Peter Kirby

You can see some notes on the Gospel of the Hebrews here:

Work in progress on the Gospel of the Hebrews

And the primary source material here:

Wikisource: Gospel of the Hebrews

Now, after reading that, I'd like to get your feedback:

1. How many of these "Jewish gospels" (Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of the Nazoraeans, Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospel of the Apostles, Syriac Gospel, etc.) were there? One, two, three, more?

2. What material belongs to what we identify as "Gospel of the Hebrews," and what material to other Gospels?

3. What was the original language of the "Gospel of the Hebrews"?

4. What was the extent and genre of the "Gospel of the Hebrews"? What do you imagine was contained in parts not quoted?

5. What are the sources of the "Gospel of the Hebrews"? In particular, what is the relationship to the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and/or Thomas?

Thank you for taking time to consider this difficult problem.

kind thoughts,
Peter Kirby

S.C.Carlson

As far as I am aware, all these questions are very much open in scholarship, though A. J. Klijn has written quite a bit on the issue.

The major problem is a lack of data: only fragments have survived. Another problem is that we can't really trust the data we do have. For example, I suspect that quite a few of Jerome's cites, especially at first, were cribbed from earlier writers and were made without first-hand knowledge of the texts.

Most of the blind men looking at this elephant seem to think that there were 3 (possibly only 2) of these gospels, that it was originally written in Greek, that it was a synoptic-type gospel with additional apocryphal material, and that it is later than the synoptics. Without additional data, these are all guesses.

Yuri Kuchinsky

I think the Gospel of the Hebrews was simply the main gospel of various Semitic-speaking Christian groups, of which there were quite many.

The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (Howard's text) is the best surviving example of such a gospel.

All these names -- Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of the Nazoraeans, Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospel of the Apostles, Syriac Gospel, etc. -- may be referring to one and the same Semitic gospel tradition. This textual tradition probably underwent various mutations and expansions, in parallel to the similar mutations/expansions in the Greek textual tradition.

At some point (in mid-second century), the Semitic textual tradition of the gospels seems to have split into two branches,

1. a separate gospel tradition (as represented e.g. by the Hebrew Matthew).

2. the harmonised gospel tradition (as represented by various versions of the Diatessaron).

Regards

Ben C Smith

Peter, a couple of observations.

First, in those translations that came from my page it *might* be beneficial to go back and change Nazoraean to Nazarene in a couple of places. I noticed as soon as you posted your bit about the laser beams that my translations were quite sloppy in keeping up the various distinctions between Î?αζωÏ?αιοι, Nazaraei, and Nazareni, and I immediately went back and made the necessary changes to my page.

(On the other hand, this might be a very minor thing.)

Also, you have the following quote listed under Epiphanius on the sources page:

Tatian, a most erudite man and orator of that renowned time, put together one gospel from four, to which he attached the title Diapente. (preface in codex Fuldensis)

This line actually comes from Victor of Capua.

Ben.