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The Proof Is in the Papyri? Gospel Bestsellers from Egyptian Garbage Dumps ~ I THE PROOF IS IN THE PAPYRI? GOSPEL BESTSELLERS FROM EGYPTIAN GARBAGE DUMPS ~ Rabbit Trails HAVE already cited the words of William Petersen comparing I the production of Gospels to the breeding habits of rabbits. So, just how many Gospels were there? Using the dates given in J. K. Elliott's collection, The Apocryphal New Testament, 1 'or other standard works', Petersen gives a list of Gospels written by 175 CE (this would include the Gospel if Judas). Of course, new Gospels continued to be produced by certain groups after 175 but it would be a little hard to imagine that Gospels originating so late would ever seriously have rivalled the four in the mainstream church (in fact, none did). The list of Gospels is not in the thousands, or in the hundreds. Petersen, somewhat anticlimactic­ ally, finds a grand total of nine other Gospels which might have sought to compete with the four. 2 Not an insignificant number, to be sure, but hardly what we might expect from all the hype. (As I learned from the internet, one female rabbit can produce nine bunnies in a single litter.) Moreover, including the Infancy Gospel if]ames in the category of 'Gospels' is a bit of a stretch, as 7 THE PROOF IS IN THE PAPYRI? Table 1.1. Petersen's 'partial list' cif non-canonical Gospels composed bifore 175 CE Gospel of the Ebionites C.I2S? Gospel of the Egyptians C.I2S? Gospel of the Hebrews C.I2S? Gospel of the Nazoraeans c. 12S? Gospel ofThomas C.140? Gospel ofPeter c. I so? 'Unknown Gospel' [P. Egerton 2] c.1 so? Gospel ofJudas C. I 70? Infancy Gospel ofJames C.170? its genre is quite different. More realistically, then, we are talking about eight or so alternative Gospels (see Table 1.1). Perhaps rabbit habits were different in antiquity. Granted, Petersen calls this a 'partial list.' It is not unlikely that more Gospels might have circulated before 175. But if they once existed they have left no record, even in later lists ofbooks to be avoided, and this in itself may be an indication of their perceived value at the time. But whether eight or eighty, this does not yet answer for us which Gospels, if any, were being used and valued by most Christians in the second century. If almost anybody could write a Gospel (that is, any 'literate' body with ample time, resources, and inclination), this did not mean just anybody did. And if anybody did, this did not guarantee that the new Gospel would find readers, let alone that it would become acceptable to significant numbers of Christians as in any sense an authentic or trustworthy account of the life, words, and deeds ofJesus. It should be observed that Petersen, when listing the Gospels and probable dates given above, also lists what many consider the most probable dates for the canonical Gospels (see Table 1.2). These dates are fairly standard among historians today, although 8 THE PROOF IS IN THE PAPYRI? Table I .2. Peters en's dates for the canonical Gospels Gospel of Mark qo? Gospel of Matthew c.Bs? Gospel of Luke C.90? Gospel ofJohn c.roo? some very competent scholars would argue that not only Mark, but also Matthew and Luke (and a small minority would say John too) were in circulation before 70 CE. In any event, to state the obvious, the four canonical Gospels are acknowledged by Peter­ sen and the vast majority of scholars of all persuasions to be the earliest known Gospels. Now, the average reader might be tempted to conclude that the four Gospels now in the Bible might always have been considered by most Christians to have the best claim to authen­ ticity, simply because these Gospels were around longest in the life of the church. But many scholars are quick to dismiss such an easy conclusion. Do they have reason for this scepticism? They believe they have material proof for it. Enter the evidence of the papyri. Papyrus Trails In his National Geographic article introducing the Gospel ofJudas to the public, Andrew Cockbum intimates that the prominence of the four canonical Gospels over others in the church was a relatively late phenomenon. 'In ancient times,' he writes, 'some of these alternative versions [i.e. other Gospels] may have circulated more widely than the familiar four Gospels.'3 For support, Cockbum quotes Bart Ehrman, who declares: 'Most of the 9 THE PROOF IS IN THE PAPYRI? manuscripts, or at least fragments, from the second century that we have found are copies of other Christian books. ' 4 Those of us who try to keep abreast of the discoveries of New Testament manuscripts may wonder if the bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus was not misquoted himself here! Does he really mean to claim that most ofthe earliest Gospel fragments discovered to date do not represent any of the familiar four? Cockburn certainly seems to understand the statement in this way. And, in any case, the contention that non-canonical Gospels equalled or outnum­ bered canonical ones in the early period has the support of other prominent scholars of early Christianity. James M. Robinson is a veteran researcher whose extensive scholarly output has contributed a great deal especially to our understanding of the (mostly gnostic) texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. A recent article by Robinson supports the claim just mentioned. 'When Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas were written,' says Robinson, 'there was no New Testament canon, and hence no distinction between canonical and non-canonical. They stood on equal footing, and it was only gradually that some were elevated into canonical status, others not.'5 Later he concludes, 'in the second century, Gospels that were later to lose out, as non-canonical, were about as common as Gospels that were later to win out, as canonical'. If there once were other Gospels which stood on equal footing with the four among Christians, or Gospels even more widely used than the four, this would certainly be important. It would surely seem to support the popular notion that some mischief must have occurred for these now almost forgotten Gospels to have been supplanted. But is the claim true? The general public seldom has direct access to the records and to the serious IO THE PROOF IS IN THE PAPYRI? scholarship on manuscript discoveries, so it will now be necessary to take some time to show that claims such as this one outrun the evidence. There are several problems in Robinson's statements cited above. First is the assumption about the date of the Gospel of Thomas, that it is contemporary with the other four-let's say, from sometime before the year IOO. This would be a view held by a very small minority of scholars. Many do believe that perhaps a portion of the I I 4 sayings recorded in the Gospel if Thomas circulated from this time or before, but almost nobody asserts that a written document closely resembling what we know as the Gospel if Thomas existed in the first century. Many scholars in fact do not believe the Gospel if Thomas, as a literary work, came into existence until much later; Petersen thinks not until the I40S, others not until the I70s or I8os. Second, Robinson's use of plurals, 'some were elevated into canonical status, others not', gives the clear impression that not just the Gospel of Thomas but other Gospels too were 'on equal footing' before the gradual elevation of the four we know. Robin­ son has not told us which Gospels these were, and probably for good reason. For it would be very difficult to show that any others approached anything like equal footing in the church as a whole. A third difficulty concerns Robinson's conclusion from the assertion that 'there was no New Testament canon' when the four Gospels, and Thomas, were written, and hence no distinction between canonical and non-canonical. From this he concludes that all these books stood on 'equal footing'. If it is true that there was no New Testament canon by about the year 100 (certainly the church had given no <1ficial pronouncement about the canonicity of books by then), there was obviously no distinction between II THE PROOF IS IN THE PAPYRI? 'canonical' and 'non-canonical'. But Robinson infers that this means there were no distinctions at all. Despite claims to the contrary, there is simply no positive evidence to support an asser­ tion that Thomas, in the event that it was around at that time, would have stood on 'equal footing' with the others. One might as well say that Caesar's Gallic Wars stood on equal footing with the four Gospels, for it too was in existence at this time when there was 'no New Testament canon'. Of course, this comparison is not entirely fair. The Gallic Wars, unlike the Gospel if Thomas, is not a religious text and the Gospel if Thomas, whenever it first began to circulate, presumably circulated among some who considered themselves Christians. Most likely it was among these Christians that it held its highest influence. Perhaps among these Christians it stood on 'higher footing' than any of the four Gospels. We simply do not know. What we do know is that among those communities of Christians who eventually showed their clear adherence to the four canonical Gospels there is no evidence of a positive adherence of any kind to the Gospel if Thomas. Our first recorded mention of a book with this title by any Christian writer comes in about 235 CE in the work of Hippolytus of Rome, who says it was used by the Naassene gnostics (Refutation 5.7.20).
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