Jewish–Christian gospels

The Jewish–Christian Gospels were gospels of a Jewish Christian character quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome and probably Didymus the Blind. All five call the gospel they know the "Gospel of the Hebrews", but most modern scholars have concluded that the five early church historians are not quoting the same work. As none of the works survive to this day, attempts have been made to reconstruct them from the references in the Church Fathers. The majority of scholars believe that there existed one gospel in Aramaic/Hebrew and at least two in Greek, although a minority argue that there were only two, in Aramaic/Hebrew and in Greek.

In the standard edition of Schneemelcher, he creates three different Jewish–Christian gospels by dividing up the references in the church fathers. Schneemelcher uses the following working names for the three proposed gospels:

• The Gospel of the Ebionites ("GE") – 7 quotations by Epiphanius.
• The Gospel of the Hebrews ("GH") – 1 quotation ascribed to Cyril of Jerusalem, plus GH 2–7 quotations by Clement, Origen, and Jerome.
• The Gospel of the Nazarenes ("GN") – GN 1 to GN 23 are mainly from Jerome; GN 24 to GN 36 are from medieval sources.

The reconstructed texts of the gospels are usually categorized under New Testament apocrypha.

The relationship between the Jewish–Christian gospels and a hypothetical original Hebrew Gospel remains a speculation.