What Is a Gospel?

by Francis Watson

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2022

Overview

When Christians speak of “the gospels” they’re usually referring to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Other ancient writings about the life of Jesus are generally considered noncanonical or heretical. But what if these other gospel writings—including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, and the Protevangelium of James—aren’t fundamentally different from the four canonical gospels?

In this follow-up to Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective, noted biblical scholar Francis Watson makes the case that viewing early gospel literature as a unified genre—sharing significant similarities in sources, content, and goals—allows us to discern important interrelated aspects that are lost amid the usual categories. Watson’s critical approach enables modern readers of the Bible to break free of fraught scholarly assumptions in order to better understand early Christian identity formation and beliefs.

Key Features

• Examines the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, and the Protevangelium of James
• Explores significant similarities in sources, content, and goals of early gospel literature
• Enables modern readers of the Bible to break free of fraught scholarly assumptions

Contents

• What Is a Gospel?
• Seven Ways to Dispose of Judas Iscariot
• How Did Mark Survive?
• Does Luke Need Q?
• Q and the Logia: On the Discovery and Marginalizing of P.Oxy.1
• Luke Rewriting and Rewritten
• The Gospel of the Apostles: The Epistula Apostolorum and the Johannine Tradition
• Jesus versus the Lawgiver: Narratives of Apostasy and Conversion
• Making Sense of the Betrayer: The Gospel of Judas and Its Predecessors
• Reception as Corruption: Tertullian and Marcion in Quest of the True Gospel
• Toward a Redaction-Critical Reading of the Diatessaron Gospel
• Lindisfarne and the Gospels: The Art of Interpretation
• Eschatology and the Twentieth Century: On the Reception of Schweitzer in English
• A Reply to My Critics

Product Details

• Title: What Is a Gospel?
• Author: Francis Watson
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Pages: 335
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Bible. Gospels › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Apocryphal books (New Testament) › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Christian literature, Early › History and criticism; Jesus Christ
• ISBNs: 9780802872920, 0802872921
• Resource ID: LLS:WHATISAGOSPEL
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T03:43:54Z

About Francis Watson

Francis Watson is a Christian scholar and professor of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Durham. He formerly taught at the University of Aberdeen where he was the Kirby Laing Chair in New Testament. Watson is a respected scholar in the areas of biblical interpretation and the theological interpretation of Scripture. He has an MA and DPhil from Oxford.