Gospel originally meant the Christian message, but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in his trial and death and concluding with various reports of his post-resurrection appearances.
The Gospel of James is a second-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following. It is the earliest surviving assertion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during and afterwards, and despite being condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and rejected by the Gelasian Decree around 500, became a widely influential source for Mariology.
According to apocrypha, as well as Christian and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary, the wife of Joachim and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the Bible's canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come only from New Testament apocrypha, of which the Gospel of James seems to be the earliest that mentions them. The mother of Mary is mentioned but not named in the Quran.
James the Just, or a variation of James, brother of the Lord, was, according to the New Testament, a brother of Jesus. He was the first leader of the Jerusalem Church of the Apostolic Age. Traditionally, it is believed he was martyred in AD 62 or 69 by being stoned to death on the order of High Priest Ananus ben Ananus. James, Joses, Simon, and Judas are mentioned as the brothers of Jesus as well as two or more unnamed sisters.
The brothers of Jesus or the adelphoi are named in the New Testament as James, Joses, Simon, Jude, and unnamed sisters are mentioned in Mark and Matthew. They may have been: (1) sons of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Joseph; (2) sons of Joseph by a former marriage; or (3) sons of Mary of Clopas, named in Mark 15:40 as the "mother of James and Joses", who has been identified as either the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, or a sister-in-law to Joseph.
The Gospel of the Hebrews, or Gospel according to the Hebrews, is a lost Jewish–Christian gospel. The text of the gospel is lost, with only fragments of it surviving as brief quotations by the early Church Fathers and in apocryphal writings. The fragments contain traditions of Jesus' pre-existence, incarnation, baptism, and probably of his temptation, along with some of his sayings. Distinctive features include a Christology characterized by the belief that the Holy Spirit is Jesus' Divine Mother and a first resurrection appearance to James, the brother of Jesus, showing a high regard for James as the leader of the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem. It was probably composed in Greek in the first decades of the 2nd century, and is believed to have been used by Greek-speaking Jewish Christians in Egypt during that century.
The Syriac Infancy Gospel, also known as the Arabic Infancy Gospel, is a New Testament apocryphal writing concerning the infancy of Jesus. It may have been compiled as early as the sixth century, and was partly based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of James, and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, though much of it is also based on oral tradition. The only two surviving manuscripts date from 1299 AD and the 15th/16th century in Arabic. They were copied in the area of northern Iraq and show influence from the Quran.
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the 27 books of the modern canon. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches generally do not view the New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible.
The Acts of Paul and Thecla is an apocryphal text describing Paul the Apostle's influence on a young virgin named Thecla. It is one of the writings of the New Testament apocrypha. Edgar J. Goodspeed called it a "religious romance"
The Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given by scholars to an apocryphal gospel extant only as seven brief quotations in a heresiology known as the Panarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis; he misidentified it as the "Hebrew" gospel, believing it to be a truncated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew. The quotations were embedded in a polemic to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of a Jewish Christian sect known as the Ebionites relative to Nicene orthodoxy.
The Gospel of the Nazarenes is the traditional but hypothetical name given by some scholars to distinguish some of the references to, or citations of, non-canonical Jewish-Christian Gospels extant in patristic writings from other citations believed to derive from different Gospels.
The study of Jesus in comparative mythology is the examination of the narratives of the life of Jesus in the Christian gospels, traditions and theology, as they relate to Christianity and other religions. Although the vast majority of New Testament scholars and historians of the ancient Near East agree that Jesus existed as a historical figure, most secular historians also agree that the gospels contain large quantities of ahistorical legendary details mixed in with historical information about Jesus's life. The Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke are heavily shaped by Jewish tradition, with the Gospel of Matthew deliberately portraying Jesus as a "new Moses". Although it is highly unlikely that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels directly based any of their accounts on pagan mythology, it is possible that they may have subtly shaped their accounts of Jesus's healing miracles to resemble familiar Greek stories about miracles associated with Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine. The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are usually seen by secular historians as legends designed to fulfill Jewish expectations about the Messiah.
Libellus de Nativitate Sanctae Mariae is a text concerning the events surrounding the birth of Mary, mother of Jesus. It essentially originates as part of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and was treated as an independent work around the ninth century.
The Jewish–Christian Gospels were gospels of a Jewish Christian character quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome and probably Didymus the Blind. All five call the gospel they know the "Gospel of the Hebrews", but most modern scholars have concluded that the five early church historians are not quoting the same work. As none of the works survive to this day, attempts have been made to reconstruct them from the references in the Church Fathers. The majority of scholars believe that there existed one gospel in Aramaic/Hebrew and at least two in Greek, although a minority argue that there were only two, in Aramaic/Hebrew and in Greek.
The Gospel of Basilides is the title given to a reputed text within the New Testament apocrypha, which is reported in the middle of the 3rd century as then circulating amongst the followers of Basilides (Βασιλείδης), a leading theologian of Gnostic tendencies, who had taught in Alexandria in the second quarter of the 2nd century. Basilides's teachings were condemned as heretical by Irenaeus of Lyons, and by Hippolytus of Rome, although they had been evaluated more positively by Clement of Alexandria. There is, however, no agreement amongst Irenaeus, Hippolytus or Clement as to Basilides's specific theological opinions; while none of the three report a gospel in the name of Basilides.
Infancy gospels are a genre of religious texts that arose in the 2nd century. They are part of New Testament apocrypha, and provide accounts of the birth and early life of Jesus. The texts are of various and uncertain origin, and are generally non-canonical in major modern branches of Christianity. They include the Gospel of James, which introduces the concept of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, both of which cover many miraculous incidents from the life of Mary and the childhood of Jesus that are not included in the canonical gospels. Although the Life of John the Baptist focuses on John the Baptist rather than Jesus or his immediate family, it is also included in the genre as its events would be contemporary with Jesus's early life.
Passion Gospels are early Christian texts that either mostly or exclusively relate to the last events of Jesus' life: the Passion of Jesus. They are generally classed as New Testament apocrypha. The last chapters of the four canonical gospels include Passion narratives, but later Christians hungered for more details. Just as infancy gospels expanded the stories of young Jesus, Passion Gospels expanded the story of Jesus's arrest, trial, execution, resurrection, and the aftermath. These documents usually claimed to be written by a participant mentioned in the gospels, with Nicodemus, Pontius Pilate, and Joseph of Arimathea as popular choices for author. These documents are considered more legendary than historical, however, and were not included in the eventual Canon of the New Testament.
The Pilate cycle is a group of various pieces of early Christian literature that purport to either be written by Pontius Pilate, or else otherwise closely describe his activities and the Passion of Jesus. Unlike the four gospels, these later writings were not canonized in the New Testament, and hence relegated to a status of apocrypha. Some writings were quite obscure, with only a few ancient textual references known today; they merely survived through happenstance, and may not have been particularly widely read by early Christians in the Roman Empire and Christians in the Middle Ages. Others were more popular. The most notable example was the Gospel of Nicodemus, which proved quite popular and influential in medieval and Renaissance Christianity.
The Armenian Infancy Gospel is a sixth-century apocryphal infancy gospel based on an older Syriac version which no longer exists. The gospel has two versions, a longer one and a shorter one. The text includes stories about Virgin Mary's life, her marriage to Joseph, her miraculous birth to Jesus, Jesus's childhood and his later life like the other infancy gospels but with some distinct features.
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