Origins of the Gospel of the Nazirenes

The four gospels of the New Testament were largely constructed using material from the Gospel of the Nazirenes (or the Gospel of the Holy Twelve, as it is called by some). An interesting fact is that all four gospels have materials almost identical to that which is contained in the gospel of the Nazirenes.

The reason it sounds so much like all of the four Gospels in the New Testament, and that it has all the different styles that exist in those four Gospels, is that all of the twelve disciples participated in writing it collectively — and this is also the reason it is called the Gospel of the Holy Twelve.

Many people claim that the gospel of the Nazarenes is merely a compilation of material taken from the four gospels and others posit that this is the primary source of the four gospels.

One of these positions must be true since many of the verses in the gospel of the Nazirenes are nearly identical to the writings of the four gospels. 

Many of the most revered early church fathers, as well as a surprising number of scholars today, have boldly declared that the legendary Gospel of the Nazirenes, later to be known as “The Gospel of the Holy Twelve,” is nothing less than the long-lost original Gospel which, legend holds, was collectively written by the actual 12 apostles in the period immediately following Christ’s death, and upon which all of the Biblical synoptic Gospels are based. (https://www.thenazareneway.com/legend_of_the_lost_gospel.htm)

Gospel writers borrowed from each other

Mark is considered to be the first gospel written — this gospel is considered to have been written around 70 AD. The authors of Matthew and Luke got most of their material from Mark. However, Matthew and Luke have material that is not found in Mark. But both Matthew and Luke have borrowed material that was theoretically sourced from what scholars call the “Q” source. It is very unlikely that the theoretical “Q” source actually existed, but in reality this source was really the gospel of the Nazarenes, which was renamed the “Gospel of the Holy Twelve” after it was translated from Aramaic to English in the late 1800’s.

According to many church fathers there was a gospel in existence that was written by Matthew, a disciple of Jesus, in Aramaic — this gospel was used exclusively by the Early Church. And it most likely contained contributions from the other disciples of Jesus — before the famous Greek gospels were around. We know that it actually existed for a fact, because some of the early church fathers quoted from it.

It is apparent that the Greek writers of the famous four gospels of the “authorized version” (AV) of the bible copied from each other and even made some changes to the material that they copied. However, it is extremely unlikely that they got all their information from “word of mouth” because of the long time that elapsed after Jesus’ ministry and the times that the four gospels were written.

Gospel writers borrowed from an original source

If this weren’t the case, those writings would all be much different from one another. So, these authors had to have gotten their information from a source that was already in existence, originally written by men who were eye-witnesses and had first hand account of the teachings, parables of Jesus and stories about Jesus. 

The gospel of John is completely different from the other three gospels, known as the synoptic gospels. The gospel of John is considered to be the last of the gospels to be written. Most of the Gospel of John is contained in the gospel of the Nazarenes, but there is material in the gospel of the Nazarenes with the same style of John’s writing that is not in John. What this seems to suggest is that the gospel of the Nazarenes had input of certain of the disciples of Jesus much earlier than when the Gospel of according to St. John was written — and that gospel is believed by scholars to have been written around the beginning of the second century!

The four gospels were written long after Jesus was gone

All four gospels of the New Testament are thought to have been written between 70 AD and the early second century — the first of the four, Mark, having been written around 40 years after the execution of Jesus. The majority of Christian scholars agree that none of the gospel writers were eye witnesses of which they wrote, nor are they the same men of whom the gospels are named.

However, some claim that the gospels of Matthew and John were written by the disciples of Jesus that they were named after, but this is extremely unlikely since they both would have been very old (or dead) when they wrote the gospels plus the actual writers wrote in Greek. The native tongue of the disciples Matthew and John was Aramaic, and they would have written in their native tongue and not Greek.

Moreover, the disciple Matthew died at around 50, earlier than the year the New Testament gospel, Matthew, was written. And the time the gospel called “John” was said to have been written, was long after the disciple John was martyred. None of the New Testament gospels are very likely to have been written by their namesakes.

The early Church Fathers

Many of the church fathers, before the early third century mentioned in their writings an earlier Gospel which, according to nearly all of them, were based the synoptic gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Gospel of the Nazirenes was mentioned in the writings or quoted from, by famous early Church fathers such as Papias, Hegesippus, Iranaeas, Clement, Origen, Basil, Epiphanius, Eusebius, and St. Jerome. The Gospel of the Nazirenes went by various names such as “Gospel of the Hebrews”, “Gospel of the Ebionites”, and The Aramaic Gospel of Matthew“.

Origen of the Gospel of the Nazirenes

Almost all of the passages that they quoted can be can be found in The Gospel of the Nazirenes, as well as nearly the entire contents of the three synoptic gospels — with the exception or addition of certain words or phrases, which changes were obviously added to make them fit better with the orthodox church’s dogmas.   

The completeness of the Gospel of the Nazirenes clears up many of the questions that the gospels in the “authorized” versions of the Church creates because of passages or words that are missing and even passages or words that have been interpolated.

As one reads the original wording in the Gospel of the Nazirenes, some of the old familiar stories make more sense than ever before. Moreover, the new material (that doesn’t appear in the New Testament) doesn’t seem to have been added in afterwards nor does the material seem to to be out of place.

Original hidden in Buddhist monastery

After the original writing of the Gospel of the Nazirenes was completed and reviewed by the Apostles of Jesus, it was taken to Tibet by a trusted disciple and left with a certain Buddhist lama.

There were many copies of the original writings of the actual teachings of Jesus in circulation at that time, which is where the famous four gospels got their materials from. But the ‘correctors’ didn’t know of the existence of the copy of the original, since it was taken and hidden away in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, where the correctors couldn’t corrupt the disciples’ writings.

There is a saying of Jesus that was found in the oxyrhynchus Papyri which says:

“That which is hidden from thee shall be revealed to thee. For there is nothing hidden which shall not be made manifest, nor buried which shall not be raised.”   

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