Recovering the Gospel used before the official Fourfold Gospel

Your argument for a re-editing or systematic alteration of the canonical four Gospels, and even the production of the four books as four books, has a lot of evidence in its favour. The most likely candidate is Polycarp, though if you want my opinion Polycarp didn’t have the ability to do the detailed editorial work himself, and must have relied on the expertise of some assistants. The same can be said of the new edition of the Letters of Paul. Linking this process with the re-editing of the core of the Samaritan liturgy, while still using the original name Marqe, works very well as a theory supported by diverse lines of evidence. Given that I’m convinced of the accuracy of most (not quite all) of your conclusions and the high degree of probability of much (not all) of the remainder, what remains to be done to answer objections? Much of this work is for you to attend to.

But the rest of the answer leads on to my own current reading and future research. A completely new line of investigation is given by some new discoveries, from about 1925 till the present. I call all the results of this work new, whether published in 1925 (Plooij’s preliminary publication) or 2004 (Trobisch). This is because none of the results have penetrated the standard works on the New Testament or on the Patristic texts, and because the whole pattern suddenly started to appear relatively recently. The outline sprang into view when Boismard, building on work by Plooij, Peters, and others, published the identification of the Pepys ms. with Justin’s text and the identification of these with the second text used in the commentaries attributed to Efrem and the probable identification of all these with the Gospel of the Hebrews. This was only in 1992. Then Trobisch in 2004 built on the much earlier realisation by von Campenhausen that the history of the composition and editing of the four Gospels to be found in all the textbooks is totally impossible. All these realisations when put together show a clear and completely new picture. Here are the outlines. First, there is the discovery that the new official edition of four Gospels was not accepted for all purposes in Europe or North Africa for many centuries. The four were used for learned commentary, and for reading in Greek-speaking areas (including upper-class Roman Christianity), but the Diatessaron was used for all purposes of preaching and teaching in all other areas. If the Diatessaron was not used, then a revision of the canonical four in Latin to agree with the Diatessaron or the Gospel of the Hebrews was used. This revised text was originally called the Western Text, because most of the witnesses are in Latin. It had always been known that the canonical four were not used for any purpose in Syriac-speaking areas for centuries. Now we see that the phenomena in Syriac-speaking areas and Latin-speaking areas were similar. Boismard has shown that in addition to the Diatessaron, a text similar to the one used by Justin was used in both Syriac-speaking and Latin-speaking areas. I would argue that this was the Gospel of the Hebrews or a development from it.

So we now know the following. (a) The Diatessaron was used for most purposes for centuries everywhere except in Greek-speaking areas, instead of the official four. The Diatessaron was the Gospel of the Hebrews, recast from Western Aramaic or Hebrew (or both) into Syriac, with additions from the canonical four or more likely from the predecessors of the four. (b) When the Diatessaron was not used, something like Justin’s text, probably also an edition of the Gospel of the Hebrews, was used instead everywhere except Greek-speaking areas; but still not the canonical four. (c) When neither of these was used, a revised text of the canonical four agreeing with one or both of the two texts previously mentioned was used. The Old Syriac Gospels are largely of this type. The Old Latin mss. (also called the Itala) are of this type. This text in Latin and Syriac was used to revise mss. in Greek. Although it might at first seem that these revisions can be detected by their agreement with the Latin or Syriac texts, in fact some readings from this revised text of the canonical four have become the readings of the majority of the Greek mss. or even of all Greek mss., so that the original reading of the official Fourfold Gospel can only be seen in quotations, often Tertullian’s quotations. (d) Marcionite readings have infiltrated the Greek mss. of the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul to such an extent that it must be concluded that Marcion’s text was used for centuries, though not under his name. However, Marcion’s text of the Gospels might have been nearly the same as the Gospel of the Hebrews anyway.

In the light of these discoveries, it seems we have a wealth of information for reconstructing the Gospel before the publication of the Official Fourfold Gospel. I would add that with all this, we have for the first time the material for putting the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas into a relational and historical relationship scheme with (a) (b) (c) (d) and with the Fourfold Gospel. We can then put the readings of the papyri (many of recent discovery) into a relationship with all of these witnesses. This is a truly momentous realisation. WE REALLY CAN GET BEHIND THE TEXT OF THE NEW OFFICIAL FOURFOLD GOSPEL AND READ THE OLDER EDITIONS. Of course, the work will take a long while and will take many hands. Much of the work done over the last century can be fitted in.

Now you can see what I’m reading, and where my research is likely to go.

Now you can see where this relates to your work. I’ve said in different ways that the main weakness in your argument is that an earlier edition of the Gospel has to be assumed. This is not a difficulty in itself, since current orthodoxy assumes a long development. What seemed difficult was that a different TYPE of development had to be assumed, and on top of that readings not in extant mss. had to be assumed. Well, it seems the way is now clear to prove the existence of an edition of the Gospel or editions of the Gospel, not just notes to be used in composing a Gospel, well before the Fourfold Gospel was published. Over the course of time the text of this edition or these editions can be recovered in detail. Some of this work can be done right now, with the published material.

Your comments would be appreciated.