There it is; the closest thing we have to a Gospel of Paul, a hypothetical construct created from everything Paul said about the itinerant preacher Jesus.Paul of Tarsus wrote:
This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. God’s word is not chained. Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.
The gospel of God — the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil.
During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, also the cup, after supper, saying ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.”
For you, brothers and sisters became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out.
We preach Christ crucified; Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole." He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
He was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me as to one abnormally born.
For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. Amen.
The Gospel of Paul has been a bit of a pet project of mine for quite some time now. I am aware that we do not have any such text — called the Gospel of Paul — but we have tantalizing glimpses of his underlying gospel message, a framework that can be gleaned and hypothesized from his extant letters. Whether Paul ever wrote a gospel himself is something we probably will never know; if such a thing ever existed it has been lost in the sands of time.
The interesting thing about constructing a theoretical Gospel of Paul, is how it links directly to the Gospel of Mark. The Markan Gospel is most probably the earliest gospel text, and there is but a decade or so between the last Pauline texts and the Markan Evangelion, some scholars say perhaps even less. The links can be striking; the wording of the Eucharist in Galateans is found almost verbatim in the Gospel of Mark, for example. There are of course numerous hypotheses how this has happened.
In any case, it has been said that the two most important authors in the NT are, indeed, Paul and Mark. Almost all of the rest of the NT are either extrapolations on them, rather trivial additions, or completely unnecessary stories about the apostles. It is entirely possible to summarize the entire Christian tradition and theology by using Paul and Mark alone.
Therein lies my interest.
What do we know about how the two authors can be linked up? What can we with certainty say about the provenance of the texts? We know Paul wrote for a mostly Hellenized/Romanized, Greek/Latin speaking, gentile audience. Then again, so did Mark, perhaps even more so. But what can we say about the manuscript histories? Do we have evidence of any contact between Mark and the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem, bar a few alleged, fleeting contacts via relatives of Mark?
Some thoughts.
Regards,
