Ancient Christian Gospels: Their history and development

by Helmut Koester, Helmut Köster

In this magisterial volume, which is destined to become the standard test for studying the tradition and history of the early Christian Gospel literature, the author treats more than a dozen Gospel writings from the first two centuries. These Gospels include more than the standard canonical Gospels, covering also such writings as the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphon of James, and the Gospel of Mary and others. The book is divided into six major sections. The first examines the origins and meanings of the term “Gospel.” Then follows a section on early collections of saying including, of course, a study of Q. A third section traces the movement from the dialogue Gospels through narratives about Jesus to the Gospel of John. Mark, Matthew and Like receive thorough consideration in the fourth section, followed by an exploration of the early extant harmonization’s of the canonical Gospels (Justin martyr, Tatian, Epistula Apostolorum, etc.) The concluding section deals with various Gospel fragments known from papyri and from casual mentions in the church fathers. Throughout Ancient Christian Gospels, the author provides all technical information (attestation, manuscripts, etc.) needed by the scholar, but also translations of all data, general introductions and explanations in an effort to make the book accessible and useful for the general reader. Helmut Koester is John H. Morison Professor of New Testament and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History of Harvard University and author of the widely used two-volume Introduction to the New Testament.

Genres: Christianity, Religion, History, New Testament

Hardcover

First published December 31, 1990

About the author

English pen name for author Helmut Köster

Reviews

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helmut Koester, professor emeritus at Harvard Divinity School, died on New Year’s Day 2016, shortly after his 89th birthday. He was one of the last scholars to write his dissertation under the direction of Rudolf Bultmann, therefore an important exponent of the historical-critical investigation of Christian origins. That dissertation was on Gospel quotations in the early Church fathers, so in a sense this book, Ancient Christian Gospels, is the culmination of a lifetime devoted to the question.
In the years between Koester’s dissertation, published in 1957, and the appearance of this book, one of the most important developments in the field was access to the trove of manuscripts discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. A distinguishing feature of Koester’s book is that he makes judicious use of some of these documents, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Dialogue of the Savior, to supplement what the canonical Gospels and the early Church fathers contain to reconstruct, as the subtitle says, the history and development of the written accounts of the sayings, deeds, passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. An insight that might surprise some readers is that the composition of Mark, John, Matthew and Luke did not put an end to the oral tradition nor to the use of short written collections of sayings or harmonized accounts. Even Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century, quotes from these, not our canonical Gospels (even though he might have known them).
An appealing trait of Koester the scholar was that he often invited others to contribute chapters on topics about which their expertise was greater than his. This book is no exception; the concluding chapter, on Tatian’s Diatessaron, is by William L. Petersen.
Although this book, written for advanced students of the New Testament, is useful as a resource for dipping into, it becomes even more valuable when read in its entirety, a process also helpful for understanding the structure of the book, which could strike the cursory reader as confusing.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great overview of the relationships among some of the earliest Christian writings - particularly those now called "Gospels." This is not for the beginner, as some familiarity with the ancient texts and the processes of textual criticism/redaction are necessary to understand the picture Koester is giving of both the historical developments and the status of the question.

This is a good place to start for a quick look at what "relatively recent" scholarship says about particular texts, and the footnotes are helpful, though not necessarily comprehensive for the field.

I have pretty strong feelings against scholarship that produces a text edition of a text that is no longer extant (i.e. Q, the Synoptic Sayings Source) - but it's out there, so I guess I ought to know a little bit about it.