Gathercole has two propositions for this study. First, the four New Testament Gospels share key elements of theological context that mark them out from most of the non-canonical gospels. Second, the reason why the four New Testament gospels are theologically similar to one another is that they—unlike most others—follow the existing gospel message of the apostles. Essentially, the canonical Gospels are based on apostolic preaching and aim to preserve it; the non-canonical gospels “have a clear desire to distance themselves from key elements” of the apostolic preaching (109).
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