jewish-christian gospels and syriac gospel traditions the help of canonical traditions.” Thus, the GH postulates an indepen-
dent, pre-canonical gospel tradition and locates it in Egypt although it
represents the same kind of Wisdom and Spirit traditions that appear in
theThomasinewritingscomposedinSyria.^62
The contradictory views concerning the provenance of theGospel of
Thomasand the provenance of theGospel of the Hebrewsjustifies the
question whether scholarship has correctly located these gospels. As
I have noted in Chapters . and ., it is the reconstruction of the
Gospel of the Hebrewsand its Egyptian origin that are most subject to
criticism.
The New Two Gospel Hypothesis advanced in this book assumes
that theGospel of the Hebrewswas originally composed in the Syro-
Palestinian area and that it became only secondarily known in Egypt. The
new reconstruction agrees with the GH about the wisdom character of
theGospel of the Hebrews(see Chapter ..) but sees a closer relationship
between theGospel of the Hebrewsand the synoptic gospels which makes
its comparison with theGospel of Thomaseven more interesting.
The fragments to be discussed below also have connections to the
Gospel of the Ebionites. A detailed analysis of thesefeatures showsthat the
Gospel of the Ebionitesand theGospel of Thomasshare pre-Diatessaronic
harmonizing gospel traditions and that they also have connections to
Clement and Pseudo-Clementine traditions.
There are only a handful of points of contact and even among these
there are some cases where we have only indirect evidence of agree-
ment. Thus, it is clear that all explanations will remain hypothetical to
some extent. However, although the observations are few and inconclu-
sive as single cases, when they are viewed together, a remarkably coher-
ent picture emerges which justifies the following conclusion: theGospel
of Thomasand Jewish-Christian gospel fragments are partly drawing on
the same harmonizing pre-Diatessaronic gospel tradition but interpret-
ing it freely in their own theological frameworks (cf. Appendix ).
(^62) Klijn , , –. However, a few pages earlier (p. , ) Klijn notes that the
Gospel of the Hebrewswas said to be known to the Palestinian Christian Hegesippus
(Eusebius,Hist. eccl. ..). Elsewhere Klijn has also argued that theGospel of the
Hebrewswas a product of one of the Egyptian wisdom schools. See Klijn , ; Klijn
, –. Vielhauer and Strecker also emphasize that theGospel of the Hebrews
differs “considerably from the canonical Gospels” and that “Its stories and sayings scarcely
permit of their being understood as developments of synoptic or Johannine texts”
(Vielhauer & Strecker ^2 (^1 ), ).