Gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

s are a genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 of Early Christian literature claiming to recount the life of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

, to preserve His teachings, or to reveal aspects of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

's nature. The development of the New Testament canon

Development of the New Testament canon

The Canon of the New Testament is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible. For most, it is an agreed-upon list of twenty-seven books that includes the Canonical Gospels, Acts, letters of the Apostles, and Revelation...

 has left four canonical Gospels which are accepted as the only authentic ones by the great majority of Christians, but many others exist, or used to exist, and are called Apocrypha

Apocrypha

The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....

l. Some of these have left considerable traces on Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 traditions, including iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

.

Completely preserved Gospels

1. Gospel of Mark
   Gospel of Mark
   The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
   
    (canonical
   Biblical canon
   A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
   
   )
2. Gospel of Matthew
   Gospel of Matthew
   The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
   
    (canonical
   Biblical canon
   A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
   
   )
3. Gospel of Luke
   Gospel of Luke
   The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
   
    (canonical
   Biblical canon
   A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
   
   )
4. Gospel of John
   Gospel of John
   The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
   
    (canonical
   Biblical canon
   A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
   
   )
5. Gospel of Thomas
   Gospel of Thomas
   The Gospel According to Thomas, commonly shortened to the Gospel of Thomas, is a well preserved early Christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library...
   
   
6. Gospel of Truth
   Gospel of Truth
   The Gospel of Truth is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices . It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subachmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first codex and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth.-History:The Gospel of Truth was...
   
   
7. Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians
   Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians
   Two versions of the formerly lost Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, also inappropriately called the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians , were among the codices in the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945.The main contents concern the Sethian Gnostic understanding of how the earth came into...
   
   
8. Gospel of Nicodemus
   Acts of Pilate
   The Acts of Pilate , also called the Gospel of Pilate, is a book of New Testament apocrypha. The dates of its accreted sections are uncertain, but scholars agree in assigning the resulting work to the middle of the fourth century...
   
    (also known as the "Acts of Pilate")
9. Gospel of Barnabas
   Gospel of Barnabas
   The Gospel of Barnabas is a book depicting the life of Jesus, and claiming to be by Jesus' disciple Barnabas, who in this work is one of the twelve apostles...
   
   
10. Gospel of Gamaliel
    Gamaliel
    Gamaliel the Elder , or Rabban Gamaliel I , was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the mid 1st century CE. He was the grandson of the great Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder, and died twenty years before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem...
    
    

Infancy Gospels

1. Gospel of the Nativity of Mary
2. Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
   Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
   The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is a part of the New Testament apocrypha, and sometimes goes by the name of The Infancy Gospel of Matthew, but the actual name of the text in antiquity was The Book About the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior...
   
   
3. Infancy Gospel of Thomas
   Infancy Gospel of Thomas
   The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is a pseudepigraphical gospel about the childhood of Jesus that dates to the 2nd and 3rd centuries. It was part of a popular genre of biblical work, written to satisfy a hunger among early Christians for more miraculous and anecdotal stories of the childhood of Jesus...
   
   
4. Infancy Gospel of James
5. Arabic Infancy Gospel
   Arabic Infancy Gospel
   The Syriac Infancy Gospel is one of the texts found in the New Testament apocrypha concerning the infancy of Jesus. It may have been compiled as early as the sixth century, and was based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and Protevangelium of James.-Contents:...
   
   
6. Syriac Gospel of the Boyhood of our Lord Jesus

Partially preserved Gospels

1. Gospel of Judas
   Gospel of Judas
   The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic gospel that purportedly documents conversations between the Disciple Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ.It is believed to have been written by Gnostic followers of Jesus, rather than by Judas himself, and probably dates from no earlier than the 2nd century, since it...
   
   
2. Gospel of Peter
   Gospel of Peter
   The Gospel According to Peter , commonly called the Gospel of Peter, is one of the non-Canonical gospels which were rejected by the Church Fathers and the Catholic Church's synods of Carthage and Rome, which established the New Testament canon, as apocryphal...
   
   
3. Gospel of Mary
   Gospel of Mary
   The Gospel of Mary is an apocryphal book discovered in 1896 in a 5th-century papyrus codex. The codex Papyrus Berolinensis 8502 was purchased in Cairo by German scholar Karl Reinhardt....
   
   
4. Gospel of Philip
   Gospel of Philip
   The Gospel of Philip is one of the Gnostic Gospels, a text of New Testament apocrypha, dating back to around the third century but lost to modern researchers until an Egyptian peasant rediscovered it by accident, buried in a cave near Nag Hammadi, in 1945...
   
   

Fragmentary preserved Gospels

1. Dialogue of the Saviour
   Dialogue of the Saviour
   The Dialogue of the Saviour is one of the New Testament apocrypha texts that was found within the Nag Hammadi library of predominantly gnostic texts. The text appears only once in a single Coptic codex, and is heavily damaged...
   
   
2. Papyrus Egerton 2
   Egerton Gospel
   The Egerton Gospel refers to a group of papyrus fragments of a codex of a previously unknown gospel, found in Egypt and sold to the British Museum in 1934; the physical fragments are now dated to the very end of the 2nd century AD, although the date of composition is less clear – perhaps 50-100 AD...
   
   
3. Gospel of Eve
   Gospel of Eve
   The Gospel of Eve is a currently almost entirely lost text from the New Testament apocrypha, which may be the same as the also lost Gospel of Perfection...
   
   
4. Fayyum Fragment
   Fayyum Fragment
   The Fayyum Fragment is a papyrus fragment containing text that could be from part of the New Testament, and consists of only about 100 Greek letters...
   
   
5. Gospel of Mani
   Gospel of Mani
   The Living Gospel was a 3rd century gnostic gospel written by Mani. It was originally written in Syriac and called the Evangelion , from the Greek: Ευαγγελιον and one of the seven original scriptures of Manichaeism...
   
   
6. Oxyrhynchus Gospels
   Oxyrhynchus Gospels
   The Oxyrhynchus Gospels are two fragmentary manuscripts , discovered among the rich finds of discarded papyri at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt...
   
   
7. Gospel of the Saviour (also known as the Unknown Berlin gospel)
8. Gospel of the Twelve
   Gospel of the Twelve
   The Gospel of the Twelve , possibly also referred to as the Gospel of the Apostles, is a lost gospel mentioned by Origen in Homilies in Luke as part of a list of heretical works.-Gospel of the Twelve :...
   
   

Reconstructed Gospels

1. Gospel of the Ebionites
   Gospel of the Ebionites
   Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given to the description by Epiphanius of Salamis of a gospel used by the Ebionites. All that is known of the gospel text consists of seven brief quotations found in Chapter 30 of a heresiology written by Epiphanius known as the Panarion...
   
   
2. Gospel of the Egyptians
   Greek Gospel of the Egyptians
   The Greek Gospel of the Egyptians is a Gnostic religious text. Its title is adopted from its opening line.- Dating :The suppressed Greek Gospel of the Egyptians, , perhaps written in the second quarter of the 2nd century, was already cited in Clement of Alexandria's miscellany, the...
   
   
3. Gospel of the Hebrews
   Gospel of the Hebrews
   The Gospel of the Hebrews , commonly shortened from the Gospel according to the Hebrews or simply called the Hebrew Gospel, is a hypothesised lost gospel preserved in fragments within the writings of the Church Fathers....
   
   
4. Secret Gospel of Mark
   Secret Gospel of Mark
   The Secret Gospel of Mark is a putative non-canonical Christian gospel known exclusively from the Mar Saba letter, which describes Secret Mark as an expanded version of the canonical Gospel of Mark with some episodes elucidated, written for an initiated elite.In 1973 Morton Smith , professor of...
   
   
5. 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...
   
   
6. Gospel of the Nazoraeans
   Gospel of the Nazoraeans
   The Gospel of the Nazarenes is the traditional but hypothetical name given by some scholars to distinguish some of the references to, or citations of, non-canonical Jewish-Christian Gospels extant in patristic writings from other citations believed to derive from different Gospels.-Collation into...
   
   
7. Gospel of Q (also known as the "Q document")
8. Signs Gospel
   Signs Gospel
   The Signs Gospel is a hypothetical gospel account of the life of Jesus Christ. Some scholars believe it to be a primary source document for the Gospel of John. This theory has its basis in source criticism...
   
   
9. Cross Gospel

Lost Gospels

1. Gospel of Bartholomew
   Gospel of Bartholomew
   The Gospel of Bartholomew is a missing text amongst the New Testament apocrypha, mentioned in several early sources. It may be identical to either the Questions of Bartholomew, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ , or neither....
   
   
2. Gospel of the Seventy
   Gospel of the Seventy
   The Gospel of the Seventy is a currently lost text from the New Testament apocrypha. The title of the text refers to the number of disciples sent by Jesus to preach, in Luke's Gospel. See Seventy Disciples, quoted in some manuscrpits as 72....
   
   
3. Gospel of the Four Heavenly Realms
   Gospel of the Four Heavenly Realms
   The Gospel of the Four Heavenly Realms is a currently lost text from the New Testament apocrypha.The content has been surmised from various descriptions of it in ancient works by church fathers...
   
   
4. Gospel of Perfection
   Gospel of Perfection
   The Gospel of Perfection is a currently lost text from the New Testament apocrypha. The text is mentioned in ancient anti-heretical works by the church fathers. It is thought to be a gnostic text of the Ophites, and is believed by some to be the same as the Gospel of Eve, though the words of Saint...
   
   
5. Gospel of Marcion
   Gospel of Marcion
   The Gospel of Marcion, called by its adherents the Gospel of the Lord, was a text used by the mid-2nd century Christian teacher Marcion to the exclusion of the other gospels...
   
   
6. Gospel of Basilides
   Gospel of Basilides
   The Gospel of Basilides is a "lost" text from the New Testament apocrypha by Basilides, mentioned by Origen, Jerome, Ambrose, Philip of Side, and the Venerable Bede. It was composed in Egypt around 120 to 140 AD. In all likelihood, this gospel was compiled of canonical gospels, the text being...
   
   
7. Gospel of Andrew
   Gospel of Andrew
   The Gospel of Andrew is a gospel mentioned by Innocent I and Augustine. It is perhaps identical with the Acts of Andrew....
   
   
8. Gospel of Apelles
   Apelles (gnostic)
   Little is known about Apelles . He was a disciple of Marcion, probably at Rome, but left the Marcionite society...
   
   
9. Gospel of Cerinthus
   Gospel of Cerinthus
   The Gospel of Cerinthus is a lost gospel used by Cerinthus and by Carpocrates. According to Epiphanius, this is a Jewish Gospel identical to the Gospel of the Ebionites and, apparently, is a truncated version of Matthew's Gospel according to the Hebrews. Bardy calls it a "Judaizing rather than...
   
   
10. Gospel of Bardesanes
11. Gospel of the Encratites
    Encratites
    The Encratites were an ascetic 2nd century sect of Christians who forbade marriage and counselled abstinence from meat. Eusebius says that Tatian was the author of this heresy...
    
    
12. Gospel of the Gnostics
13. Gospel of Hesychius
    Hesychius
    Hesychius , may refer to:*Hesychius of Alexandria, lexicographer*St. Hesychius of Cazorla, saint, martyr, and bishop*Hesychius of Jerusalem, presbyter and exegete*Hesychius of Sinai, hieromonk and Byzantine author*Hesychius of Antioch...
    
    
14. Gospel of Lucius
    Lucius
    Lucius is a male given name derived from Lucius , one of the small group of common Latin forenames found in the culture of ancient Rome. Lucius derives from latin word Lux Lucius (Greek: Λούκιος/Loukios, Etruscan: Luvcie) is a male given name derived from Lucius (abbreviated L.), one of the small...
    
    
15. Gospel of Longinus
    Longinus
    - People :* Gaius Cassius Longinus , usually known as Cassius, one of the assassins of Julius Caesar* Saint Longinus, name ascribed to the Roman soldier who pierced the side of Jesus Christ on the cross...
    
    
16. Gospel of Manes
    Mani (prophet)
    Mani , of Iranian origin was the prophet and the founder of Manichaeism, a gnostic religion of Late Antiquity which was once widespread but is now extinct...
    
    
17. Gospel of Merinthus
18. Gospel of Scythianus
    Scythianus
    Scythianus was a supposed Alexandrian religious teacher who visited India around 50 CE. He is mentioned by several Christian writers and anti-Manichaean polemicists of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, including Cyril of Jerusalem, Hippolytus and Epiphanius, and is first mentioned in the...
    
    
19. Gospel of Simonides
    Simon Magus
    Simon the Sorcerer or Simon the Magician, in Latin Simon Magus, was a Samaritan magus or religious figure and a convert to Christianity, baptised by Philip the Apostle, whose later confrontation with Peter is recorded in . The sin of simony, or paying for position and influence in the church, is...
    
    
20. Gospel of Tatian
    Tatian
    Tatian the Assyrian was an Assyrian early Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century.Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron, a Biblical paraphrase, or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the...
    
    
21. Gospel of Thaddaeus
    Thaddaeus
    Thaddaeus or Thaddeus is a man's given name.As of the 1990 Census, 'Thaddeus' was the 611th most popular male name in the United States and 'Thad' was the 846th most popular....
    
    
22. Gospel of Valentinus
    Valentinus
    Valentinus is a Roman masculine given name. It is derived from the Latin word "valens" meaning "healthy, strong". Valentinus may refer to:*Pope Valentine , pope for thirty or forty days in 827...
    
    
23. The Clementine Gospel

Modern Gospels

1. Aquarian Gospel
   The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
   The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ is a book by Levi H. Dowling, first published in 1908. He said he had transcribed the text of the book from the Akashic records...
   
    (1908)
2. Book of Mormon
   Book of Mormon
   The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement that adherents believe contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2600 BC to AD 421. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr...
   
    (1830)
3. Crucifixion of Jesus, by an Eyewitness (1919)
4. Essene Gospel of Peace (1937; 1974)
5. The Fifth Gospel (1908, Steiner)
6. The Fifth Gospel (1956, Naber)
7. Gospel According to Seneca (1996)
8. Gospel of Ares (1974)
9. Gospel of Barnabas
   Gospel of Barnabas
   The Gospel of Barnabas is a book depicting the life of Jesus, and claiming to be by Jesus' disciple Barnabas, who in this work is one of the twelve apostles...
   
    (16th century; not the apocryphal Epistle)
10. Gospel of Jacob (1952; aka The Adolescence of Jesus)
11. Gospel of Jacob (1982; aka The Message of Jacob)
12. Gospel of Jesus According to Gabriele Wittek (1977)
13. Gospel of Josephus (1927)
14. Gospel of Judas Iscariot (1975; not the apocryphal Gospel of Judas)
15. Gospel of Satan (1996)
16. Gospel of the Childhood of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to St. Peter (1904)
17. Gospel of the Perfect Life (1881; aka Gospel of the Holy Twelve; not the lost Gospel of the Twelve)
18. Life and Morals of Jesus
    Jefferson Bible
    The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth as it is formally titled, was Thomas Jefferson's effort to extract the doctrine of Jesus by removing sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by...
    
     (1820)
19. Jehoshua the Nazir (1965)
20. Jesus Amidst His Own (late 18th century)
21. The Mystical Life of Jesus (1929)
22. Secret Gospel of Mark
    Secret Gospel of Mark
    The Secret Gospel of Mark is a putative non-canonical Christian gospel known exclusively from the Mar Saba letter, which describes Secret Mark as an expanded version of the canonical Gospel of Mark with some episodes elucidated, written for an initiated elite.In 1973 Morton Smith , professor of...
    
     (1973)
23. The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ (1894)
24. Ur-Gospel of the Essenes (1867)

See also

• Gospel harmony
  Gospel harmony
  A Gospel harmony is an attempt to merge or harmonize the canonical gospels of the Four Evangelists into a single gospel account, the earliest known example being the Diatesseron by Tatian in the 2nd century. A gospel harmony may also establish a chronology for the events of the life of Jesus...
  
  
• Diatessaron
  Diatessaron
  The Diatessaron is the most prominent Gospel harmony created by Tatian, an early Christian apologist and ascetic. The term "diatessaron" is from Middle English by way of Latin, diatessarōn , and ultimately Greek, διὰ τεσσάρων The Diatessaron (c 160 - 175) is the most prominent Gospel harmony...
  
  
• Acts of the Apostles (genre)
  Acts of the Apostles (genre)
  The Acts of the Apostles is a genre of Early Christian literature, recounting the lives and works of the apostles of Jesus. The Acts are important for many reasons, one of them being the concept of apostolic succession...
  
  
• Agrapha
  Agrapha
  Agrapha are sayings of Jesus that are not found in the canonical Gospels. The term was used for the first time by J.G...
  
  
• Apocalyptic literature
  Apocalyptic literature
  Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians....
  
  
• Epistles
• Gnosticism
  Gnosticism
  Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
  
  
• Development of the New Testament canon
  Development of the New Testament canon
  The Canon of the New Testament is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible. For most, it is an agreed-upon list of twenty-seven books that includes the Canonical Gospels, Acts, letters of the Apostles, and Revelation...
  
  
• List of New Testament papyri
• New Testament apocrypha
  New Testament apocrypha
  The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with books regarded as "canonical"...
  
  
• Pseudepigraphy
  Pseudepigraphy
  Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past." The word "pseudepigrapha" is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" ; the Anglicized forms...
  
  
• Textual criticism
  Textual criticism
  Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
  
  
• Toledoth Yeshu - medieval Jewish version of the story of Jesus from an anti-Christian perspective.