomas. Philip Jenkins With respect, I disagree on that. Yes, you definitely see those elements, but the various apocryphal texts cover a huge range. Many of these specific tales are extrapolated (shall we say) from canonical stories in Acts. Also, other texts like Nicodemus are quite serious explorations of Christian theological issues, in narrative and fantastic guise.

So I’m more dubious about applying a term like “thoroughly Christian” Andrew You’re correct; there is a wider range; my language was too “broad brush.” David Naas How about “Christian midrash”? Which will also cover such as The Book of Mormon and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Or, perhaps, we should give up on the concept of a “canon”, and accept that people are going to find God wherever they can, even if the Ecclesiastics feel threatened by it? Philip Jenkins I think that’s a very helpful concept, and one I use increasingly. As in the Jewish case too, “midrashic” additions tend to feed back into ordinary people’s sense of what the Bible must really say. I think for instance of the story of the young Abraham destroying the idols his father manufactured, which is commonly cited as if it really occurred in Genesis. Kent Steinkamp The Catholic Church has always valued the truths passed down through Tradition. Having a New Testament canon doesn’t limit what we know about Christ, but it does set a standard of truth for the nearly unlimited additional information the Catholic faithful have always found inspiring.

Your analysis now seems to try to fuzz the clear lines set by the Catholic Church in its establishment of a canon. I learned about the Apocrypha in second grade from Sister Merizi. There is nothing new here. Joel J. Miller Thank you for this article. There seems to have been a willingness by the ancient church to use many different texts, providing they were edifying and seemed to resonate with the reader — a resonance that sometimes settled into a widespread and authoritative tradition of acceptance, as it did with Hermas and more s wiht the Protoevangelium. Maximus the Confessor might give us a window on this process in the opening chapter of The Life of the Virgin. “Now, then, everything that we will relate and make known is trustworthy and reliable, true testimonies taken from the assembly of the pious,” he starts and then lists: first of all, from the holy evangelists and apostles; then from the holy and deeply devout Fathers, whose words are full of wisdom and were written by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and their works are beautiful and virtuous.

These are Gregory of Neocaesarea the Thaumaturge, and the great Athanasius of Alexandria, the blessed Gregory of Nyssa, and Dionysius the Areopagite, and others similar to them in virtue. And if we say some things from the apocryphal writings, this is true and without error, and it is what has been accepted and confirmed by the above-mentioned Fathers. The truth of something was verified by testimony. If a book found its way into circulation, its widespread use through the congregations and affirmation by authorities lent it credence. And that use and affirmation came because those reader and leaders found in those texts things with which the resonated as true. They added their amen to it. The Harrowing of Hell provides an example of this. The belief is not sourced to the “apocryphal” gospel, but merely echoed and elaborated by it.

Melito of Sardis, for instance, mentions the outlines of the Harrowing in his late-second century poem On Pascha: “It is I,” says Christ, “I am he who destroys death, and triumphs over the enemy, and crushes Hades, and binds the strong man, and bears humanity off to the heavenly heights.” And of course Melito here is echoing thoughts from the Gospels (binding the strong man) and the fourth chapter of Ephesians (bearing humanity away from Hades). When it comes to Nicodemus, the church already believed the Harrowing and so they accepted it’s presentation here. Joel J. Miller Sorry, just noticed some typos: “more s wiht” should be “more so with,” and “it’s presentation” in the last line should be “its presentation.” Thanks. Philip Jenkins Beautifully put. Watch this space for further comments on the Harrowing of Hell! Stefan Stackhouse We are pretty explicitly told in the Gospel narratives and Acts that immediately after Jesus’s resurrection, the disciples started talking with each other, remembering what Jesus had said and done and comparing notes. Jesus Himself did a very thorough review with them during that first evening appearance.

Mary was with them and they undoubtedly would have asked her many questions about Jesus’s nativity. It would not have taken very many weeks for a very comprehensive oral tradition to emerge. This oral tradition was transmitted from Christian to Christian as the faith spread and new people came into the fold. (This is where the “Q” thesis falls short: there didn’t need to be a document of Jesus’s collected sayings, because all the early Christians KNEW all of Jesus’s sayings, and told them to each other over and over again.) It was only a couple of decades later that anyone attempted to start writing any of this down. When the various gospels appeared, the scattered Christian communities would compare what was written with the oral tradition with which they were well familiar. They could undoubtedly be understanding and forgiving of a gospel being somewhat selective rather than exhaustive in the material it included, and they might even have been willing to extend to each author some artistic license in how he put the material together. Anything that flat-out contradicted the oral tradition, however, or invented something out of thin air, would have been highly suspect and very likely to be rejected.

The reason why we have four – and only four -gospels is that these four were in accord with the oral tradition, and the others weren’t. It is quite possible that there were stories in the oral tradition that didn’t make it in to one of the four gospels. John makes it pretty clear that this was the case. (Indeed, I suspect that part of the reason why his gospel is so different from the synoptics is that he felt that it was important to get into writing some of the more important parts of the oral tradition that had not been included in the other three gospels. ) We know for certain of one of these excluded stories – the story of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery. It is pretty clear now that it was a later addition to John’s gospel, added no doubt by someone who thought they were being helpful by preserving a story about Jesus that was otherwise at risk of being lost. Once the churches had the four gospels, they tended to refer to those rather than to the oral tradition, and thus by the late 2nd and 3rd centuries the oral tradition was in danger of totally fading away.

I, for one, am glad that the story was preserved, for it does indeed sound like the Jesus that we all know and love. However, it probably isn’t actually scripture. It is possible that some of these other gospels and other early documents preserve a few other pieces of the genuine oral tradition that didn’t make it into the four canonical gospels. I’d keep an open mind about that. If there are stories that are true, then that is valuable information to have. However, they aren’t scripture. Philip Jenkins My question of course focuses on your final comment about “However, they aren’t scripture.” But how do we define scripture? Different churches around the world differ considerably about that, adding some books not accepted in the West, and excluding others, particularly from the Catholic Epistles. I do stress that this comment does NOT apply to gospels strictly defined. Stefan Stackhouse I am well aware there exist a diversity of views on this subject. There exists a core of texts for which there is a widespread consensus among Christians that these are scripture, and this consensus is very ancient. As you have indicated, the four gospels very quickly secured their place within this set.

As I indicated above, this wasn’t something arbitrary; Christians recognized the canonical books as scripture precisely because they were in accord with the oral tradition they already had. This is also the explanation why non-canonical books were excluded. There were, of course, a few books that were “on the margins” for a while: Revelation, some of the “General Epistles”, as well as some books that didn’t make the final cut like the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas. This apparently was less about content than about authorship. That, in turn, raises a whole bunch of other issues. Ultimately, we get back around to consensus being the ultimate factor that determined whether a book was considered canonical or not. Philip Jenkins Well put. But let me give you a hypothetical. Suppose that a particular church in a particular part of the world is in communion with other mainline churches, but for a long time, say for several centuries, it uses a particular non-canonical text as if it is scripture, and treats it with the appropriate authority and veneration. Can we not describe it as scripture for that church?

As an example, I cite “Psalm 151” which was commonly used as authentic by the medieval church for a millennium , including by many great writers and theologians. Or an even better example the “Epistle to the Laodiceans.” What do you think? Joel J. Miller As an Orthodox, I’d say Psalm 151 is canonical. If the long-discussed reconciliation ever happened between Orthodox and Anglicans, would Anglicans have to accept 151 as canonical? Same problem, but trickier: What if the rift between the non-Chalcedonians and the Chalcedonians is healed? Will Eastern Orthodox or Catholics be ready to accept Enoch and host of other books from the Ethiopian canon ? Perhaps there’s part of the answer: the Copts and Ethiopians are in full communion and yet they don’t share the same canon. Perhaps our list of books isn’t the most important thing. Stefan Stackhouse Of course, each church body can use whatever they want – there is no ecclesiastical police to stop them. Each church body is also free to reject whatever texts they do not want to recognize as being scriptural. This is the actual state of affairs.

I am not going to get in to whether or not that is as it should be, for that would be a purely abstract discussion divorced from reality. What that gets us down to is a least common denominator minimalist core of scripture that virtually everyone (with a few fringe groups that come and go, like the Marcionites, excepted) recognizes, plus a set of additional texts that are each accepted by some but not by all church bodies. That may not necessarily be a satisfactory state of affairs, but it is the one that we actually have. J. Bob While there are those who believe that the gospels were written much later then the life of Christ, more modern Biblical scholars such as Fr. Jean Carmignac & J.A.T. Robinson make a good case for the gospels initial elements being written during or shortly after the death of Christ. Fr. Carmignac, the late Dead Sea Scroll scholar, noted that it was common for pupils to take notes as the speaker preached. And Jesus would be no exception. These notes could be gathered together shortly after the Resurrection to provide a basis scripture that St. Paul mentions.

Robinson makes a good argument that the 5 portico building was standing when he wrote his gospel would be a strong indication that his gospel was completed prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Finally, the Cannon was developed very early in the Church, as noted in the Muratorian fragment, dated to just after the death of Pius I (157 AD). While it didn’t include all the current epistles, it did have most, & would take a bit longer to finalize the last of these. However there are writings by the Apostolic Fathers, the Didache, & others such as Justin Martyr to fill in many gaps left out in the Cannon. Most later one seemed to come about in a effort to fill in many human interest gaps, missing in the originals. Todd Collier Christianity seems to have adopted at an early stage a “this but not that” view of Scripture. As such much heretical material was immediately recognized and eliminated. At the same time however much helpful material from the early Church was dropped from use leaving us with large gaps in our understanding of the development of the early “organization” of the Church.

How did we get from small semi-independent house based churches to an empire wide authority structure in just a couple of hundred years? Perhaps we would have done better to retain the more “progressive” view of scriptural authority in use in the Judaism of the day. The Torah, Prophets and Writings along with what we call the Apocrypha each had its own level of authority and purpose. As such potential variances were less frightening and greater freedom of interpretation could be countenanced. Wayne Well written, and I’m sure you know your research, but this really is “much to do about nothing”. All of these “alternate gospels” are now known to be 2nd/3rd/4th century on creations, while the New Testament “canonical” books are universally acknowledged to be 1st century (or maybe early 2nd in some cases) documents. So they are MUCH closer to Jesus and the early Church. Based on my knowledge, rejection of the apocryphal books largely took place soon after creation (during the 2nd century), although SOME maintained their use just as you state.

I see no reason for the Church to rethink the idea of the canon, since these books fall short now for the same reason they were rejected by mainline Christianity early on- late development (post apostolic), odd doctrinal stances (not in accord with early documents), and overall low quality works. It’s quite fashionable today to talk about how we’ve just “discovered” the “other Gospels” that were “suppressed” by a power hungry orthodoxy. In reality, it’s easy to see why “alternate gospels” were rejected- they lacked early “creds”, had fanciful superstitious doctrines, and/or were of low literary and spiritual quality. Anyone that takes up the “gospel of Peter” and the “gospel of John” side by side with a fair mind can easily see why one is in a different class that the other. I’m all for getting as much information on early Christianity as possible (including the range of documents), but making more of things than they are isn’t balanced either. Philip Jenkins I agree with most of what you say, but it does not get to the issue of canonicity. I am not for a second suggesting that something like Nicodemus is very early – it certainly is not.

It may be fifth century. It is not vaguely comparable to the canonical gospels as historical evidence. HOWEVER given all that, the point remains – if churches used it quite widely as if it was canonical (and they did), what does that say about their attitude to canons, and to the definition of scripture? Joel J. Miller I think the problem is that we are imposing a more rigid understanding of canon than did the early church. They rejected books they knew to be spurious, but were open to others being read and used in church. That’s the other side of the story of Antiochian bishop Serapion and the Gospel of Peter. He allowed it to be read, though it was clearly not one of the more generally received gospels, and only stopped the practice when he read it for himself and noticed things that didn’t jibe with what was handed down by the apostles. The idea that the canon was firm and unbending seems to be an idea required for Sola Scriptura but not actually seen in the early church. Different regions had differing canons for centuries. Clement and Hermas were widely read in churches, today only in seminary.

But that doesn’t mean they were not considered holy scripture by those who first read them. That’s only a problem if we need to somehow turn the process of refining the canon into a magical process that removes the church as the arbiter and custodian of the books. Philip Jenkins By the way, I exactly share your opinion that “It’s quite fashionable today to talk about how we’ve just “discovered” the “other Gospels” that were “suppressed” by a power hungry orthodoxy.” Such a view is nonsense. But it is not relevant to what I am arguing. The Anxious Bench and our Writers Christian historians share their reflections on contemporary faith, politics, and culture. Our authors include Beth Allison Barr, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Chris Gehrz, Agnes Howard, Tal Howard, Philip Jenkins, David Swartz and John Turner. Religion and Spirituality: How Many Gospels Are There? How Many Gospels Are There? Peter Nathan How can we be certain that the Gospel accounts contained in the New Testament are both authentic and authoritative?

The discovery of gospel accounts other than those found in the New Testament , many of them among the Nag Hammadi documents uncovered in Egypt in the 1940s, sparked a veritable firestorm, and not only in theological circles. Popular writers have also taken up the debate so that it has gained traction even among the general population. More recently the publishing of the Gospel of Judas has added fuel to the fire. Many claim that these other gospels, a good number of which were written in the second and third centuries, have been deliberately marginalized and should have had a place in the canon of Scripture. According to this view, these works were excluded in part because they did not accord with orthodox views on such wide-ranging subjects as Jesus, church structure and women’s place in the church. How did the Christian church, apparently drowning in a sea of Gospels, finally end up with only four? … Many perhaps picture councils of bad-tempered bishops voting on which books to include in the Bible one minute, and voting to execute heretics the next. Charles E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?

Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (2010) A statement by Elaine Pagels, a respected authority in the study of the Gnostic gospels, expresses the sentiment well: “If [church leaders] suppressed so much of early Christian history, what else don’t we know about? What else is there to be known? … As a historian, I think it’s a really important question because the answer means a great deal.” Has material been suppressed? How can we be certain that the Gospel accounts contained in the New Testament are both authentic and authoritative, and that omission of these additional accounts was no mistake—deliberate or otherwise? Creative Ideas The concern expressed by Pagels and others is valid if the books that make up the New Testament, and the Gospels in particular, were selected for inclusion centuries after being written, as many people believe. One popular idea is that the final makeup was engineered by order of Emperor Constantine in the fourth century—an idea popularized by Dan Brown in his 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code . And what about the number? By whose authority do we have four Gospels? It’s easy to provide an answer from the perspective of creative conjecture, and indeed many do.

In fact, it was various Catholic Church Fathers, beginning with Irenaeus in the second century, who first put forward explanations for the number four. Today their theories are still popular, though most have very little to do with the Bible itself or have only a tangential relationship to it; for example, that the four Gospels correlate with the four “living creatures” the apostle John saw in a vision (Revelation 4:7), or with the four directions of the compass or the idea that the world is made up of four elements. Anyone can find a group of four items that they feel is somehow applicable. But all such explanations are based on human reasoning, not on any historical authority. People have also argued that the four Gospels of the New Testament were written by apostles, whereas other gospels weren’t. But not only were the Gospel writers Mark and Luke not apostles, but as its name implies, the noncanonical Gospel of Peter purports to be the work of an apostle (a claim broadly rejected by scholars, however). Still others defend the final selection by saying they were written on behalf of the apostles. Indeed, there is some internal evidence in the New Testament to support that idea.

The problem with reasoning from that point of view is that most people don’t accept the Bible as authoritative in the first place. So what validity does internal evidence have on its own? Early Acceptance What we need is to establish the authority behind the New Testament Canon. How credible can any explanation be unless the person offering it can draw on the authority of whoever established the collection in the first place? In fact, as we will see, the question of which Gospel accounts were to be included in the New Testament was settled long before any recently discovered additional gospels were even written. Thus the exclusion of those additional texts could be justified on the sole basis of the time of their writing, without even considering problems with their content. Timing also draws their authenticity into question in the sense that they could not be the work of eyewitnesses to Jesus Christ. But Luke remarks that even in his time many accounts had been written regarding the life and times of Jesus Christ and His earliest disciples (Luke 1:1–4); yet by the end of the second century, numerous authors were noting the existence of only four as a part of Scripture. Among these writers was Irenaeus (ca.

140–200 C.E.), bishop of Lyon, who was acquainted in his youth with John’s disciple Polycarp. Irenaeus writes of four Gospels (Against Heresies 3.11), the same four that are included in the New Testament to this day. A short time earlier, also during the third quarter of the second century, a Syrian convert named Tatian had prepared his Diatessaron, a single account that harmonized the four Gospels of the New Testament. The Muratorian Fragment, a listing of biblical books that dates from the late second century, as well as Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen, each writing from Africa in the late second to early third centuries, provide additional witness to the universal acceptance of four Gospels throughout the known world prior to the establishment of any central authority of orthodoxy. The fact that by the end of the second century only four Gospels were accepted as authoritative is further borne out by the discovery of physical copies of the four works bound together in book form and dating from the late second and early third centuries. Books at that time were made from papyrus, a reed which decayed quickly in damp conditions.

Copies have thus been discovered only in the dry desert conditions of Egypt, and even there many of the books are only fragmentary. Numerous papyri were found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, at the turn of the 20th century, while a number of more extensive manuscript fragments appeared on the antiquities market in Egypt in the 1930s. The manuscripts had apparently been hidden in stone jars inside a church in a desert area of Egypt, and their remnants are now in libraries in Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. These were sensational discoveries as they pushed the date of extant manuscripts—albeit incomplete—back by more than a century prior to the oldest texts known to that point. Some segments of John’s Gospel date from the early second century and constitute the oldest surviving fragments of the New Testament. The papyrus labeled by archaeologists and papyrologists as P75 is considered to be from the late second or early third century and contains parts of Luke followed by John. P45 is in some respects the most notable, however. It dates from the third century but contains large portions of all four Gospels as well as of the book of Acts.

Missing Link From the writings of Irenaeus and others, we know that the four Gospels of the New Testament had been accepted as Scripture by the latter half of the second century. But as yet we have seen no definitive connection to the time of the apostles—the eyewitnesses of the events of Jesus’ life and death. To find that connection we must go to a well-known personage of the fourth century, church historian Eusebius Pamphilus. Eusebius quotes directly from the writings of a man named Papias (ca. 60–135 C.E.) on the background to the writing of two of the Gospels (Ecclesiastical History 3.39). Papias, identified as a bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, claimed that his knowledge came from those who had actually walked with the apostles. His works are now lost to history, but several writers of the second century were well acquainted with them and quoted or paraphrased portions of them.

“While academics might not … attribute the collation of the Bible to ‘the pagan emperor Constantine,’ many even in the academic community insist that the question of which Gospels the church ought to endorse was still up for grabs in the fourth century.” Charles E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (2010) Eusebius himself engages in a discussion of all four Gospels in Ecclesiastical History 3.24, naming, in order, the four accounts we have today: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In 3.39 he identifies Papias as his source for confirming that Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts were genuine and already accepted as canonical by the early part of the second century. But he nowhere directly quotes Papias with regard to the Gospels of Luke or John. Today, however, respected New Testament scholars such as Charles E. Hill offer compelling evidence that Eusebius included a lengthy paraphrase of Papias’s writing on that subject, preserving much of the vocabulary of the original work. The way in which Eusebius begins the account indicates that he is referencing an unidentified written source.

Based on an exacting study of Eusebius’s wording, and comparing it with similar passages in the works of second- and third-century writers also known to have read and quoted Papias (including Irenaeus, Origen and the writer of the Muratorian Fragment), Hill concludes that Eusebius’s words in Ecclesiastical History 3.24.5–13 are drawn directly from the writings of Papias. In that passage, Eusebius begins with a reference to Matthew’s Gospel and then goes on: “And when Mark and Luke had already published their Gospels, they say that John, who had employed all his time in proclaiming the Gospel orally, finally proceeded to write for the following reason. The three Gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his own too, they say that he accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but that there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry… . “They say, therefore, that the apostle John … gave in his Gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Saviour during that period… .

“John accordingly, in his Gospel, records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time.” Following his closely argued presentation of the available data, Hill remarks that in his opinion, to suggest that anyone other than Papias is Eusebius’s source for this passage “strains credibility well past the breaking-point.” He posits “not merely that Eusebius’ account in HE [Ecclesiastical History] 3.24.5–13 is adapted from Papias but that it is scarcely possible to conceive of it as coming from anyone else.” Despite the existence of other gospels, … all these readers of Papias—Irenaeus, Clement, the Muratorian Fragment, Origen, Victorinus, and Eusebius—testify that only the four were considered to have sound apostolic credentials. Charles E.

Hill, “What Papias Said About John (and Luke): A ‘New’ Papian Fragment,” in Journal of Theological Studies (October 1998) Based on Hill’s conclusions, Papias, whose source was those who had known and walked with John and the other apostles, verifies that John acknowledged the authenticity of the other three Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. This leads to the further conclusion that the four Gospel accounts Christendom uses today owe their authority and place within the canon of Scripture to the apostle John at the end of the first century (as recorded by Papias and later paraphrased by Eusebius). The similarity in details recorded in other second-century writings is testimony to the fact that Papias was their common source. Further, Papias’s record of John’s acceptance of the first three Gospels and his addition of a fourth toward the end of the first century accounts for the archaeological evidence of second-century and early-third-century books containing the four Gospels. As for John’s Gospel, Eusebius notes in the early fourth century that it “has been accepted without dispute both now and in ancient times” (3.24.17, emphasis added).

Numerous scholars now consider Papias’s five books (collectively titled Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord) to have been written in the first decade of the second century. This puts the earliest reference to acceptance of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to within 80 years of Jesus Christ’s death. The New Testament Canon Even before the end of the first century various apostolic writings were considered on a par with the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament. This is evident from one of Peter’s epistles; he remarks that some people were twisting the apostle Paul’s writings “to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15–16). While Peter was speaking specifically of Paul’s epistles, the record of history is that by the end of the first century the four Gospel accounts included in the New Testament had also been established as canonical by the early church. No one knows the exact number of additional accounts written over the centuries. But besides the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, any written before the Gospel of John were omitted by the decision of John.

It was not left to the whim of Constantine or any other post-apostolic authority figure but was undertaken by an eyewitness of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The final makeup of the biblical Gospels was never a question of what suited the religion of various groups or churches; rather the New Testament collection of four Gospels was sanctioned by the person understood to be the last surviving apostle and a companion of Jesus Christ Himself. Selected References Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels As Eyewitness Testimony (2006). Charles E. Hill, “What Papias Said About John (and Luke): A ‘New’ Papian Fragment,” in Journal of Theological Studies (October 1998). Charles E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (2010). Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (1979). Philip Schaff (editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. I (Logos Research Systems, 1997). Philip Schaff (editor), The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D.

325, Vol. 1 (Logos Research Systems, 1997). Related Content Noncanonical Gospels Noncanonical Gospels Noncanonical Gospels by Nicola Denzey Lewis Q. How many gospels were "excluded" from the Bibles as we know them today? And why? A. Thanks for a great question! It’s a little tricky to answer. First of all, we don’t know how many gospels were excluded, because we don’t know how many gospels once circulated. Maybe hundreds! If you look at the table of contents of Wilhelm Schneemelcher’s New Testament Apocrypha (a standard scholarly reference), it details 35 writings with “ Gospel ” in the title, some of which you may know, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary. But Schneemelcher’s book only includes surviving gospels or the ones whose titles are at least known. Also tricky: what constitutes a “gospel”? It’s a perplexing genre . While we recognize the four canonical gospels as all being similar, there are differences between them. For example, they are all biographies of Jesus, whereas by contrast, not one of our surviving noncanonical gospels is.

The Gospel of Thomas is a sayings collection with no narrative . The Gospel of Mary is primarily a description of the cosmos , with Mary speaking to the other disciples after Jesus’s death. There’s also the issue of labels. The Gospel of Mark calls itself a gospel in Mark 1:1 , but the Gospel of John does no such thing. Our sole copy of the Gospel of Thomas is labeled as such at the end, but the text itself says only that it’s the “secret words” of the living Jesus. A text we call the Gospel of the Egyptians is actually called the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit in the manuscripts . So even if I were to say that we have thirty texts that were called “gospels” from, say, the second century C.E., virtually all of those were really not much like the four canonical gospels in form. Their difference in genre alone might account for the fact they were not included with the four; of course, as you know from reading them, they are also different in content and perspective.

Then there is the curious case of the Egerton Gospel , which looks a lot like a canonical gospel, but which preserves some unique Jesus-sayings; unfortunately, we don’t have very much of it, so we are not sure how it related to the canonical gospels, nor how widely it circulated, nor what it was called, nor even when it dates from. What it does tell us is that there were other ancient biographical gospels that fell out of use. I note your use of quotation marks around the word “excluded.” You know, then, that we can’t really talk about gospels being deliberately excluded from the canon when it was compiled, probably in the fourth century. The process of canon development is complex and opaque, but by the time the New Testament was compiled, probably most other gospels were no longer known or widely circulated. The most famous and most early discussion of the topic is from Irenaeus of Lyon, who argues forcefully around 180 C.E. that there could only be four gospels, just as there are four winds and “four zones of the earth” ( Adversus Haereses 3.11.8 ).

This tells us, first, that in Irenaeus’ time there were more than four gospels circulating (although other communities Irenaeus complains about elsewhere used only a single gospel, so his insistence doesn’t mean “only four” as much as it could also mean “more than one”!); second, if we want to talk about “exclusion” from an established canon, the canonical four were already authoritative by the second century, although it would take another 150 years before Bibles similar to ours were produced and circulated. Nicola Denzey Lewis, "Noncanonical Gospels", n.p. [cited 20 Jan 2017]. Online: Contributors Canonical Gospels - encyclopedia article - Citizendium This editable Main Article is under development and not meant to be cited; by editing it you can help to improve it towards a future approved , citable version. These unapproved articles are subject to a disclaimer . [ edit intro ] The canonical gospels are the first four books of the New Testament. the Christian canon, texts approved—canonized--by general consensus in the church.

The formation of the 27 books of the New Testament and their acceptance as the definitive body of scripture took place over a period of several centuries. In 367, Athanasius of Alexandria gave the list of the New Testament scriptures used today in one of his festal letters, and this list gradually came to be generally accepted. However, different parts of the New Testament had become canonical at different times, and the four gospels were already firmly canonical before Athanasius' list. The New Testament and the Old Testament are the ultimate source of authority for most Christian denominations and encompass central beliefs or dogma of the Christian Churches. [1] However, the Roman Catholic Church , which according to most authorities includes the majority of Christians, has never definitively decided whether all its teachings are implicit in the Bible. Contents 5 Notes History of the Four Gospels According to mosts cholars, the Biblical Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written within the first century. Matthew, Mark and Luke are also referred to as the synoptic gospels (from the two Greek words meaning to see together) (Barclay, 1975. p.

1) [2] in that they incorporate much of the same materials and can be closely compared. (Barclay, 1975. p. 1) [3] There are several complex theories about how these texts relate to one another, but it is broadly agreed that Mark was the first to have been completed, since Mark has significantly less material than the other two, and Matthew and Luke appear to draw upon Mark as a source (Barclay, 1975. pp 4-5). [3] The Gospel of Matthew Matthew: the person and his sources Matthew the Apostle, was a former tax collector. He is said to have collected the sayings of Jesus during his time with Jesus. However it may be that the final version was not entirely his own hand (Barclay, 1975. p. 5). [3] The Gospel of Matthew frequently uses the phrase “This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.” It is thus fundamentally a gospel written to the Jews by a Jew.

The main teachings of Jesus reported in Matthew are collected in five sections: The Sermon on the Mount, or the law of the Kingdom (chapter 5-7); The duties of the leaders of the Kingdom (Chapter 10): The parables of the Kingdom (chapter 13) Greatness and forgiveness in the Kingdom (chapter 18) The coming of the King (chapter 24, 25) .(Barclay, 1975. p. 8) [3] The Gospel of Mark Mark, the first Gospel to be completed, was the primary source for the writers of Matthew and Luke to which they added additional information (Barclay, 1975. p. 2). [2] St. Mark, the traditional writer, was the son of Mary, an affluent woman in Jerusalem in whose house the early church members frequently met (Acts 12:12) and Mark would have been present from the beginnings of the Church. Mark was a nephew of Barnabas who accompanied Paul on his missionary journeys and Mark went along as a secretary (Acts 12: 25). Mark left their company when they were approaching a dangerous passage and Paul did not take it kindly.

Eventually Paul and Barnabas split over Mark’s withdrawal (Book of Acts 15: 37-40) (Barclay, 1975. p. 3). [2] Mark did not show up again in Scripture for some time but tradition holds that he went to Alexandria, Egypt where he founded a Church. (Barclay, 1975. p. 3-4) [2] He next appears in the Scripture with the Apostle Paul who is a prisoner in Rome (Book of Colossians 4:10). Paul’s attitude toward Mark had changed remarkably by that time in his life (Book of Philemon, verse 24, 2 Timothy 4: 11). Mark’s Sources for the Life of Jesus Mark’s years amongst the early Church would have brought him into contact with others who had known Jesus personally and their related experiences. Papias, a second century source (circa 130 A.D.), relates that Mark’s gospel is the record of the teachings of the Apostle Peter to whom Mark was very close. Peter in 1 Peter 5:13, referred to Mark as his son.

(Barclay, 1975. pp 4-5 [2] ; see Authorship [4] ; Eusebius, Book III, Chapter xxxix “The Writings of Papias” p. 127 [5] ) Jesus of the Canonical Gospels The Christian Church's recognition of books of the Old Testament and the New Testament and of the four gospels- the four "canonical gospels", (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) occurred gradually during the first four centuries. The writings that we have from the second century leaders show that local churches and leaders preferred one or more gospels. Most often quoted were Matthew and Luke. Mark and John were also quoted from as well. The Gospel of Peter was quoted in the church at Rhossos and by their bishop. Irenaeus of Lyons was particularly outspoken, writing in 170 AD, in support of the proposition that there must be four--no more, no less--partly by analogy with the four regions of the world and the "four universal winds." He was the first catholic theologian and he believed that these four gospels were the only gospels written by first century church leaders, apostles.

He wrote that they present the direct record of the apostolic record. By the year 200 most church leaders had accepted that only these four Gospels were to be accepted. By Tertullian, the great theologian and writer, who lived from 155-230 AD, the OT and NT were settled except for the inclusion of Hebrews and Revelation. (The Formation of the Christian Bible by Hans Von Campenhausen) The popular Christian-inspired image of Jesus is derived mainly from these four, but other apocryphal works have also influenced traditional Christian beliefs, including the Apocalypse of Peter , Protevangelium of James , Infancy Gospel of Thomas , and Acts of Peter . Several Christian traditions (such as Veronica's veil and the Assumption of Mary ) are found not in the canonical gospels, but in these and in other apocryphal works. Geneaology Matthew 1:1 ff and Luke 3: 23 ff give accounts of Jesus's genealogy which appear contradictory (e.g. Joseph's father is called "Jacob" in Matthew, and "Heli" in Luke), though several theories attempting to harmonize them have been proposed.

Matthew traces Jesus's ancestry to Abraham and King David ; Luke, to God by way of Adam . Cross-culturally, such geneaologies are often fictitious; and many of the characters listed here appear to be mythical. Although, these gospels affirm that Jesus's true father was God rather than Joseph, they also recount the exact ancestry of Joseph. This might be explained by the importance of a legal relationship (as with adoption), that existed during Jesus' lifetime. Nativity The Gospels of Matthew and of Luke contain nativity stories, which are often merged for popular commemoration. Matthew 2 (perhaps recalling Isaiah 45) has the infant Jesus reverenced by magi (rather than kings), who expected the imminent birth of the Messiah based on the appearance of a "star". Its nature is unclear, as no known celestial phenomenon precisely matches Matthew's description. The number of magi is traditionally assumed to be three, based on the three gifts which they present. In Luke 2, angelic choirs announce the Messiah's birth to shepherds in the fields. Both Matthew and Luke report that Jesus was born in Bethlehem , although the gospels usually refer to him as a Galilean.

Matthew explains that Jesus's parents lived in Bethlehem, but fled to Egypt to escape the Massacre of the Innocents , returning to Nazareth after after the death of Herod the Great . (Matthew's account may recall the stories of Moses and Joseph from the Book of Genesis.) According to Luke, the couple were residents of Nazareth, who were required to travel to Bethlehem for tax purposes (the Census of Quirinius ). The two accounts seem contradictory, and each fails to refer to events in the other. External historical sources such as Josephus do not record Herod's massacre, and the only known census of Quirinius was after Herod's death, and would have applied only to Judea, not Nazareth. Many historians suspect that the story is an attempt to link Jesus to Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David, to bolster his messianic claim. Perhaps the most striking claim of the Nativity stories is that Mary conceived Jesus while a virgin. Matthew explicitly cites this as a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:4, an interpretation which relies on the (Greek) Septuagint translation.

The original Hebrew text could mean various things, including "a virgin shall conceive"; the Septuagint tends towards this meaning with its choice of parthenos as the Greek term. Among scholars who reject the possibility of the supernatural, some assume Joseph to have been Jesus's true father (making Jesus legitimate according to then-prevailing standards), while others (e.g. Jane Schaberg) propose that Mary was impregnated by rape. The gospels have Jesus's enemies, the Pharisees, pointedly introduce the topic of illegitimacy, as if alluding to a familiar scandal. Baptism by John Notes ↑ Timothy Ware (1997) The Orthodox Church. London: Penguin Books (pp. 199-201) ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 William F. Barclay (1975) The Gospel of Mark Revised Edition. Phladelphia: Westminster Press ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 William F. Barclay (1975) The Gospel of Matthew (vol. 1) Revised Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster Press ↑ Gospel of St. Mark J.

MacRory (1910) The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York. Quotes Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", III, xxxix) ↑ Eusebius Pamphilus (circa 312 A.D.) Ecclesiastical History, in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History (1990, 14th printing) Fredrick Cruse Translator. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House What Are Noncanonical Writings? What Are Noncanonical Writings? What Are Noncanonical Writings ? by Nicola Denzey Lewis Noncanonical writings are early Christian documents that are not found in the New Testament . The list of writings in the New Testament are known as a canon , a term that comes from a word meaning “measuring stick” or “rod.” There are many different canons in different religious and even literary traditions; whatever list of writings a particular community considers authoritative constitutes a canon.

The writings included in a canon are called “ canonical .” Scholars of early Christianity therefore often divide up writings into the categories “canonical” and “noncanonical.” However, things are actually a little more complicated than this. First of all, the canon of the New Testament formed only very late (around the fourth century C.E.). Even then, it differed slightly from our New Testament canon today. What this means is that in the second and third centuries, when many Christian documents were being written and circulated, Christians didn’t yet have a sense of which writings were canonical and which noncanonical, because there was, as yet, no New Testament canon. It is therefore not accurate to call key texts like the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John canonical when referring to the second century. To give another example, Paul’s letters were circulating in the second and third centuries—probably as a packet—but these, too, were not yet canonical at the time. Since this is the case, you might think that the category of “noncanonical” could just mean any Christian text written before the canon was developed, but that’s not the way we use the word.

This is because the category itself is quite old, and it derives from a particular bias in biblical scholarship of the nineteenth century, where only Christian documents that made it into the New Testament were considered valuable, and others were considered spurious, or worse, blasphemous and foolish! Scholars nowadays, by contrast, recognize that even Christian documents that are not part of the New Testament have a great deal to tell us about early Christianity, particularly in terms of how people understood Jesus and what it meant to be Christian. Noncanonical writings fall into different kinds, or genres. We have letters that early Christians exchanged, for example. We have apocalypses, gospels, and sermons. We have many Acts of the Apostles. We have prayers, poetry, and revelatory texts in which Jesus discloses special knowledge to his disciples. All of these writings are considered noncanonical in the way we use the term today. They are also amazing and valuable texts for teaching us about what early Christians believed and how they behaved; our understanding of Christianity’s formation would be hugely impoverished without them.

Some of the more famous noncanonical writings include texts like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Judas, the Protevangelium of James, the letters of Ignatius and Clement, and the apocryphal acts of the apostles. There are hundreds more, many of which were hugely popular in Christian antiquity and considered important sacred texts. We know this because some exist in multiple translations, or in multiple ancient copies. Some of them, like the letters of Ignatius and Clement, were even considered canonical texts in certain Christian denominations. So how is an “apocryphal” writing different from a “noncanonical” writing? Some people use the words interchangeably. Technically, though, they’re different things. Apocrypha comes from the Greek word meaning “hidden,” and yet not all apocryphal texts were necessarily hidden away in the ancient world. Apocryphal also has a colloquial meaning of “untrue” (as in “her story sounded apocryphal to me”), but that’s rather an unfair way to think of these texts: they were no more untrue than they were hidden.

Nevertheless, both types of writings—noncanonical and apocryphal—share one thing: they are not in the main New Testament canon that we have today. Another problem, however, is that even modern Christianity does not adhere to a single canon. If you look carefully, you might notice that a Catholic Bible is slightly different from a Protestant Bible. In fact, Catholic Bibles often say on the front that they contain the Apocrypha. Here, Apocrypha cannot mean “noncanonical,” since the writings are in fact part of the Catholic canon. They refer to texts that early Christian theologians considered useful in a church context, but that were not considered divinely inspired. Modern Christianity is diverse; so many denominations have ancient origins and their own distinctive canons. The Syriac Christian Bible (known as the Peshitta ) used by Syrian Orthodox Christians originally lacked writings in the Western New Testament canon, including 2 and 3 John, Jude, and 2 Peter. The equally ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a broad canon—in the sense that as many as 70 different writings are considered authoritative. Even in the ancient world, texts could move between canonical and noncanonical status.

For example, there are a number of writings—including the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas , and Paul’s Epistle to the Laodiceans —that were “canonical” at some point in antiquity but are noncanonical today. The book of Revelation provides a counterexample: it was rejected by many more orthodox-leaning Christians and is absent from early canon lists (including the Peshitta and the New Testament of the Armenian Orthodox Church) but is now a canonical writing in virtually all modern Christian denominations. There are many published collections of noncanonical Christian writings out there, and most are also freely available on the Internet. They’re worth taking a look at: you may find some interesting and familiar-sounding things. Sometimes even if a text didn’t make it into the canon, it could still be influential. If you read a noncanonical text, you might be surprised to find the origin of a common belief in Christianity that has no basis in canonical writings.

For example, the ideas that there were three magi at Jesus’ birth and that their names were Caspar, Balthazar, and Melchior come from noncanonical sources, as does the claim that there were various animals, such as oxen, present around Jesus’ manger. This attests to the popularity of noncanonical texts and the degree to which they shaped Christian understandings of the world, perhaps even as much as the writings of the New Testament. Nicola Denzey Lewis, "What Are Noncanonical Writings?", n.p. [cited 19 Jan 2017]. Online: Contributors Early Christian Writings Of or related to textual materials that are not part of the accepted biblical canon. The third division of the Jewish canon, also called by the Hebrew name Ketuvim. The other two divisions are the Torah (Pentateuch) and Nevi'im (Prophets); together the three divisions create the acronym Tanakh, the Jewish term for the Hebrew Bible. The historical period from the beginning of Western civilization to the start of the Middle Ages. Trustworthy; reliable; of texts, the best or most primary edition. An authoritative collection of texts generally accepted as scripture.

Belonging to the canon of a particular group; texts accepted as a source of authority. A detailed letter, written in formal prose. Most of the New Testament books beyond the gospels are epistles (letters written to early Christians). A hypothetical letter of Paul the apostle (to a community in the Roman province of Asia) that may have been lost. A gospel is an account that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Of or related to the written word, especially that which is considered literature; literary criticism is a interpretative method that has been adapted to biblical analysis. A collection of first-century Jewish and early Christian writings that, along with the Old Testament, makes up the Christian Bible. Of or belonging to any of several branches of Christianity, especially from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, whose adherents trace their tradition back to the earliest Christian communities. Lowercase ("orthodox"), this term means conforming with the dominant, sanctioned ideas or belief system. The version of the Bible used by churches in the Syriac tradition. Interpretation of a text that retrospectively inserts messianic themes or messages.

"The Protevangelium" usually refers to a messianic reading of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis so that it seems to predict Jesus as Messiah. An early Christian allegory from the first or second century C.E. that depicts visions appearing to a former slave. A dialect of Aramaic, common among a number of early Christian communities. An alternate spelling for "tel" meaning a mound or hill-shaped site containing several occupational layers one on top of the other over milennia. Browse by subject - click on a letter below. gospel - ReligionFacts ReligionFacts gospel Introduction to the Gospels The Christian New Testament is unique among the world's sacred texts in that it provides several accounts of the life of the religion's founder. These accounts are referred to as "Gospels," from the Old English word godspel, "good news." In Greek the books were called the evangelion, and their authors are correspondingly referred to as the "four evangelists." Gospels are not biographies of Jesus Christ in the modern sense of a detached, academic account of a person's life. In fact, this genre of literature was unknown to the ancient world.

Narratives were written to inspire, teach a lesson, warn, or persuade, not to simply inform. The purpose of the Gospel narratives seems to be twofold: to recount the events in the extraordinary life of Jesus, and do so in such a way that its hearers will respond in faith. The author of Gospel of John affirms the latter motivation explicitly: "Jesus did many other miraculous signs... But these are written that you may believe and that by believing you may have life in his name." {1} Although there are only four gospels in the canonical New Testament, a number of gospels were circulated in the early church - perhaps as many as 50. {2} We do not know for certain how or when Matthew, Mark, Luke and John came to be the only "orthodox" gospels, but early Christians writings provide us with some insight into the process and scholars have suggested a number of possibilities. This issue is discussed further below. The Synoptic Gospels The first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are known as the Synoptic Gospels, because they "see together" the events of Jesus' life and death.

The three narratives use similar language, material, and ordering of events, and sometimes even repeat one another verbatim (see for example Mt 9:2-8; Mk 2:3-12; and Lk 5:18-26). Mark's Gospel, the shortest of the three, appears almost in its entirety in the Gospel of Matthew, and 53 percent of Mark is found in Luke. The striking similarities and obvious sharing of material between the Synoptic Gospels has led biblical scholars to venture several possible solutions to this so-called "Synoptic Problem." The most common theory is that Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark and an additional document (now lost) called Quelle (German for "source"), or Q for short. But others have suggested that Matthew was the common source, or that each Gospel borrowed from the others and from well-established oral tradition, or some combination of these. {3} Why These Four? The choice of early Christians to label these four gospels "canonical" and "orthodox," and others "heretical" has been of increasing concern to scholars and the public alike in recent years.

Much of the hubub was sparked by Dan Brown's popular novel The Da Vinci Code, which questions the traditional distinction between "orthodoxy" and "heresy." On page , learned scholar Leigh Teabing explains to cryptologist Sophie Neveu: "Because Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke. Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned." This and many other claims made in the book have been discredited by scholars, but the above passage illustrates the growing skepticism that the four canonical gospels are in any way superior to noncanonical gospels.

Much more reputable sources, including works by Elaine Pagels of Princeton, Karen King of Harvard, and Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, challenge the traditional notion that noncanonical gospels such as the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene are little more than nonsense and heresy. Scholars have postulated a variety of reasons why only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were ultimately accepted as canonical. Some suggest that this decision was largely due to the need for church structure and organization and the corresponding attempts by early bishops to solidify their authority against those who would practice Christianity in their own way. Another major reason early church leaders seemed to have had for rejecting all but the four gospels is apostolic authority. Matthew and John were presumed to be written by Jesus' disciples of the same name. Although Mark and Luke were not apostles, they were believed to have had direct contact with the apostles Peter and Paul, respectively. The notion of apostolic succession and authority was very important to early church leaders, for it was seen as a way of ensuring the integrity of the gospel message was preserved after the deaths of eyewitnesses.

In fact, the Gospel of John was questioned for a time before being accepted because its authorship by the Apostle John was in some doubt. This emphasis on apostolic authority and authorship meant that only early writings were accepted. According to one scholar, "not a single document written after about 120 was ever considered for inclusion in the canon, not least because such documents were not written by people in direct touch with the apostolic tradition, much less with the apostles themselves." {4} The following excerpts from early "orthodox" writings illustrate the importance assigned to authorship of canonical texts: There is current also an epistle to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, both forged in Paul's name to further the heresy of Marcion, and several others which cannot be received into the catholic Church. {5} Another possible reason for the rejection of Gnostic and other gospels is they rarely referred to the Old Testament or its teachings. As New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins explains: "Gnostic exegetes were only interested in elaborating their mythic and theological speculations concerning the origins of the universe, not in appropriating a received canonical tradition. .

[By contrast] the Christian Bible originates in a hermeneutical framing of Jewish scriptures, so that they retain their canonical authority. {6} References - John 20:31, NIV. Francis E. Gigot, "Gospel and Gospels." Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910. "The Synoptic Gospels," NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, 1995), p. 1437. Ben Witherington III, "Why the 'Lost Gospels' Lost Out." Christianity Today, June 2004. Muratorian Canon (late 2nd cent. AD). As quoted in Witherington, op. cit. More Online Resources on the Gospels - Ben Witherington III, "Why the 'Lost Gospels' Lost Out." Christianity Today, June 2004. Francis E. Gigot, "Gospel and Gospels." Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910. Stephen C. Carlson, "The Synoptic Problem Home Page." Robert M. Grant, "The Gospels." A Historical Introduction to the New Testament. Harper & Row, 1963.

Online at Religion-Online.org. Article Info How Many Gospels Were There? How Many Gospels Were There? Peter Nathan The earliest record of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is within 80 years of the death of Jesus Christ. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), who claimed firsthand knowledge from the apostle John and other eyewitnesses, provided a reference to the four Gospels in a document written at the end of the first century or the beginning of the second. Papias’s works are now lost to history, but several writers of the second century quoted or paraphrased them. Irenaeus (140–200 C.E.), bishop of Lyon, came from the same area in Asia Minoras Papias. He states that he was taught by John’s disciple Polycarp, who also knew Papias. Irenaeus records that there were four Gospels that formed the “foundation and pillar of our faith” (Against Heresies 3.1)—the same four Gospels that are included in the New Testament to this day.

Just prior to the time of Irenaeus, Tatian, while residing in Rome, prepared his Diatessaron, a single account that harmonized all four Gospels. He returned to his home area in the east of the empire in about 172 and there translated his work into Syriac. Luke remarks that many other accounts were written (Luke 1:1–4), but by the end of the second century, numerous authors were recording the existence of only four Gospels as part of Scripture. The Muratorian Fragment, a listing of biblical books, as well as both Clement of Alexandria and Origen, writing from Egypt, provide witness to the universal acceptance of the four Gospels throughout the known world prior to the establishment of any central authority of orthodoxy. Eusebius, the fourth-century church historian (see “Eusebius Pamphilus: Father of Church History” ) also quotes Papias and his background to the writing of the Gospel of John (Ecclesiastical History 3). Scholars now think that Eusebius included many of Papias’s writings about the Gospels verbatim.

Papias had recorded that John wrote his account to fill in details of the ministry of Jesus prior to John the Baptist’s imprisonment, and also to combat the teachings of Cerinthus, a Gnostic teacher in Asia Minor. In so writing, Papias recorded that John acknowledged the authenticity of the other three Gospels. In fact, the four Gospel accounts that Christendom uses today owe their authority and place within the canon of Scripture to the statements of the apostle John. The record of history is that, by the end of the first century, those four Gospels were established as the only inspired accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It was not a decision left to the whim of Constantine or a later authority figure but arose from an apostle who had been an eyewitness of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Related Content

Question: How many canonical gospels are there in the New Testament?
Answer: FOUR