I’m Starting a Blog Series on The Case for a Proto-Gospel

In my new peer-reviewed academic study, The Case for a Proto-Gospel: Recovering the Common Written Source Behind Mark and John, I explore a number of new paths and insights into the origins of the gospels and early Christian History. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first systematic study of every incident in the Gospel of John (except for speeches, discourse and “I Am” sayings) that cross-references almost every incident in the Gospel of Mark (except for speeches, discourses, parables, doublets and most exorcisms) and establishes a direct literary relationship between both gospels, both as to story content and substantial sequential agreement in story order. But, like many lengthy academic studies, it is expensive and targeted primarily to an academic audience. The cost probably exceeds the book-buying budgets of many of my readers and followers.

Therefore, in order to share my discoveries with a wider audience, over the next several weeks I will blog about a number of my interesting discoveries on the origins of the gospels and early Christian history. If this interests you, and you’re not a subscriber to this blog, I recommend that you subscribe. There is no charge and your subscription will generate an email notice any time I post something new. Just enter your email address in the subscription box and click “subscribe.” The subscription box appears somewhere on the home page, depending on what sort of device you use for browsing.

  1. John Crane

    Hello, I have two questions
    What’s is your opinion on the Christology of this proto-gospel? Does it protray jesus as god? Or a subordinate son of god? or an apocolyptic preacher?

    Also do know a reason why the Gospel of john seems to mention “the prophet” in john 1:20-21 and john 7:40-41 ( Presumably the prophet of duet 18:18) when the other gospels make no mention of it. He also seems to differentiate between them, which is peculiar as you mentioned in the healing of the blind man, he always trying to make Jesus as important and perfect as possible so why imply there’s a different prophet?

    Thank you very much.

    • Gary Greenberg

      The evidence of the proto-gospel suggests that the term “son of man” was applied to Jesus, but with no clarity as to what it signified. It also suggests that Jesus started out as someone with a reputation as a prophet and he defended himself as one who was a prophet.

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