You can make a pretty good case that the Gospels are the four most influential – and controversial – books of all time. But who were the authors? How do we know who wrote them? And why was it that these four books were selected, and not others?
Meet our guests
Professor Simon Gathercole is a New Testament Scholar at Fitzwilliam College at the University of Cambridge. He has written dozens of books and an enormous amount of articles on The Gospels, including the recently published The Gospel and the Gospels.
Links
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Get a copy of Simon’s excellent new book on the Gospels here
A transcript of this episode is available here. Please note, that due to software not all exchanges between guests will be completely accurate.
Extras
Check out these helpful links below for more info on what was discussed in this episode.
Our host John Dickson, pictured a few years ago with the earliest fragment of Marks’ gospel ever discovered
To Read
- Here’s an awesome explainer of why the discovery of the above fragment of Mark’s Gospel matters
- If you want to read more ancient biographies, here’s a link to Flavius Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews
- The idea of the “mythical Jesus” might have been widely debunked, but it still hangs around. Here is John Dickson’s rebuff of it, published by the ABC
- If the strange ending of Mark’s gospel has left you perplexed, here’s a helpful explainer from John about why it doesn’t really matter
- Simon has published a mountain of text on who the Gospel authors were. Here’s one of his papers on their supposed anonymity
To Watch
- Here’s Peter Owen-Jones’ The Lost Gospels, first aired on the BBC. It’s an entertaining view!
- Bart Ehrman has long made the claim that he believes the Gospels were anonymous. Here he is making his case
- And here’s a long – but worthwhile video – with Gathercole challenging this idea
To Listen
There are loads of other Undeceptions episodes on this topic. Here are just a few.
- Episode 30: Canon Fodder
- Episode 90: Jesus Quests
- Episode 2: Old Papers
- Episode 56: Paulos Apostolos
- Simon’s also been part of a huge two-part debate with Ehrman on our friend Justin Brierley’s show Premier Unbelievable – here’s a link to part of that debate
… and finally
- If you want to know more about the other Gospels – here’s a complete copy of the scandalous Gospel of Philip!
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