Manuscript Evidence and
Possible Dates for Some Non-
Canonical Gospels
Posted: June 27, 2006
Speculative dating of some non-canonical gospels and manuscript data are provided below.
Some Non-Canonical Gospels:
a. “No complete copy of the Gospel of Mary exists. Indeed, for centuries, the Gospel of Mary remained completely unknown” (TCG:359).
b. Nothing is known about the author or provenance of the original text (TCG:360).
c. It was probably composed sometime during the (late?) second century C.E. (LS:35).
d. Only three fragmentary manuscripts are known to have survived into the modern period, two third-century Greek fragments (P. Rylands 463 and P. Oxyrhynchus 3525) published in 1938 and 1983 (TCG:359).
e. There is also a longer fifth-century Coptic translation (Berolinensis Gnosticus 8052,1) published in 1955 (TCG:359).
f. There are “some important variations between the Greek and Coptic manuscripts…the Coptic variants reflect theological tendencies arguably of a later time…The Greek fragments seem to presume that the leadership of Mary Magdalene as a woman is not under debate…Changes in the Coptic version, however, point toward a situation in which women’s leadership as such is being challenged and requires defense” (TCG:359).
2. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas:
a. A Syriac manuscript dating to the sixth century C.E. is the earliest extant manuscript (TCG:369).
b. The place and circumstance of its composition are unknown (TCG:370).
c. It survives in various forms in a number of languages, including Syriac, Greek, Latin, and Slavonic (TCG:369).
d. “The variations among these versions make it difficult to reconstruct the earliest form of the work” (TCG:369).
e. The earliest clear attestation of an episode from the gospel is in Irenaeus’ treatise Against Heresies, written around 185 C.E. (TCG:369).
f. Other patristic testimonies include those from the late second to early third centuries: Hippolytus (Refutation of all Heresies 5.7) and Origen (Homily I in Luke) (TCG:369).
g. However, some of these testimonies may refer to the sayings Gospel of Thomas rather than The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (TCG:370).
a. There is only one definite manuscript that only presents a fragment of the Gospel of Peter and it probably dates to the seventh or eighth century C.E. (LC:16, 17).
b. There are several tiny fragments of Jesus’ sayings that were discovered elsewhere in Egypt, which may have derived from the Gospel of Peter (LC:17-18).
a. Its existence is first evidenced by Origen’s writings in the third century C.E. (LS:63).
a. “Regrettably, the book as a whole has been lost; but we are fortunate to have some quotations of it in the writings of an opponent of the Ebionites, the fourth-century heresy-hunter, Epiphanius of Salamis” (LS:12).
b. Scholars only possess seven fragments of the Gospel of the Ebionites (TCG:435).
c. “It is difficult to assign a date to this Gospel, but since it betrays a knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and presupposes a thriving community of Jewish Christians, it is perhaps best to locate it sometime early in the second century” (LS:13).