Gospel: a novel is a 1993 novel by Wilton Barnhardt

Wilton Barnhardt

Wilton Barnhardt is a former reporter for Sports Illustrated and is the author of Emma Who Saved My Life , Gospel , and Show World ....

 focusing on the composition and discovery of a (fictional) noncanonical gospel. The author travelled extensively in Europe, the Middle East and Africa while researching it. Unusually, his acknowledgements contain not only expressions of gratitude, but also a faux-anathema

Anathema

Anathema originally meant something lifted up as an offering to the gods; it later evolved to mean:...

 against the credit-card company which cancelled his card while he was travelling in the Sudan.

Plot summary

The book contains two interwoven plots: the story of the gospel's author, set in the first century AD (who narrates his adventures in the form of the gospel itself); and a contemporary story surrounding Lucy Danton, a somewhat naive Roman Catholic seminary student, and Patrick O'Hanrahan, her maverick Jesuit professor, who together set out to recover that gospel.

The gospel's author is revealed to be Matthias

Matthias

Matthias is a name derived from the Greek Ματθιας, in origin similar to Matthew.See also: -People with the given name Matthias:Notable people named Matthias include the following:In nobility:* Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, King of Hungary...

, whom the Book of Acts describes as Judas's replacement. The fictional Gospel of Matthias

Gospel of Matthias

The Gospel of Matthias is a lost text from the New Testament apocrypha, ascribed to Matthias, the apostle chosen by lots to replace Judas Iscariot . The content has been surmised from various descriptions of it in ancient works by church fathers . There is too little evidence to decide whether a...

's descriptions of first-century Christianity are not always edifying, but often wittily call to mind contemporary religious movements. Readers ultimately learn that after his crucifixion, Jesus's body was smuggled to Egypt and mummified.