The Gospel of the Hebrews

Another long delay...but another problem solved (I think/hope).

I've been spending what spare time I could over the last months or so studying the problem of the Gospel of the Hebrews.  I think I've finally figured it out.  In brief:

There were originally two different gospels called "according to the Hebrews" (or similar phrasing).  One was used by a group called the Ebionites, the other by a group called the Nazarenes/Nazaraeans. The Ebionite gospel was written in Greek, and the Nazaraean gospel was written in Aramaic, and in Aramaic script (which resembles Hebrew script). This agrees with Petri Luomanen, though I disagree with Luomanen in that I think there was only one edition of the Ebionite gospel, i.e. the Greek one.

The first--the Ebionite gospel--was written in the voice of an apostle named "Matthew", and in turn spawned the canonical gospel of Matthew, possibly with the help of the Gospel of Peter.  (One or the other of these was also termed the "Gospel of the Twelve".)

It also spawned a second Aramaic gospel, the gospel of the Nazarenes, this time possibly with the help of canonical Matthew.  (Hegesippus may also have played a role.)  This gospel was a source for canonical Luke-Acts.

Otherwise, my hyper-synoptic diagram remains the same.  This pleases me. ETA: I have removed the diagram for this post, as the old one no longer represents my hypothesis. Please see my more recent posts for the relationship of GEbi and GNaz to the synoptics.

And actually, there is one other tie-in: Hegesippus, also written in Aramaic, and which should also be included as an influence on GNaz.  I'll add it sometime later.

This really opens up a lot of fascinating possibilities in terms of synoptic development--it's even possible I might revise one or two of my connectivity arrows altogether based on this new information, but for now I keep essentially the same structure.  And the first order of business will be going through the secondary Jewish-Christian gospel references one by one, assigning each to either GEbi or GNaz, and a few to Hegesippus (though some will remain indeterminate).

I'm afraid I don't have time for that right now and probably won't get to it for several days, but consider this a preview.  Hope you are all having a fine summer.  August will bring much more time for me.