The Gospel of Truth

This book features an accessible translation and interpretation of an early Christian text closely related to the New Testament.

The Gospel of Truth is one of the many early Christian texts that have been rediscovered in modern times. The present book offers a new and accessible translation while exploring the close links between this text and the New Testament, especially the Gospel of John and the letters of Paul.The Gospel of Truth is an early Christian homily in which an anonymous and independent-minded teacher communicates his understanding of the core Christian message to his own immediate circle and a wider audience elsewhere. For this author, the gospel is the good news that in the person of Jesus, the divine Father has made himself known to his elect, calling them out of a nightmare-like existence in ignorance and illusion into the knowledge of himself. In this volume, Francis Watson provides a new and accessible translation of this text, along with a thorough analysis of it, both in its own terms and in its reception by later readers. He argues that its closest affinities lie with New Testament texts such as the Gospel of John and the Pauline letters. Watson also demonstrates how The Gospel of Truth is a work of literary quality and theological originality and why it deserves the attention of all students and scholars of early Christianity.