Maggie

The Gospel of the Nazareans

The Gospel of the Nazareans is also called The Jewish Gospel.  It was written from 100-150 C.E.  Many say that the Gospel of the Nazareans might have been a loose translation of the book of Matthew, but in Aramaic.  But there are others scholars who say that there are different stories in both of them, which makes it hard to know if the author of Matthew and the author of the Gospel of Nazareans are some how related.  In a small community in Western Syria, the Nazareans lived, where many scholars believed that it was the location were the Gospel of the Nazareans was probably composed during the second century.  Many scholars think that this might be the location where Matthew was composed, too.  The bad news is that we don't have a copy of the Gospel of the Nazareans, we just have some quotes from the Gospel of the Nazareans quoted in other written sources.

Felipe Marquez

In a traditional point of view Thomas wrote the Gospel.

MrMac: Assignment Non-Canonical Gospels

Research and blog on the non-canonical gospel that you were assigned from the text.

THE GOSPEL OF PETER - By Jessica

The Gospel of Peter is known to be written by the 8th or 9th century by the Apostle Peter in Syria. It was a prominent passion narrative in the history of Christianity, but over time it passed out of common usage. Only some fragments remain and they ascribe responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus to Herod Antipas rather than to Pontius Pilate and for representing the true Cross as miraculously capable of speech.

This gospel was popular by the second century, but the actual text is still not found. In 1886, parts of its actual text was discovered in Egypt. Since then, we have known of the existence of this gospel.

SOURCES

It is said that the Gospel of Peter has parallels with the three other gospels but actually there are two different opinions about the sources of the Gospel of Peter.

1. Ron  Cameron and others conclude that the author may have been independent from the synoptic Gospels and that he indirectly used the Q Gospel.

2. Raymond E. Brown and others conclude that the author may have been acquainted with the synoptic Gospels including the Gospel of John.

Although sources are not certain, it is possible that the original text was vastly changed by oral tradition.

CONTENTS

Basically it talks about the death and resurrection of Jesus, but there are two main characteristics that stand out.

1. Anti-Judaism. The author opposes to Judaism and Pontius Pilate is exonerated of all responsibility for the Crucifixion. 

2. At the final parts of the text, the author talks as the cross itself is speaking, and it is even floating out of the tomb.

AGAIN, we do not know full content of the Gospel of Peter, and it is not longer used, but some parts are very interesting and they are used to study the Bible by the scholars. ^_^

Thomas and the Q source... Ana.

Some scholars have said that the Q source was made up completely of Jesus' sayings and that the community it was written to was not concerned about Jesus' activities and experiences. 

But many other scholars have doubts about that. There are in fact some stories in the Q source (the temptation of Jesus and the healing of the centurion's son.) But there are no more narratives in the Q source that are known for sure, such as a Passion narrative. The only way to find out is to see the similarities in Matthew and Luke, that re not found in Mark. Yet the Passion narrative between Matthew and Luke are different than Mark.  But that doesn't mean that the accounts were specifically taken from the Q source. There are other sources, such as M and L, that could have been used.

The biggest difference between the Q source and Thomas has to do with the way different communities had preserved them. Thomas denies the future coming of the Son of Man in judgement upon Earth. This theme, though, is important in the Q source. But some scholars, though, say that maybe the theme was added on later. The Q source is thought to be originally not apocalyptic "in its orientation." If the apocalyptic sayings were removed  it would be very similar to Thomas. Therefore, the Q source was originally like Thomas.

Gospel of John by Ana Luisa, Tamara and Jessica

The four ways to study the gospels are historical-literary, redaction, comparative method, and thematic method. The historical-literary method consists of viewing the gospel while taking into account the historical context in which they were written. The redaction method consists of reading the gospel while keeping in mind what is unnecessary and what could be changed in an editing way. The comparative method consists of comparing one gospel to another gospel and other sources written around the same time. The thematic method is reviewing of the central themes in a gospel and seeing why they are important.

These methods can all be used to study John for it is gospel was last written and thus it has used many sources. A historical literary-historical method would provide a contextual view.

Boys blog john

We have studied the literary-historical method, the literary historical method is a method used to study a literary text by asking how its genre text functioned in its historical context and by exploring, then, its historical meaning (i.e., seeing how its meaning would have been understood to its earliest readers) in light of its literary characteristics.  We can use this method to study John by looking at other sources from that were written in that time period and comparing them.  Then we can look at the book the way that people from that time period would have looked at it.  

Now is my turn to talk about the redaction method. Redaction method: is the study of how authors modified or edited their sources in view of their own vested interests and concerns. i think that all of this is talking about whenever other people change some of the words in the scriptures for them to make a little bit more of sense. of course this is written for the people who actually care about it. another thing, could e that it is hard to understand, so they wright it again, and make the people who don't understand to understand. 

The comparative method is a method used to study a literary text by noting its similarities to and differences from other, related, texts, whether or not any of these other texts was used as a source for the text in question.  Scholars used to comparative method in luke to determine who the author was.

 Thematic method is a method used to study a literary text by isolating its leading ideas, or themes, and exploring them, seeing how they are developed in the text, so as to understand the author's overarching em phases. it helps understand the book of John, because it only focus on one theme and it helps us understand more about the book.