Gospel

In the New Testament generally, the message of Christian salvation; in particular the four written accounts of the life of Jesus in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Although the first three give approximately the same account or synopsis (giving rise to the name ‘Synoptic Gospels’), their differences from John have raised problems for theologians.

The so-called fifth Gospel, or Gospel of St Thomas (not connected with the disciple Thomas), is a 2nd-century collection of 114 sayings of Jesus. It was found in a Coptic translation contained in a group of 13 papyrus codices, discovered in Upper Egypt in 1945, which may have formed the library of a Gnostic community (see Gnosticism).