Wikisource talk:WikiProject Early Christian Writings/Gospel of the Hebrews

Assumes facts not in evidence, i.e., that Ignatius and Clement and Polycarp and the rest were referring to the Gospel of the Hebrews, when in many cases there is not a scintilla of a suggestion to that effect. I will be cleaning this up. --Peter Kirby 17:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. --Peter Kirby 11:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Reverting to last version by Jayvdb

This has already been discussed ad nauseam; lists of quotations do not belong at WikiSource. The revision reverted eliminated valid material (such as the summary by Cyril of Jerusalem), included extraneous material (the Clement of Rome quotation for example), and included mere references to the Gospel of the Hebrews that were not part of the text. Also no sources were given and there was no indication whether the translations were PD. Sbh 23:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Reverting to last version by Billinghurst

The revision by 216.249.58.67 omits valid material (such as the summary by Cyril of Jerusalem) while adding material taken from Greek Thomas and other sources not generally considered to belong to the Gospel of the Hebrews. It also contained copyrighted material as well as mere mentions of the gospel in ancient sources. If additional material is to be added based on Nicholson and Edwards it should be restricted to quotations from the gospel itself (not mere references to it or material taken from papyrus fragments conjectured to belong to it) and those should be from a PD source. Sbh (talk) 11:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm adding these observations about this revision because people keep making the same mistakes. The numbers in [brackets] refer to the reference notes in that version.

Appropriate material to be included here (and this is the result of considerable debate) is restricted to actual quotations or summaries from the Gospel of the Hebrews (GH). Mere references to it do not belong. When the same passage is quoted by more than one authority, the passage should be given once, with the supporting authorities given in a note.

Some of the material given in this revision was legitimate and already present in the older version:

Second Fragment: Origin quotes the passage about Mount Tabor; this revision [28] includes not only the GH quotation itself but Origen’s commentary on it. Jerome also refers to it ([45], [48], [49], [51]). All these references were given in the earlier version.

Third Fragment: Clement twice quotes the passage “He who seeks will not stop till he find; and having found, he will wonder; and wondering, he will reign; and reigning, he will rest” once attributing it to GH. There is no reason to include both versions of the quotation ([23], [24]) here.

Fourth Fragment: Jerome quotes the piece about looking on your brother with charity ([60]).

Fifth Fragment: Jerome likewise is the source for the quotation about grieving the spirit of one’s brother ([50]).

Sixth Fragment: And again Jerome is the source for the appearance to James the Just ([62]).

Other material was not previously present in this text for good reason. Some of it refers to what are believed to be other Jewish-Christian gospels and are included in the appropriate place:

Origen’s stories about the rich men ([26]) and the talents ([29]), Eusebius’ passage about choosing the most worthy things ([34]), and many passages quoted by Jerome ([44], [46], [53], [54], [56], [58], [59], [61], [63]) are found under the Gospel of the Nazaraeans.

The passages from Epiphanius [36]-[43] insofar as they are quotations are found under the Gospel of the Ebionites.

Other material consists of unattributed quotations found in early church writers: examples are the two quotations from 1 Clement ([4] & [5]), the version of the Lord’s Prayer found in the Didache ([6]), the “bodiless demon” quotation from Ignatius ([7]), the two quotations from Polycarp ([9] and [10]), the “last things” quotation from Barnabas ([11]), Justin Martyr’s quotations from the “Memoirs of the Apostles” ([12], [13], and [14]), the “Having seen thy brother thou hast seen thy God” passage cited by Tertullian ([20]) and by Clement ([22]), Origen’s quotation about being weak, hungry and thirsty [27], and Eusebius’ “disciples of all nations” quotation ([30]). Obviously any of them could come from GH—or any other lost work, for that matter. Until there’s a general scholarly consensus on the subject, there’s no good reason to include them here.

Also in this category could be included the papyrus fragments: Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840, containing a dialog between Jesus and a high priest may well be Jewish-Christian in origin, but there is nothing to connect it with GH. And the fragment about the healthy not needing a physician is taken from Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1224; it is not even certain that this is from a gospel, least of all from GH.

Another category would be quotations known not to come from GH: these are the sayings taken from the Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas (Oxyrhynchus Papyri 1, 654, and 655). They belong there, not with the GH material.

And finally there are various quotations about the Ebionites, the origin of the Gospel According to Matthew, and various other topics. Some of these are [25] (origin of Matthew), [31], [32] (the canonicity of GH), [33] (the Ebionites). These are not quotations from GH and so don’t belong here.

Oh, yes, the so-called Fayyum Fragment is not “the oldest fragment of a non-canonical gospel to date.” It’s not even certain that it's from a gospel at all, let alone GH. Sbh (talk) 15:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)