Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

When is a gospel not a gospel?

“… the main contrast between the canonical gospels and the gnostic gospels is that the former are primarily narrative, with teaching interspersed within an overall storyline reaching a definite climax, while the latter (such as ‘Thomas’) consist simply of a collection of saying, arranged as much for the purposes of meditation or memorization as for any thematic sequence or continuity. To that extent, as I have often said in the past, the main difference is that, whereas the canonical gospels are news, ‘Thomas’ and the others are advice … though the gnostic documents do sometimes call themselves ‘gospels’ they manifestly belong to a different genre.”

N T Wright – Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Have We Missed the Truth about Christianity

One response to “When is a gospel not a gospel?”

  1. Josh Avatar

    The Gnostic gospels seem to fall more in line with some of the Old Testament books then, like Psalms or Proverbs.
    http://www.spiritofthescripture.com

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