Combining Gospels in Early Christianity

The One, the Many, and the Fourfold

By (author) Jacob A Rodriguez

Book cover: Combining Gospels in Early Christianity

Extent: 339 pages

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Subjects: Biblical Studies

Series: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe

Series volume number: 597

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(September 2023)

ISBN: 9783161614712

9.09 x 6.06 inches

Price: $124.00

In stock

Jacob A. Rodriguez investigates which gospels tended to keep company with one another in early Christian reading practices. Engaging a variety of second-century gospel combinations, he identifies a center of gravity in early gospel reading consisting of the Synoptics and John.


In this study, Jacob A. Rodriguez investigates which gospels tended to keep company with one another in early Christian reading practices. By engaging the dynamics of gospel combinations in the Gospel of Thomas, the Epistula Apostolorum, the Diatessaron, second-century Christian authors ranging from Papias to Clement of Alexandria, and early gospel manuscripts, Rodriguez identifies a center of gravity in early Christian gospel reading consisting of the Synoptics and John. While second-century Christians do not use the terms “canonical” or “noncanonical,” the gospels we now know as canonical captivated their literary imagination in a manner unparalleled by any other Jesus books. The author offers a rigorous philological, literary-critical, text-critical, artifactual, and theological reconstruction of early Christian gospel-reading culture.

  • By (author) Jacob A Rodriguez