Asks how the term 'gospel' came to be used both for proclamation and narrative, and why the church in forming the canon of scripture chose to include four different and sometimes contradictory accounts of the life of Jesus.
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'This is a scholarly study of many areas of the historical origins and nature of the Gospels, taking up basic introductory questions for a historical critical approach to Gospel study. (...) Hengel shows his mastery of the areas of the history of the early Church and his great familiarity with the text of the Gospels themselves and early Christian writings. (...) A book for good libraries and for serious teachers and students of the Gospels.' -- P.M. Meagher S. J. 2002
About the Author
Martin Hengel is Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism in the University of Tubingen. Translated from the German by John Bowden.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By tolkein
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I loved this book. I bought it to help me in my course essay on the Four Gospels.
There was so much in it that I had not known, even though I've been studying the Gospels for many years. The chapter on the origin of the collection of the Four Gospels explains the context very clearly. There is a nice discussion of the Petrine mission, as well as the Johannine mission (which coheres very wewll with the narrative in Paul Barnett's Finding the Historical Christ (After Jesus)book. It is not a polemical work, but reads more as a wise commentator, leading the reader on.
The translator deserves a deep bow as the book is very readable.
I had not understood about book cupboards, or that when in Mark, there is a parenthetical aside "let the reader understand" it means the person who reads out loud.
I heartily recommend this book. I found it wonderful.
There was so much in it that I had not known, even though I've been studying the Gospels for many years. The chapter on the origin of the collection of the Four Gospels explains the context very clearly. There is a nice discussion of the Petrine mission, as well as the Johannine mission (which coheres very wewll with the narrative in Paul Barnett's Finding the Historical Christ (After Jesus)book. It is not a polemical work, but reads more as a wise commentator, leading the reader on.
The translator deserves a deep bow as the book is very readable.
I had not understood about book cupboards, or that when in Mark, there is a parenthetical aside "let the reader understand" it means the person who reads out loud.
I heartily recommend this book. I found it wonderful.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars
3 reviews
41 of 44 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Why four gospels instead of one?
16 April 2001
By Timotheos Josephus
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Martin Hengel attempts to cover a great deal of ground in this relatively small book (200 pages excluding a huge number of endnotes). He discusses the four canonical gospels and the issues related to their authorship and recognition by the early church. Most of his time is spent on the three synoptic gospels while John is either neglected or only briefly mentioned.
One of Hengel's main points is that the gospels were written with titles already attached to them. "The gospel according to X" is how they were known from the very time of their composition. This view is in contrast to the view of some scholars who claim the gospels circulated as completely anonymous works until the mid to late 2nd century. Hengel's arguments on this topic are very persuasive. If the gospels were anonymous until the middle of the 2nd century, then we would not have expected such authors as Mark and Luke to be attributed to two of the gospels instead of the more respected Peter and Paul. There is also no known deviation in the naming of the gospels. This would seemingly be impossible if the titles were not attached to the gospels until 50-100 years after they began circulating because there was no centralized church government to impose such an edict in the second century. There is also no hint of any dispute in the early church regarding the titles of the four gospels.
Hengel frequently discusses the testimony of the early church Fathers such as Papias, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus in order to reach his conclusions. Before assuming Hengel is another Christian apologist it should be mentioned that he does not believe Matthew or John were written by those two disciples. However, he does believe they were originally written with the titles "gospel according to Matthew/John". He dates Matthew to 90-100 C.E. and John to 100-110 C.E, while dating Luke to 75-80 C.E. He also believes Matthew used Luke as a source.
This is the type of book in which the reader will not agree with everything the author claims, but will most likely find some areas of agreement. Hengel's arguments are always his own and he isn't one to follow the "party line" on any particular issue. He is to be commended for his originality and willingness to think for himself rather than relying on constant appeals to previous scholars to support his views.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deft, inviting, brilliant scholarship.
6 Sep 2004
By Anne Rice
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Martin Hengel is one of the giants of modern Biblical scholarship. And this, one of his latest books, does away with some of the most destructive assumptions that have haunted a century of New Testament Studies. He makes the case effortlessly that the gospels were never circulated anonymously. That Mark and Luke came earlier than Matthew and John may be true as well. Hengel sees through alot of scholarly confusion as he seeks for what really happened. And he writes so that outsiders and novices like me can understand him, as well as for the most firmly entrenched in the field. I love his detailed examination of the primary source materials of the first two centuries; and his brilliant logic. His output is really immense, and I'm studying as much of it as I can. In my studies so far he ranks with N.T.Wright, John P. Meier, Raymond Brown and John A.T. Robinson. If I suffered any disappointment here, it was that Hengel did not go into greater detail in his response to David Trobisch whose book on the New Testament I very much admire. I think we'll see a lot of refreshing break throughs in New Testament scholarship in the years to come, and some of them are going to be purely matters of perspective: focusing on the obvious which generations of supposedly enlightened thinkers have rather madly ignored. Hengel makes those kinds of break throughs. So does Richard Bauckham. Marvelous teachers!
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Scholarly Traditionalist
23 May 2005
By Denny Burk
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
"Martin Hengel, Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism at the University of Tübingen, has produced a monograph of massive importance for gospel studies. In The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, Hengel attempts, 'starting from Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria and applying all the references from the early church and the New Testament textual tradition, to give a plausible historical account of the development of this collection and to evaluate its historical and theological significance' (p. xi). In this work, Hengel brings early post-apostolic Christian testimony to bear upon the modern understanding of how the four canonical gospels came into being. This is a learned treatise in which Hengel draws together in one place reflections that that have occupied him over decades of Gospel study (p. xi).
"Hengel offers much positive material in his account of the origin of the fourfold Gospel tradition. One of his most significant observations is that the gospels never circulated as anonymous works in the churches. From the very earliest period, there was a concern that these writings be connected to an apostle. Hengel gives convincing evidence that the Gospel superscriptions were a part of the Gospels as originally circulated. In spite of its strengths,
Hengel's argument could be shored up at numerous points. First, his allowance of pseudepigraphal writings in the canon undermines some of his historical statements. Second, Hengel should have made a better case for understanding the evangelists' original intention that their texts be read aloud. Third, in spite of Hengel's remarks to the contrary, the evidence does not seem to support the notion that the canonical materials ran wild up until the end of he second century. Fourth, Hengel's assumption of Markan priority erodes the credibility of his plea for the reader to listen more closely to the early Church Fathers".
h t t p : / / d e n n y b u r k . b l o g s p o t . c o m
"Hengel offers much positive material in his account of the origin of the fourfold Gospel tradition. One of his most significant observations is that the gospels never circulated as anonymous works in the churches. From the very earliest period, there was a concern that these writings be connected to an apostle. Hengel gives convincing evidence that the Gospel superscriptions were a part of the Gospels as originally circulated. In spite of its strengths,
Hengel's argument could be shored up at numerous points. First, his allowance of pseudepigraphal writings in the canon undermines some of his historical statements. Second, Hengel should have made a better case for understanding the evangelists' original intention that their texts be read aloud. Third, in spite of Hengel's remarks to the contrary, the evidence does not seem to support the notion that the canonical materials ran wild up until the end of he second century. Fourth, Hengel's assumption of Markan priority erodes the credibility of his plea for the reader to listen more closely to the early Church Fathers".
h t t p : / / d e n n y b u r k . b l o g s p o t . c o m
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