Gospels before Normativization: A Critique of Francis Watson’s Gospel Writing

Abstract

This extended review of Francis Watson, Gospel Writing, engages critically with some of the major arguments of the book, including Watson’s case against Q and for Luke’s use of Matthew, his claim that the Gospel of Thomas preserves a very early genre of gospel writing, his argument that the Gospel of John is dependent on the Egerton Gospel, and his account of the process (‘normativization’) that produced the canon of the four gospels. His work is criticized generally for neglecting the wider literary context of the gospels in ancient Jewish and Graeco-Roman literature.