NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible CBSB_Digital Sampler | Page 26

1602  |  Introduction to the Gospels & Acts
and Luke drew on another shared source that often follows the same sequence present in these
two Gospels; this document has not survived and is reconstructed merely based on where
Matthew and Luke overlap. Some scholars believe that this lost document was an early collec-
tion by Matthew, focusing especially on sayings, used by Mark, Luke, and our current version of
Matthew’s Gospel (which incorporates also most of Mark’s narrative). Other scholars reconstruct
differently the sequence in which our Gospels were written, but the point remains: most of Luke’s
“many” sources did not survive.
Some later works have also been sometimes called gospels. Unlike the four Gospels preserved
in the Bible, however, these other works date to a later timeframe for writing, no longer within
living memory of the eyewitnesses. The earliest of them, often referred to as the “Gospel of
Thomas,” is usually dated more than 100 years after ­Jesus’s death and resurrection and some 70
years after Mark’s Gospel. (Some scholars date it even later, to 100 years after Mark.) Of all the later
gospels, Thomas is the earliest and the likeliest to contain some sayings about ­Jesus, but scholars
have not agreed on any way to discover which sayings, if any, are authentic (besides the ones
already recorded in our first-century Gospels).
Thomas is usually classified as belonging to the group called “gnostic gospels,” although later
ones are generally far more gnostic than Thomas. These works are not really “gospels” at all, for they
are not narratives about ­Jesus. (Comparing them with the canonical Gospels, then, is like compar-
ing apples and oranges; they are completely different categories.) The “gnostic gospels” are usually
collections of sayings that their authors claim were passed on “secretly.” As most ancient Christians
recognized, those who had to claim information passed on “secretly” were admitting that they had
no real evidence that any of the information went back to anyone who knew ­Jesus. Moreover, the
amorphous group of beliefs we define as Gnosticism, and thus clearly gnostic elements, do not
clearly predate the second century; these works are all much later — ​many of them many centuries
later. Mostly they were accepted as authoritative only in their own, small gnostic groups. In the
wider church’s canon lists over the next few centuries, none of them appear, with only a single
exception (one reference to Thomas), whereas the canonical Gospels always appear.
Other late “gospels” are called “apocryphal gospels.” These works come from the heyday of
novels, in the late second and early third centuries (with many written later still). They are enter-
taining and sometimes edifying novels. They are not, however, true accounts about J ­ esus. Whereas
the first-century Gospels assume ancient Galilean customs, Jewish figures of speech, and the like,
these later gospels betray their own time period. Apocryphal gospels and acts contain stories of
talking dogs, walking crosses, obedient bed bugs and the like; in one of them ­Jesus strikes dead a
boy who offends him and strikes blind the boy’s parents for complaining. Some ancient Christians
read them, but the churches never viewed them as Scripture.
Only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John survive from the first century. Unlike the other works, they
include abundant Judean and Galilean traits. By the late second century, mainstream churches
from one end of the Roman Empire to the other accepted these four, and only these four, Gospels
as genuine apostolic memories of ­Jesus. If one wishes to learn more about ­Jesus than what one
reads in the surviving first-century Gospels, later fictions are not the best place to start. One would
do better to read works that genuinely shed light on ­Jesus’ milieu, even if they do not talk about
Jesus himself. These would include, for example, collections of Jewish ideas circulating in ­Jesus’
day, such as the book of Sirach, probably 1 Enoch, or undisputed Biblical works that are actually
cited in the Gospels such as Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah and Daniel.
How the Gospels First Circulated
The ancient world was vastly different from our modern world of printing presses, copy machines
and electronic publishing. Most books were copied by hand, one at a time, although very popular
books could be dictated to multiple scribes at once. Books were normally written on scrolls in the
first century, though in the second century Christians appear to be among the first adopters (or
possibly innovators) of the sort of bound volumes we use for hard-copy books today. ­Christians