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2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog

REL 341. Early Christian Gospels: Origins, History and Conflict


Credits 3.00 PeopleSoft Course ID 013453 Grading Basis GRD

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the familiar “canonical” gospels. In the early centuries of Christianity other gospels circulated: the Gospel of Peter, “Q”, Infancy Gospels and the so-called Gnostic gospels. This course examines the origins of the canonical and non-canonical gospels, the historical and theological factors at work in the emergence of the canonical gospels to a position of primacy, and the struggles within early Christianity to define its authoritative tradition.