The ''Gospel of the Saviour'' is a fragmentary

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

text from an otherwise unknown gospel that has joined the New Testament apocrypha. It consists of a fragmentary fire-damaged

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of ...

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

that was acquired by the Egyptian Museum of Berlin in 1961 (accessioned as Papyrus Berolinensis 22220). Its nature was only discovered in 1991, when it came round to being described (the sheer number of similar manuscripts being described causing the 30-year delay), and was revealed in a 1996 lecture by

Charles W. Hedrick Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

Translations and formats

It has been edited and translated into English by Hedrick and Paul Mirecki (Hedrick and Mirecki 1999) and by

Bart D. Ehrman Bart Denton Ehrman (born 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including t ...

(Ehrman 2003). The fragmentary nature of the text admits of more than one sequential ordering of the contents, giving rise to more than one useful translation, and some public discussion (see § Bibliography).

Date, origin and style

The manuscript appears to date from the 6th century; Hellenisms in the vocabulary and grammar suggest that it was translated from a lost Greek original. The hypothetic original Greek text on which it is based is thought to have been composed somewhere in the late second or early third century, judging from the theology and style. The Gospel is not a narrative but a

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is c ...

, a form often chosen in Antiquity for didactic material.

Alin Suciu Alin Suciu is a Romanian coptologist and papyrologist. He is a senior researcher at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities and docent in Early Christian Literature and Coptic Christianity, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. ...

has argued that the ''Gospel of the Saviour'' is not in fact a gospel but rather belongs to the Coptic genre of "apostolic memoir" and was written after the

Council of Chalcedon The Council of Chalcedon (; la, Concilium Chalcedonense), ''Synodos tēs Chalkēdonos'' was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bith ...

in 451.

Gnostic themes

The content is heavily

Gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

in that salvation is available only to those who understand the secret knowledge ('' gnosis''), and also shows parallels with the

Gospel of Peter The Gospel of Peter ( grc, κατά Πέτρον ευαγγέλιον, kata Petron euangelion), or the Gospel according to Peter, is an ancient text concerning Jesus Christ, only partially known today. It is considered a non-canonical gospel and w ...

, in that the significance of the

Crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...

is somewhat watered down, being considered a part of a heavenly journey, an idea much more in keeping with a Gnostic world-view. The unnamed Saviour (assumed to be

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

) engages in a dialogue with his apostles that is somewhat more personal than is found elsewhere. And at one point, the cross itself is addressed, as if it is a living creature, a companion rather than a device for death.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Charles W. Hedrick and Paul A. Mirecki, 1999. ''Gospel of the Savior: A New Ancient Gospel'' (Santa Rosa, California: Polebridge Press) * Stephen Emmel, 2002. “The Recently Published Gospel of the Savior (''unbekanntes Berliner Evangelium''): Righting the Order of Pages and Events,” in ''

Harvard Theological Review The ''Harvard Theological Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1908 and published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School. It covers a wide spectrum of fields in theological and rel ...

'' 95 pp 45–72
abstract
* Charles W. Hedrick, 2003. “Caveats to a ‘Righted Order’ of the Gospel of the Savior," in ''Harvard Theological Review '' 96 pp 229–238
abstract
. * Bart D. Ehrman, 2003. ''Lost Scriptures: books that did not make it into the New Testament'' (Oxford University Press). * Wolfgang Kosack, ''Novum Testamentum Coptice. Neues Testament, Bohairisch, ediert von Wolfgang Kosack. Novum Testamentum, Bohairice, curavit Wolfgang Kosack. / Wolfgang Kosack.'' neue Ausgabe, Christoph Brunner, Basel 2014. . *

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20020618002448/http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BR/bswbBRFeature2b.html Latest Gospel Found
Early Christian Writings: The Gospel of the Saviour

* {{Authority control 2nd-century Christian texts 3rd-century Christian texts 6th-century manuscripts Agrapha of Jesus and apocryphal fragments Gnostic Gospels Lost apocrypha Texts in Coptic