The Jewish-Christian Gospels, pt. 3: The Ebionite and Nazaraean Gospels in Eusebius

5. Eusebius also seems to have known the Nazaraean gospel, at least, but may also have known the Ebionite one.

A Simpler HSH: The Core of my Argument

I'm not quite done talking about the Gospel(s) of the Hebrews, but before I finish, I wanted to make another adjustment to the HSH, based on my most recent thinking.

While carefully examining the fragmentary information I had assigned to the Nazaraean gospel, I realized that GNaz might just as easily have post-dated GLuke. If it did, then it seemed we might as well remove it from the HSH, since it serves no role as a source for the canonical gospels, and the purpose of the HSH is to explain the canonical gospels' composition. That would simplify the HSH considerably.

But then I realized that Coptic GTh had no role in the HSH either, since it is a kind of late offshoot of the earlier Greek GTh, and only Greek GTh influenced the canonical gospels. So we could remove GTh from our diagram as well.

And now that I have reversed the placement of GPet with GEbi, I began to question GPet's placement within the HSH as well. Might not it also post-date GMatt and GLuke as well?

I relalized that removing these documents from the HSH diagram also had a didactic purpose; it simplified the HSH to its essential arguments, making it easier to present to others. So, I began systematically removing them and their links from the HSH diagram, to see how it might look.

The Jewish-Christian Gospels, pt. 2: The Nazaraean Gospel in Alexandria

After a year of life-changes (graduate degree, new job, new city), it's finally time to start posting again. I'll continue my series on the Jewish-Christian gospels and the documents known as the "Gospel of the Hebrews". So, picking up where I left off:

4. The Alexandrian school (Clement, Origen, and Didymus) also seems to have known the Nazaraean gospel, but indirectly.

Rosson re: The Secret Gospel

Loren Rosson has posted some thoughts about Secret Mark. Tony Burke has already replied; I thought I would add some observations.

The Jewish-Christian Gospels, pt. 1: Ebionites and Nazaraeans

I've been promising this for a long time, so I better finally deliver :)

To explain the identification of Q with GEbi, and of both GEbi and GNaz (and perhaps GPet) with "GHeb", we'll need to sort out the evidence regarding these gospels and their relationships with not only GMt but also GLk-Ac. This will take several posts. I largely draw on Ben Smith's extremely helpful pages on the Jewish-Christian Gospels (helpfully indexed here), but augment this occasionally with material from elsewhere. I do not really rely on any one study of these gospels (such as Klijn or Luomanen) because I think that so far, no one has sorted out these gospels quite right. I believe that the HSH will help us see the true relationships.

I generally use Ben Smith's translations, but rely on Frank Williams' translation of Epiphanius. I copy the Greek from Ben Smith as well, who does not use diacritical marks. When translating the phrase "according to the Hebrews", I place it in quotation marks: otherwise when referring to it I use acc. Heb.

(ETA: fixed the translations from Jerome--I had accidentally deleted an intermediary block.)

So, let's begin with our first observation:

1. The gospel of the Ebionites, and that of the Nazareans, were different texts, as nearly all scholars now recognize.

A Home for GEbi, and a Solution for Q

ETA: In 2010, I began identifying Q with the Gospel of Peter, and both with the Gospel of the Hebrews. Later that year, I distinguished between GPet and GHeb, but continued to identify the former with Q. 

Over the years, my thinking on this evolved considerably, until late in 2013, I realized I had it wrong: Q is to be identified with GEbi and (one version of) GHeb. GPet was posterior to Q/GEbi.

This post, and several earlier posts, have been edited to reflect this realization. I have tried to note where I had made edits.

This is the post in which I first identified Q with GEbi. Some material has been removed; one bullet point has been added, as noted below.

A Brief Plug for the Next York University Symposium

Sadly, I probably won't be able to attend, due to constraints of time and finances, but the second York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium will take place next month, and I encourage anyone reading this to attend. The first one was terrifically engaging and of very high quality, and produced a stellar proceedings, and this year's efforts look sure to be the equal of the first.

Were I to attend, I'd probably single out the following events: