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When were the Gospels written and by whom? The late Helmut Koester was the John H. Morison Professor of New Testament Studies and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School and an expert on the historical Jesus, the New Testament and the emergence of Christianity (see obituary). In his book From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in Its Context, he explores the complicated development of the canonical Gospels.1
The fluid state of gospels and gospel traditions in the second century that is evident in a number of so-called apocryphal gospels raises the question of whether the gospels that later became canonical were not also subject to changes, additions and new editions. Except for the small fragment of the Gospel of John in [Papyrus] P52, no gospel manuscript written in the second century or fragments of such a gospel manuscript have survived. The earliest manuscripts of the canonical gospels date from around the year 200, mostly John and Luke. Matthew appears less often and Mark only 50 years later. What happened to these gospels in the time from their autograph to their earliest manuscript evidence? This does not concern the changes in the texts of the canonical gospels that are evident in the later manuscript tradition, such as the addition of the secondary ending of the Gospel of Mark and the addition of the story of the woman taken in adultery in John 7:59–8:11.
The question is made even more urgent because of what we know about the use in the second century of the four gospels that later became canonical. Marcion radically edited the Gospel of Luke for his new authoritative scriptures. Justin Martyr composed a harmony of the Synoptic Gospels, for the most part neglecting the Gospel of Mark. A bit later, his student Tatian composed a harmony of all four canonical gospels, including also the Gospel of John. Gospels that were later called apocryphal liberally used materials from the gospels that later became canonical and often combined freely their borrowings with surviving older sources and free “apocryphal” materials. Other gospels expanded sayings of Jesus to form dialogues of Jesus with his disciples—a process that already apparently had begun in the last decades of the first century, as is evident in the dialogues and discourses of the Gospel of John. Moreover, the memory of Jesus, especially in his sayings, was alive as the voice of the Savior that spoke again in new pronunciations through prophets and speakers of wisdom.
When were the Gospels written and by whom? The late Helmut Koester was the John H. Morison Professor of New Testament Studies and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School and an expert on the historical Jesus, the New Testament and the emergence of Christianity (see obituary). In his book From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in Its Context, he explores the complicated development of the canonical Gospels.1 The fluid state of gospels and gospel traditions in the second century that is evident in a number of so-called apocryphal gospels raises the question […]
