Customer Reviews

Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development

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Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History And Development is a scholarly yet completely accessible history of early Christian Gospel literature from the first two centuries of the Christian movement. Professor Koester provides all technical information required by the scholar, including translations of all data, and yet writes with a clarity that makes his material of immense interest to the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the development of the principle texts of the Christian gospel. Highly recommended.

This book is loaded with tables and footnotes. It's an excruciatingly detailed study of the various New Testament gospels and related sources. You'll find a detailed breakdown of the derivation of the Q synoptic sayings source from Luke and Matthew; comparisons between lost gospels like the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas and the canonical texts; a study of the birth accounts; a catalog of the Jesus stories; a bunch of other stuff.

I found it slow going, but it's amazing how much obscure knowledge you can glean from reading through this. I wouldn't recommend it as an introductory text on the Gospels, however.

I couldn't agree more with Midwest Book Review. I absolutely love this book and am fascinated by the content. It's not a book on spirituality, but if you're a history buff and want to understand how the Christian religion evolved, this is a crucial piece of the puzzle. The book covers both canonical and non-canonical literature and summarizes much of the scholarly discussion concerning the sources of the writings, the relationship to oral traditions, evidence of who used what as the basis for gospel development, etc. It gets down into the detail where I'd like to be but lack too much of the background required to get there.

Still after 18 years the reference for scholastic analysis. Appears accessible at first.But after several hours down rabbit holes in related works, Alice is still elusive, and the Chesire cat still vaperous. Koester is something for everybody, a reference work.

But hey, two thousand years, where the power loom was created 200 years ago - and 6 billion people compared to the usual 200 million world population. Koester is up there with Lyman Bushman's Puritan to Yankee to frontier embodiement (1500-1800 indians woven into 1800s Yankees). Koester is Meyers and Budge in ancient understanding for compiliation. Koester:library reference another 20 years. Funny how when scholars start talking, xeroxes of this or that table from Koester come out of the briefcase.

So my last two Koester's were loaned and not returned. Still they bring over $20 on Amazon (thrashed) - amazing for a 20 year old tome. The OED comes to mind. Similarly, much first hand research, difficult to gain access, went into compiliation, albeit christian lit not english morphology, equally inciteful on unwritten mutation.

Highly recommended, or essential.