James R. Edwards (born 1945) is an American

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

scholar. His primary research interests include

Biblical studies Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible, with ''Bible'' referring to the books of the canonical Hebrew Bible in mainstream Jewish usage and the Christian Bible including the can ...

and the history of the

early church Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and bey ...

, with secondary interests in the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

and history of the twentieth-century German Church struggle. After gaining degrees from Whitworth University (B.A.),

Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a Private university, private seminary, school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Establish ...

(M.Div.), and

Fuller Theological Seminary Fuller Theological Seminary is an Evangelical seminary in Pasadena, California, with regional campuses in the western United States. It is egalitarian in nature. Fuller has a student body of approximately 2,300 students from 90 countries and ...

(Ph.D.), and further study at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

and the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

, Tyndale House (Cambridge), and the Center of Theological Inquiry (Princeton), in 1997 he joined the faculty at Whitworth University,

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south o ...

. He continues his work as Professor Emeritus of Theology.

The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition

In 2009, Edwards advanced a controversial theory that the

synoptic Gospels The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical ...

are partly dependent on the "Hebrew Gospel", which includes the

Gospel of the Hebrews The Gospel of the Hebrews (), or Gospel according to the Hebrews, is a lost Jewish–Christian gospel. The text of the gospel is lost, with only fragments of it surviving as brief quotations by the early Church Fathers and in apocryphal writi ...

, a syncretistic Jewish–Christian text believed by most scholars to have been composed in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

, the

Hebrew Gospel hypothesis The Hebrew Gospel hypothesis (''proto-Gospel hypothesis'' or ''Aramaic Matthew hypothesis'') is that a lost gospel, written in Hebrew or Aramaic, predated the four canonical gospels. In the 18th and early 19th century several scholars suggested th ...

of Lessing and others, and traditions of a writing of Matthew's supposed to have been written by him “in the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language unti ...

” (Papias) and Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, 1385, a rabbinical translation of Matthew's gospel. Edwards argues that patristic citations from "the Hebrew Gospel" correlate more distinctly and repeatedly with sections called "Special Luke" in the

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, Nativity of Jesus, birth, Ministry of Jesus, ministry, Crucifixion of Jesus, death, Resurrection of Jesus, resurrection, and Ascension of ...

than with either the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...

or the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...

. Two separate reviews were published by the

Society of Biblical Literature The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), founded in 1880 as the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, is an American-based learned society dedicated to the academic study of the Bible and related ancient literature. Its current stated mis ...

in which the reviewers were not convinced of Edwards' thesis. John S. Kloppenborg also reviewed Edwards' thesis negatively. Edwards also rejects the modern division, by Schneemelcher and others, of the Jewish-Christian Gospels' fragments into three or more separate lost Gospels.

Works

Commentaries

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Other books

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Articles

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, James R. 1945 births 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American Presbyterian ministers 20th-century American writers 20th-century Christian biblical scholars 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American Presbyterian ministers 21st-century American writers 21st-century Christian biblical scholars American biblical scholars Fuller Theological Seminary alumni Living people New Testament scholars Place of birth missing (living people) Princeton Theological Seminary alumni Presbyterian Church (USA) teaching elders University of Zurich alumni University of Tübingen alumni Whitworth University alumni Whitworth University faculty