ALL BUT three of the 14 chapters of the book have already been published in recent learned collections; it is, therefore, all the more valuable to have here a broad statement of the theme and its implications.

The basic viewpoint is that the four gospel-books that later became canonical, while they are definitive for those who hold the Christian faith, should, from a scholarly point of view, be treated no differently from other early records of the life and message of Jesus. In other words, the non-canonical gospels and other early sources — apocryphal, Marcionite, even Marian passages in the Qur’an — should not be dismissed as odd, deviant, late, etc., but should be taken seriously.

Their contribution to the history, sayings, and message of Jesus should be treated seriously, even though many of the texts are not called “gospels”. It is striking that the term originally adopted by Paul to refer to the Good News that Christ died and rose again for us should have been adopted to express the story of Jesus’s life and proclamation. In fact, it is not until Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho that the term is used of a written text. It is not so used by Papias at the beginning of the second century.

By careful analysis, and with judicious use of other texts — for example, the early papyrus Egerton Gospel — it is shown that the Gospel of Mark itself is not the beginning of the written gospel tradition, but is itself part of a developing tradition, a “work in progress”; so, to a question about the meaning of the parable of the sower, Jesus replies with an answer about the reason for teaching in parables. Matthew and Luke, each in his own turn, do not copy out an old Gospel (Mark), but use their own material (Watson sees no need for “Q”) drawn from different sources.

It is, therefore, enormously valuable to have an introduction to, and evaluation of, such texts as the Epistula Apostolorum, and Tatian’s Diatessaron, as well as the Gospel of Marcion, and the Gospel of Judas. There is no escaping the fact that the argument of the book is detailed and demanding, but there are also some exciting passages, such as the gripping story of the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri and some striking analogies (the canonical status of the Gospels is compared with the symphonic canonical status of the opening call of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony).

An attractive excursus into the contribution of the visual arts is given by Chapter 12 on the Lindisfarne Gospels, with some interesting speculations on the interpretation of the illustrations.

Fr Henry Wansbrough OSB is a monk of Ampleforth, emeritus Master of St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, and a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

What is a Gospel?
Francis Watson
Eerdmans £39.99
(978-0-8028-7292-0)
Church Times Bookshop £35.99