The Four Gospels: a Pleading and Balance: Volume One: How They Became — Their Origins, Dates, Discrepancies

A critical reference study of the origins of the four Gospels: the dates at which they appeared, the criteria by which they were accepted, their discrepancies, and the text of them current today. This is a work to be consulted rather than read once and set aside. It is built upon tables, upon the primary texts themselves, and upon indexes rather than upon disputation; and it argues throughout ex concessis - from what the tradition concedes of itself. Every claim is marked with its degree of attestation: consensus, preponderant majority, a weighty but contested opinion, a minority opinion, or a claim without warrant. Part One - Which Book Are We Speaking Of? The word euangelion in Greek literature, in the Septuagint, in imperial usage, in the Qur'an and in Christian usage; the historical setting in which the gospels arose; a disciplined census of every gospel whose title has reached us, once the inflated numbers are discarded; the dates of the four and the Synoptic Problem. With Appendix (D): twenty-five common errors in this field, with their corrections. Part Two - How Did They Become Four, and Which Text? How the four came to be settled upon, from Marcion to Trent, by the texts of the canonical lists themselves and not by descriptions of them; the divergence of the churches over the limits of "the Book" down to the present day; textual criticism and the manuscripts - what is established, and what entered the text and then left it. With Appendix (I): nineteen patristic testimonies in their own texts, translated and referenced - Papias, Irenaeus, Justin, Tertullian, the Muratorian Fragment, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Serapion, Jerome, Dionysius, Clement, Cyprian and Augustine among them. The author writes as a Muslim and says so at the outset; the argument, however, is conducted with the instruments of historical and textual scholarship and is answerable to them alone. The book alleges no conspiracy, passes no judgement upon persons, and stops at a single declared limit: what historical criticism establishes, and what it does not. Translated from the Arabic. Volume Two - Parts Three and Four - is in preparation.