Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Egerton Gospel II
Go deeper: the whole of Egerton Gospel II
The full book, start to finish.Für wen es gedacht ist
You will enjoy this if you like early Christian history, lost gospels and detective work with ancient evidence, or wonder what Christians wrote about Jesus before the New Testament took shape.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Picture a scribe in Roman Egypt, nearly two thousand years ago. He presses a reed pen against papyrus and writes in Greek about Jesus of Nazareth. The words do not come from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
In 1934 the British Museum buys a group of papyrus fragments from an Egyptian antiquities dealer, with no documented provenance. Now called Papyrus Egerton 2, they were first published in 1935 by H. Idris Bell and T. C. Skeat. A modern book retells the scholarship for general readers and admits how much is unknown. Do these stories lean on the canonical gospels, or do they keep older memories? The answer reaches far beyond one papyrus.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A papyrus bought in London in 1934Free
- 2The Jesus movement told many stories
- 3Jesus answers the lawyers with Moses
- 4The crowd takes up stones and fails
- 5A leper at the inn asks for healing
- 6The tax question and the answer from Isaiah
- 7Seed sown on the Jordan and a gap in the text
Punkt 1 von 7
A papyrus bought in London in 1934
The story begins with a purchase. In 1934 the British Museum buys papyrus fragments from an Egyptian antiquities dealer. Nobody recorded where they were dug up. All that can be said is that they come from Roman Egypt.
Scholars soon see that the scraps carry stories about Jesus that match no known gospel. They hold dialogues with Jewish authorities, a healing and a mysterious episode by the River Jordan. The fragments are named for Sir Robert Egerton, the museum's benefactor. Bell and Skeat publish them in 1935, and later scholars such as Jon Welch and Thomas Wayment carry the work forward.
The manuscript is written in Greek. Paleographers, who date a manuscript by the shape of its handwriting, put it around the middle of the second century. That makes it one of the oldest surviving Christian manuscripts. Its stories, though, have no home in the canon.
Yet the date of a manuscript is not the date of the text it holds. A scribe copying in about 150 CE does not tell you when the work was first composed. Some scholars argue that the original goes back to the first century. Others argue for the second. The evidence cannot close the debate.
An early date would make the papyrus a rare witness to the stage before the four gospels settled. A later date would show how readers reworked familiar stories. Either way, a small damaged sheet carries a large question about Christian origins.
That’s 1 of 7 key points.
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Questions about Egerton Gospel II
What is the Egerton Gospel about?
It is a set of Greek papyrus fragments about Jesus. They contain a dispute with Jewish legal experts, an attempt to stone him, the healing of a leper, a question about paying taxes and a scene of sowing seed at the Jordan.
When was Papyrus Egerton 2 written?
The manuscript is dated by handwriting to about the middle of the second century. The original text may be older. Some scholars place its composition in the first century, while others favor the second. The question is still open.
Where was the Egerton papyrus found?
No one recorded the find spot. The British Museum bought the fragments in 1934 from an Egyptian antiquities dealer, and the papyrus is thought to come from Roman Egypt. Bell and Skeat published it in 1935.
Is the Egerton Gospel related to the Gospel of John?
Several passages share close wording and ideas with John, such as searching the scriptures, Moses as accuser and an arrest delayed until the hour comes. Scholars still debate who borrowed from whom, or whether both used a common source.
Why is the Egerton Gospel not in the Bible?
It survives only in fragments, and nothing shows how widely it was used. The churches came to receive four gospels as their core. Scholars study the papyrus as evidence of how early Christians told stories about Jesus.
Cite this edition
Egerton Gospel II. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-egerton-gospel-ii.
Egerton Gospel II. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-egerton-gospel-ii (Original work published ca. 150)
Egerton Gospel II. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-egerton-gospel-ii.
@book{anonymous2026egerton,
title = {Egerton Gospel II},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loa-egerton-gospel-ii},
note = {First published ca. 150}
}
