The Gospels that Didn’t Make the Cut

Home > Magazines > Bible Review > August 1993

A few years ago, I was part of a team of scholars who set out to produce a new translation of the gospels. We were all teachers frustrated with the various New Testament translations in our college and seminary courses. While most of the major translations are quite good, they are designed primarily for use in worship and Bible study, not for the college classroom. The Greek of the New Testament was the Greek of the marketplace. Translations designed for use in worship tend to elevate the tone and style of the language. Also, because almost all New Testament […]

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Footnotes

See Roy W. Hoover, “How the Books of the New Testament Were Chosen,” BR 09:02, and George Howard, “Canon: Choosing the Books of the New Testament,” BR 05:05.

A group of about 125 scholars who meet twice a year to debate and vote on the likelihood that a particular saying of Jesus was authentic. See Marcus Borg, “What Did Jesus Really Say?” BR 05:05.

See Helmut Koester and Stephen J. Patterson, “The Gospel of Thomas—Does It Contain Authentic Sayings of Jesus?” BR 06:02.

See James Brashler, “Nag Hammadi Codices Shed New Light on Early Christian History,” BAR 10:01, and Brashler’s reviews of The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James Robinson, and The Jesus of Heresy and History, by John Dart, in Bible Books, BR 06:01.