The Complete Gospels : Annotated Scholars Version (Revised & expanded) - Softcover

Miller, Robert J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060655879 ISBN 13: 9780060655877

Publisher: HarperOne, 1994

Synopsis

From the editors of the bestselling The Five Gospels, The Complete Gospels presents for the first time anywhere all twenty of the known gospels from the early Christian era, offering a fuller and more fascinating picture of early Christian origins than found in the four canonical gospels alone -- or in any other source. Each of these gospels records offers fresh glimpses into the world of Jesus and his followers, including:

Gospel of Thomas reveals that Jesus, contrary to the popular image of him as an apocalyptic preacher of damnation and salvation, was actually a wisdom teacher who taught about the true origins of humankind.

Gospels of Mary suggests that women held prominent role in early church, and provides a startling look at what may have been the first attempts to supress their leadership.

Sayings Gospels Q, the controversial reconstruction of the first gospel used by Jesus' original followers, contains only Jesus' sayings and none of the dramatic stories about his life later told in the New Testament gospels.

Signs Gospel is almost entirely a catalog of Jesus' miracles, intended to demonstrate that he was the Jewish Messiah, the Anointed.

Secret Book of James relates that immediately prior to his ascension, Jesus imparted a private revelation to James and Peter, which James presents here as a letter.

Gospel of Peter contains what may have been the original passion narrative later adapted in the New Testament synoptic gospels' accounts.

Four new pieces have been added to this third expanded edition: the three Jewish-Christian gospels and the Greek fragment of the Gospels of Thomas.

Each gospel is translated into lively, contemporary English, recapturing the spirit of the original. Exciting both to read and to hear, this Scholars Version (SV) translation has -- as one reader put it -- "a vitality that jumps off the page."

The editor and contributors to this volume are members of the Jesus Seminar founded by Robert W. Funk, based at the Westar Institute in Sonama, California.

About this title

From the Publisher:

From the editors of the bestselling The Five Gospels--the first and only complete collection of the known gospel records--everything needed for the armchair search for the historical Jesus.

From Publishers Weekly:

Before it released its provocative The Five Gospels through a commercial publisher (Macmillan) last year, The Jesus Seminar in 1992 published through its own house, Polebridge Press, The Complete Gospels, a more encompassing, collaborative effort providing fresh translations of the canonical Gospels, the non-canonical Gospels and the Sayings sources. This new revised and commercially published edition of The Complete Gospels moves this prior effort out of the academy and into the hands of a general readership interested in the ancient texts that have motivated the recent quests of scholars like Meier (A Marginal Jew), Crossan (The Historical Jesus) and Sanders (The Historical Figure of Jesus). In addition to the canonical Gospels, this work contains translations of Sayings Gospels like Q, the Gospel of Mary, the infancy Gospels of Thomas and James, fragmentary Gospels like the Egerton and the Secret Gospel of Mark. Here, accompanying the lively translations of each text, are incisive introductions and notes that provide glimpses of the social, historical and literary world occupied by Jesus and the early Christian writers. The dependence of one text upon another is demonstrated through the numerous cross-references. An in-depth glossary and brief essays elaborating key issues of scholarship, e.g., synoptic puzzles, etc., round out the collection. Combining an engaging commentary, lucid and energetic translation and accessible scholarship, this Complete Gospels equips any interested reader to join Meier, Crossan and Sanders in their quest for the historical Jesus.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0060655879
• ISBN 13: 9780060655877
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480