Lost Jewish Gospels Overview

ORIGINS

• Early church fathers (especially Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Epiphanius, Jerome, and Didymus the Blind) knew of a Jewish-Christian gospel and sometimes even quoted from it

• They believed there to be only one extra-canonical Jewish gospel that was somehow connected to the original Hebrew or Aramaic canonical Gospel of Matthew

  • The early church believed that Matthew was written in Hebrew or Aramaic

• This gospel was connected with the Nazaraeans and Ebionites

  • The Sect of the Nazarenes:

    • A sect of Christians that believed both in the divinity of Jesus and observed the Torah.

    • Not another word for the catholic orthodox Christian church (Acts 24:5)

    • Not the contemporary Wesleyan denomination the Church of the Nazarene 

  • The Sect of the Ebionites:

    • Named after the Hebrew ebyonim or ebionim (“the poor”)

    • Not named after an Ebion (a person purported to be the founder of the sect by church fathers and who would have lived during the second century

    • A sect of Christians who believed…

      • Jesus was the Messiah

    • They rejected:

      • Jesus’ divinity

      • Jesus’ virgin birth (they believed he was Joseph’s biological son)

    • They also observed the Torah and chose to live in poverty, not eat meat or sacrifice animals, and did not do ritual cleansings

• Scholars now reject the idea that Jewish Christians only used one gospel 

THE GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS

• Date: 100-200

• Sect: Jewish

• Provence: Egypt

• Original Language: Greek

• References: Clement, Origen, Jerome, and maybe Didymus the Blind

• Doesn’t show any relationship with the Gospel of Matthew

pgs. 9-10

2. The Holy Spirit is referred to as Jesus’ mother. This contrasts with the orthodox Christian teaching found in the New Testament that explains the Spirit as proceeding from the Father through Jesus (compare with Gregory of Nazanianzus who says that Adam, Eve, and Seth are like an image of the Trinity).

4. James the Just (and brother of Jesus) vows not to eat until he sees Jesus rise from the dead; when Jesus rises, he breaks bread for him and gives it to him. In contrast to the Canonical Gospels referencing James being a non-believer early in Jesus’ ministry (we don’t know when he believed), he is portrayed as expecting his brother to rise from the dead.

6. The Holy Spirit rests on Jesus and calls him “Son” at his baptism (but there is no reference to the Father). Not only is Jesus proceeding from the Holy Spirit now, but the Father is out of the mix.

THE GOSPEL OF THE NAZARAEANS

• Date: 100-150

• Sect: Jewish

• Provence: Israel-Palestine

• Original Language: Aramaic

• References: Jerome

• Original Names: The Gospel of Matthew; The Gospel of the Apostles; The Gospel of the Jews?

• Supposed to have a source similar to the Hebrew original of Matthew

pgs. 10-14

1. After discussing how to obtain eternal life with the rich young ruler, Jesus refers to the law to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Jesus points out that many of his brothers are in filth and dying of hunger, while he has goods. This explains why Jesus commanded the rich man to give up what he had: it was because of all the people in need, while he had everything he needed.

3. In the Parable of the Talents, the last servant doesn’t hide the talent but spends it on harlots, flute girls, and getting drunk, and is thrown into prison. This changes a canonical parable to make it more about a servant using his master’s money for licentiousness rather than not using it at all.

7. Jesus teaches to pray for “tomorrow’s bread of the kingdom” instead of today’s. Jesus commands people to pray for more than what is needed rather than just enough (see the Lord’s Prayer). While removing Jesus’ implicit reference to mana by asking only for bread today, it still calls it “the bread of which you will give us in your kingdom”.

13. Jesus’ mother and brothers say they should all be baptized for the forgiveness of sins by John the Baptizer, but Jesus asks what sin he committed that he should need to be baptized by John. While this seems to ease over the story in the gospels (Why would Jesus even need to be baptized if he had no sin?), it actually takes away from a crucial event in his ministry. Even if hard to understand, his baptism was his anointing.

13. When Jesus responds to Peter that he should forgive up to 70x7, he says that the prophets sinned in what they said, even after the Holy Spirit anointed them. Apparently, it is because even the holy saints from the Old Testament sinned (in what they said?) and failed that we ought to recognize our own sins and forgive others much.

THE GOSPEL OF THE EBIONITES

• Date: 100-150

• Sect: Ebionite

• Provence: Transjordan

• References: Epiphanius

• Original Names: The Gospel of the Twelve?

• Based on the three Synoptic Gospels

pgs. 14-16

7. Jesus says that he came to abolish sacrifices and that if the people don’t stop sacrificing, God’s wrath will be upon them. This is to make the Ebionite argument against sacrifices. Notice the lack of any explicit arguments against sacrificing in the canonical gospels.

8. Jesus says before the Passover: “I have no desire to eat the flesh of this Paschal Lamb with you”. Based on the fact that none of the canonical gospels refer to Jesus eating the Passover lamb, this takes that missed detail and makes it explicit: it's because he was altogether against sacrifices.