chapter threeJEWISH-CHRISTIAN GOSPELS RECOVERED.. FarewelltotheThreeGospelHypothesis(theGH)
The riddle of Jewish-Christian gospels is tied to the question of how
to sort out the original sources of Jerome’s quotations. According to a
widely accepted hypothesis, Jerome had two sources: the actual “Gospel
of the Nazarenes”^1 and Origen (possibly with other Greek authors) whose
quotations were originally derived from theGospel of the Hebrews.Inthis
volume, this hypothesisis called the Three Gospel Hypothesis(the GH).
It assumes that there were altogether three different Jewish-Christian
Gospels: () TheGospel of the HebrewswritteninGreek,usedonly
by Christians in Egypt and originally quoted by Origen, Clement of
Alexandria and Didymus the Blind. In addition, the supporters of this
theory ascribe some passages quoted by Jerome to this gospel, assuming
that Jerome must have found the passages in the writings of Origen. ()
TheGospel of the Ebionites, a Greek harmonistic gospel quoted only by
Epiphanius in hisPanarion,()The“GospeloftheNazarenes,”usedby
Aramaic-speaking Nazarenes near Beroea in Syria, and quoted several
times by Jerome.^2 Scholars usually agree that theGospel of the Ebionites,
quoted by Epiphanius, is an entity of it own. Therefore, the discussion
(^1) The “Gospel of the Nazarenes” appears in quotation marks in this volume because
I argue that it is a purely scholarly reconstruction.
(^2) See, Klijn , –, . With minor differences, Klijn’s reconstruction is the
same as the one presented in Vielhauer & Strecker ^2 (^1 ), –, –;
Funk , –, –. The Three Gospel Hypothesis has a prominent position
because it is presented in widely used handbooks. Nevertheless, there are scholars who
do not want to make a distinction between theGospel of the Hebrewsand the “Gospel
of the Nazoreans.” See, for instance, Mimouni , –, –; Pritz , .
Furthermore, from the viewpoint of Diatessaronic studies, W.L. Petersen has raised the
question whether the fragments usually thought to derive from two (or three) different
gospels could as well be rooted in one and the same gospel related to the Diatessaronic
tradition because there are Diatessaronic readings in both the reconstructed “Gospel of
the Nazoreans” and in the “Gospel of the Ebionites.” See, Petersen , –, –.
For the earliest history of research, see Handmann , –.