The Gospel of the Ebionites is one of several Jewish–Christian gospels that survive only as fragments in quotations of the early Church Fathers. It is believed to have been composed some time during the middle of the 2nd century in or around the region east of the Jordan River. Distinctive features include the absence of the virgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an Adoptionist Christology, and an advocacy of vegetarianism.
About Gospel of the Ebionites in brief
The Gospel of the Ebionites is one of several Jewish–Christian gospels that survive only as fragments in quotations of the early Church Fathers. It is believed to have been composed some time during the middle of the 2nd century in or around the region east of the Jordan River. Distinctive features include the absence of the virgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an Adoptionist Christology, in which Jesus is chosen to be God’s Son at the time of his Baptism; the abolition of the Jewish sacrifices by Jesus; and an advocacy of vegetarianism. The gospel survives only in seven brief quotations by Epiphanius in Chapter 30 of his heresiology the Panarion, or ‘Medicine Chest’ The name is used by modern scholars as a convenient way to distinguish a gospel text that was probably used by the Ebions from a hypothetical original Hebrew Gospel. Its place of origin is uncertain; one speculation is that it was composed in the region where the EbIONites were said to be present, according to the accounts of the Church Fathers, and it is not known where it was written. The identity of the group or groups that used it remains a matter of conjecture. It shows no dependence on the Gospel of John and is similar in nature to the harmonized gospel sayings based on the Synoptic Gospels used by Justin Martyr, although a relationship between them, if any, is uncertain. There is a similarity between the gospel and a source document contained within the Ascents of James, conventionally referred to by scholars as the Ascentions of James.
The Gospel is not complete and distorted, but there is general agreement about the seven quotations cited in the general edition of the critical edition of Philipphauer and Vielhauer, which contain some or all of the first two chapters of Matthew. According to scholars Oskar Skarsaune and Glenn Alan Koch, the gospel text at a late stage in the composition of Panarions 30, primarily in chapters 13 and 14, is found among them among them. As early as 1689 the French priest Richard Simon called the text “Gospel of the Ebionites’”. The name ‘Ebionite’ is a modern convention; no surviving document of theEarly church mentions a gospel by that name. It has been identified more closely with the lost gospel of the Twelve. It is thought that the gospel was used by the early church, but the identity of those who used it is unknown. It was believed to be a truncated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew, but this is not confirmed by any scholar. The surviving fragments of the gospel derive from a gospel harmony of thesynopticGospels, composed in Greek with various expansions and abridgments reflecting the theology of the writer. The various, sometimes conflicting, sources of information were combined to point out inconsistencies in Ebionite beliefs and practices relative to Nicene orthodoxy.
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