Original Gospel
The original gospel is a hypothetical gospel that is said to have preceded the known four canonical gospels and from which in particular the three synoptics Mark , Luke and Matthew are said to have drawn when they wrote their gospels.
With the acceptance of such an original gospel it should be declared that despite the great agreement of the synoptic gospels in the basic features of their narration of the sayings and deeds of Jesus Christ, there are nevertheless deviations and variants that do not agree with one another. The original Gospel, according to the common assumption, only contained brief, cursory information, and these would have been further elaborated by the evangelists either independently or with reference to traditional material .
Ancient lore
The acceptance of an original Gospel written by the Apostle Matthew in the Hebrew or Aramaic language goes back to the representation of the early Christian church fathers . It is for this reason that the New Testament begins with the Gospel of Matthew . The most influential statement about an original Gospel written by Matthew comes from Eusebius of Caesarea , who in turn refers to Papias of Hierapolis :
“ So Matthew compiled the logia (of Jesus ) in the Hebrew language; But everyone interpreted it as best he could. "
Elsewhere Eusebius writes:
“Matthew, who first preached among the Hebrews, wrote the Gospel he preached in his mother tongue when he also wanted to go to other peoples; for he sought to replace those from whom he parted with what they had lost by his departure. "
Many other ecclesiastical authors of antiquity take a similar view. Augustine of Hippo writes about all four Gospels :
"... first Matthew, then Mark, as third Luke, last John."
“Of these four, in fact, only Matthew is believed to have written in Hebrew, the others in Greek. And even if it seems that each of them follows a personal order of the narrative, one must not assume that each individual writer would have decided to write in ignorance of what his predecessors had done. "
This assumption by the major church was opposed by divergent views of representatives of heterodox, often Gnostically influenced currents. The Gospel spread by Marcion is said to have been a version of the Gospel of Luke "cleaned up" by him; he rejected the other Gospels.
Tatian wrote a Gospel Harmony that was very widespread and read especially in the east of the Roman Empire. While this harmony was based on the four canonical gospels, according to Eusebius, who is based here on Hegesippus , remaining Jewish-Christian groups after 70 have used their own gospels ( Hebrew Gospel , Ebionite Gospel , Nazarene Gospel ). Their relationship to the assumed original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew remains unclear and contradictory in the ancient sources.
Modern research
In the 18th century the text-critical processing of the synoptic gospels began and with it the preoccupation with the synoptic problem . In research today it is certain that the canonical Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek , that is, did not exist in an original Hebrew form. The synoptics are interdependent. Today the two-source theory of the synoptic gospels, which was developed in the 19th century by, among others, Christian Hermann Weisse (1838) and Heinrich Julius Holtzmann (1863), is still the most widespread literary-critical hypothesis of the New Testament that tries to explain the dependencies . According to her, Luke and Matthew are each dependent on the Gospel of Mark and a lost source of verses ("Q"), which contained a collection of sayings and sayings of Jesus. Like the original gospel, the existence of this source of the logia Q cannot be historically proven.
Discrepancy and proposed solutions
The statements of the ancient church fathers and the results of modern biblical research did not fit together in many points, which is why different hypotheses were put forward to reconcile these discrepancies. These proposed solutions also include so-called original gospel hypotheses, which are based on a non-canonical, first gospel.
Richard Simon suspected that the Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel of Matthew was identical to the Gospel of Nazarene. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing hypothesized in 1778 that the four canonical gospels developed from the Hebrew Nazarene Gospel. The Griesbach hypothesis or two gospel theory tried to support the traditional church teaching derived from the statements of Eusebius. It is therefore based on Matthew as the first Gospel on which the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Mark, which has been greatly abbreviated, were based. The order mentioned by Augustine is thus slightly changed. Johann Gottfried Eichhorn suspected in 1804 that the Aramaic original gospel had been available to the three synoptics in different forms. The Farrer hypothesis , which turns against the two-source theory, starts like this with the short Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Matthew and of both the Gospel of Luke depend on him.
Other theories interpret the statement of Papias in a figurative sense. Matthew did not write in Hebrew, but only in the Hebrew style. Others suspected that Matthew wrote not one but two Gospels, including a lost one in Hebrew.
The original gospel today
Three new approaches start again from an original gospel : James R. Edwards considers the lost original gospel of Matthew to be the only source of all Jewish Christian gospels. It is also the basis of the special material of the Gospel of Luke (source "L", i.e. material that does not appear in the other Synoptics).
Judas Phatre assumes that the original source of the spell was not only lost, but was actively suppressed by the church, because the teaching of Jesus documented in it was more related to the Gnosis , which the church rejected. That is why the statements from the logia source acceptable to the church flowed into the synoptics, other logia were changed or excluded, and further sayings were invented. The text that best fits this adopted by Phatre saying source is the rediscovered Gospel of Thomas , which probably originally bore no author's name. According to Phatre, the fact that several canonical gospels, some of which differ from one another, were recognized was also a targeted measure to make the actual original gospel one among many and thus reduce its importance.
Regardless of this, others believe that a traditional original gospel was available around 50 and contained the original passion story , which was incorporated into all other gospels. An early Passion narrative from the time before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple , which was used by both Mark and (possibly in a different version) by John, is also assumed by numerous researchers who continue to support the two-source theory.
Footnotes
- ↑ Eusebius: Church History III, 39
- ↑ Eusebius: Church History III, 24
- ^ JR Edwards: The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. Grand Rapids 2009, p. 2 ff.
- ^ De consensu evangelistarum I, 2,3
- ^ De consensu evangelistarum I, 2,4
- ^ H. Owen: Observations on the Four Gospels. London 1764, pp. 53-75
- ↑ JJ Griesbach: Commentatio qua Marci evangelium totum e Matthaei et Lucae commentariis decerptum esse monstratur. Jena 1789
- ^ H. Olshausen: Biblical Commentary on all the writings of the New Testament. 2nd edition, Volume 1, Königsberg 1833, p. 14 f.
- ^ H. Koester: Ancient Christian Gospels. Their History and Development. London 1990, p. 318
- ^ CH Weisse: The evangelical history worked critically and philosophically. Two volumes, Leipzig 1838
- ^ R. Simon: Histoire critique des versions du Nouveau Testament. Rotterdam 1689
- ↑ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: New hypothesis about the evangelists regarded as merely human historians.
- ↑ JG Eichhorn: Introduction to the New Testament. Göttingen 1804–1814, 3 volumes
- ↑ AM Farrer: On Dispensing with Q. In DE Nineham (Ed.): Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of RH Lightfoot. Oxford 1955, pp. 55–88, available under Archived Copy ( Memento of the original dated February 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Josef Kurzinger: Papias of Hierapolis and the Gospels of the New Testament. Regensburg 1983, p. 21.
- ↑ E. Nicholson: The Gospel according to the Hebrews. 1879
- ^ JR Edwards: The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. Grand Rapids 2009
- ↑ J. Phatre (the author's name is the pseudonym of a writer who remained unknown): The good news of the ogre . Norderstedt 2014
- ↑ Matthias Heine : Jesus never rose - because he did not die. In: Die Welt , January 28, 2019, accessed on the same day.
