User talk:Ignocrates/JCGSA

Traditional View (1GH)


The traditional view is exemplified by this 1898 religious encyclopedia which recognizes only one Jewish–Christian gospel known as the Gospel of the Hebrews. Ignocrates (talk) 21:25, 19 April 2013 (UTC)



Nicholson provides a good example of the traditional view of a single Jewish–Christian gospel known as the Gospel of the Hebrews. He envisioned that the textual differences could be explained as multiple recensions of the same gospel. Ignocrates (talk) 19:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Transitional View (2GH)


The New Testament Apocrypha 1st German Edition has two Jewish–Christian gospels: the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites. Ignocrates (talk) 18:50, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Alfred Schmidtke was one of the first scholars to describe a Gospel of the Ebionites composed in Greek as a separate text from an Aramaic Gospel of the Hebrews, which he interpreted to be a targumic translation of the canonical Gospel of Matthew. Schmidtke was the first to combine the "Judaicon" sayings from the marginal notes of copies of the Gospel of Matthew with the Aramaic text used by the Nazoraeans known to Jerome. This construction was incorporated by Waitz in his 3GH hypothesis as the Gospel of the Nazoraeans. Ignocrates (talk) 18:18, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Bernhard Pick's book Paralipomena has two Jewish–Christian gospels. Pick's Gospel of the Ebionites is based on the quotations of Epiphanius; it is the same as the modern consensus. His Gospel of the Hebrews contains a mixture of sayings from the Greek Gospel of the Hebrews known to Origen and the Aramaic gospel used by the Nazoraeans known to Jerome. Ignocrates (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Standard View (3GH)

 * (3rd German edition, translated by George Ogg)
 * (3rd German edition, translated by George Ogg)

The trajectory of the three key references is as follows: Waitz --> Vielhauer --> Klijn. Most other sources in the 20th century either echo these references or respond to them with slight nuances. I will detail the rare exceptions later. It's important to understand how instrumental Hans Waitz was in establishing the 3GH hypothesis. Ignocrates (talk) 20:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Petri Luomanen (2012) provides a cogent explanation of how the three key references cited above relate to each other in succession (see below). Ignocrates (talk) 00:45, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Provisional View (3GH?)


In a return to the traditional view, Schmidt argued that there was only one Jewish–Christian gospel, probably composed in Aramaic c. 100 AD. This journal article is frequently cited in literature reviews in more recent scholarship. Mimouni and Lührmann challenged the 3GH consensus and proposed a return to the two-gospel hypothesis by combining quotations from the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Nazoraeans. Ignocrates (talk) 01:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Hans-Josef Klauck accurately summarized the changing state of the field from 1998 to 2003 when he cautiously supported the 3GH hypothesis but questioned whether the Gospel of the Nazoraeans was a real text or merely a scholarly construct. Ignocrates (talk) 17:24, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Revisional View (?GH)


Since Klauck's cautious appraisal, scholars have become even more divided on a consensus of two, three, or possibly more Jewish–Christian gospels. (There is a consensus that a single Jewish–Christian gospel cannot account for the quotations of two independent baptismal theophanies.)

Craig A. Evans (2007) departed from conventional wisdom by contending that an assignment of quotations to different gospels was best accomplished by grouping them with the Church Fathers most closely associated with them: Epiphanius, Origen, and Jerome.

In a survey of the literature, Andrew Gregory (2008) acknowledged the majority status of the 3GH but argued that the 2GH is also a plausible minority hypothesis. Gregory made a significant rebuttal to Klauck's assertion that there were three distinct baptismal scenarios (p.57); he pointed out that the pericope of Jesus questioning whether he should be baptized could have immediately preceded the baptismal theophany in the same gospel. (My clarification: the gospel containing both pericopes could therefore be either the GHeb or GNaz.)

Bart Ehrman (2011) summarized the current uncertain state of the field, even while reaffirming the assignments made to the gospel fragments by Klijn (1992). Ignocrates (talk) 19:44, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Recent developments


In a significant departure from the 3GH assignment of quotations made by Vielhauer (1963) and reaffirmed Klijn (1992), Jörg Frey's analysis of the Jewish–Christian gospels in the 7th German Edition of the New Testament Apocrypha (2012) includes in brackets the "Judaicon" sayings from the marginal notes of manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew as part of the Gospel of the Nazoraeans. Ignocrates (talk) 21:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

In a repudiation of the reasoning behind the 3GH hypothesis, Petri Luomanen (2012) argues that Hans Waitz (1924) based his 3GH hypothesis on the assumption that a targumic Aramaic translation of the canonical gospel of Matthew must have existed; he then sought, following Schmidtke, to recover it from the quotations of Jerome and the marginal notes of the "Judaicon" manuscripts. The presumption of an Aramaic Gospel of Matthew was modified only slightly by Vielhaur, who sought to recreate an Aramaic gospel by assigning fragments to it that were "like Matthew". As Luomanen has previously pointed out, the Gospel of Thomas has many sayings that are "like Matthew", so the presumption that a Gospel of the Hebrews would exclude material of this type is based on a logical fallacy. While a 3GH hypothesis may ultimately be correct, the assignment or exclusion of fragments based on how much they are "like Matthew" is arbitrary and cannot be used as a criterion to determine the specific content of the Gospel of the Hebrews. Ignocrates (talk) 23:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)