Talk:Gospel Book

Removed sentence
I removed the sentence "It was produced for the Roman Catholic Church for masses." I feel that this was inaccurate or at least incomplete for several reasons. Many Gospel Books were produced by the Eastern church which can not be considered "Roman Catholic". Many of the more famous Gospel Books (Book of Kells, Book of Durrow, Lindisfarne Gospels) were produced by the Celtic Church which was most decidedly not Roman Catholic (see Synod of Whitby). Finally, although the most common use was reading during Mass, there were liturgucal readings from the Gospel that were not part of the Mass. Dsmdgold 23:14, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Current use section
I have added a section on the current use of the Book of the Gospels in the Roman Catholic liturgy. If there is a similar use in Anglican or Orthodox services, please add this. Essjay (talk) 15:42, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)


 * This is all very good information. How are current Roman Catholic Gospel Books organized? Do they start at the begininning of Matthew and run through the end of John? Do they include additional introductions ot tables of readings? I am curious as to when the practice of using a seperate Gospel Book was revived by Roman Catholics. In the Middle ages, Gospel Books quit being produced in the Western Church in about the 12th century. (They were largely replaced by Pericopes, or Gospel lectionaries.)  Is this a post-Vatican II thing? As for Anglican practice, the churches I have been a member of either read from the Book of Common Prayer, or from a Bible. I am planning a fairly major expansion of the medieval section. (Although it might be a while before I get to it) When I do get to it, perhaps the two sections should be split into two articles, since one part will about liturgical use, and the other will be written from the Art historical stand-point Dsmdgold 17:00, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)


 * They follow the same schedule as the Lectionary; they are meant to be a complement to the Lectionary, not a substitute. They typically also include the prayers said before and after reading the Gospel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Essjay (talk • contribs) 14:05, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Order of sections
Yes, this is the English Wikipedia. That doesn't justify the ordering insisted on here. Eastern Christianity indeed conducts its services in English where it exists in English-speaking countries and is not serving primarily an immigrant community. The Gospel Book on my own parish's altar is the KJV.

I suspect (although I do not know, since I'm not the one who made it this way) that the ordering was based on the relative importance of the Gospel Book in modern practice within each tradition. In Western Christianity it's only seen at the Mass and isn't required even then. In Eastern Christianity you would only do without it in extreme circumstances, and it occupies a central place both metaphorically and literally.

This is at least as valid a criterion for deciding on the order of the sections as which group has a numerically larger English-language presence. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Not at all, I moved the Western section above the Eastern when the Eastern became several times longer. If you want to see the Eastern section and don't navigate from the contents box you only have to read a relatively brief piece; not so the other way round. The relevance of this being the English Wiki is that clearly a majority of readers will have a closer relationship, of whatever kind, with the Western tradition than with the Eastern. Various denominations from the Western traditions will use Russian or Greek etc Gospel books in their services locally, but I would not dream of suggesting that the Western tradition should come first in those Wikis. Johnbod 00:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge from Evangeliarium
I added a tag to this page recommending the info on the seperate article Evangeliarium me merged into this page. The title "Gospel Book" is probably less obscure than "Evangeliarum". Does anyone have any suggestions? MishaPan (talk) 22:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I would oppose this as the two book types are really separate things. The core of a Gospel Book starts at Matthew 1:1 and proceeds all the way through the four Gospels in order. An Evangeliarium contains the readings for the mass in the liturgical order, so that a reading from Matthew may be followed by a reading from John which is followed by one from Mark, which is then followed by one from Matthew, etc. The readings are relatively short sections that usually tell one event. The Gospel Book in the medieval period had quite a few traditional supplementary texts that are often not found in the Evangeliaria. The difference in the two book types could be made more clear in both articles. Dsmdgold (talk) 23:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. There is a case to rename Evangeliarium (latin) to Evangeliary (English), but these are quite different from Gospel books. One is a liturgical compilation, the other the full texts. I think I'll remove the tags now - I only just noticed this. Johnbod (talk) 23:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't believe this distinction can be maintained. Currently available products which describe themselves as "Book of the Gospels" are laid out liturgically, not continuously (see this example); GIRM (see §44) uses the two terms interchangeably; and even this article states (of Eastern usage) that "The Gospel Book contains the readings that are used at Matins, the Divine Liturgy, Molebens, and other services. Among the Greeks the Gospel Book is laid out in order of the cycle of readings as they occur in the ecclesiastical year …". The term "Evangeliary" is similarly ambiguous: the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church explicitly gives both definitions of the word. I am tagging both articles accordingly. Vilĉjo (talk) 15:01, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There is some overlap, especially perhaps in modern usage, but there are two kinds of books, which are best not muddled together in one article. Both articles mostly concentrate on older examples, where the distinction is much clearer. Stuff should be added to both leads, and the Orthodox section probably belongs in "Evangeliary" - as the article points out, the Greek term is Εὐαγγέλιον, although older Greek examples were, as in the West, full text. I find it hard to believe that full-text Gospel-only volumes are not "currently available products", though clearly the full bible has been the norm since printing made them cheap. This for example.   Johnbod (talk) 15:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * As you say, there does historically (i.e. before the advent of mass-production printing) appear to have been a distinction. But I think it is quite misleading for either article to suggest that such a terminological distinction still obtains today (or indeed at any time in the past several decades, at the very least). While I am not (necessarily, or not yet) arguing for a merger of the articles, the statement of the distinction in the lead of both articles is wrong, other than purely historically. And no, I do not know of any currently-available books describing themselves as "Gospel Book" or "Book of [the] Gospels" which are laid out continuously – I'd be interested to learn of any examples! I obviously wasn't suggesting that you can't get a copy of the gospels by themselves (like the one you link to), but rather that no-one – publisher or reader – is likely to think of such a publication as a "Gospel Book" or "Book of the Gospels". The meaning of such a term, I would humbly submit, is pretty much settled, and specifically signifies a liturgical book. Besides the one I linked to (because you can see sample pages on-line), I know of three other such examples, as well as use of the term with that sense in liturgical reference books and books of ceremonial. Vilĉjo (talk) 16:11, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

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