The First Gospel

The first gospel was not one of the four canonical gospels. It was probably Q, an early collection of Jesus' sayings used by Matthew and Luke to create their gospels. Q does not mention Jesus' death and resurrection, and it contains no birth or childhood stories. In Q, Jesus is pictured as a prophetic sage.

The First Gospel provides a comprehensive introduction to the Q hypothesis. The author reviews and augments the arguments for the existence of Q. He concludes that the Q document was not merely a miscellaneous collection of sayings of Jesus that served as a source for Matthew and Luke. He sees it as a gospel in its own right, with its own history and own quite distinctive theology.

An excellent, long-overdue, and extremely thorough analysis of Q, not just as a source for Matthew and Luke, but as a much earlier gospel in its own right, a gospel with its own redactional history and its own quite distinctive theology.""
--John Dominic Crossan,
author of 'The Historical Jesus'

Arland D. Jacobson is Professor of New Testament and Director of the Charis Ecumenical Center at Concordia College (Moorhead, Minnesota).