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Case file

Hebrew Gospel hypothesis

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “group of theories based on the proposition that a lost gospel in hebrew or aramaic lies behind the four canonic”. Today it says “main source or one of several sources for the canonical gospels”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
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The opening as it read in 2025

Hebrew Gospel hypothesis ( proto-Gospel hypothesis or Aramaic Matthew hypothesis ) is that a lost gospel, written in Hebrew or Aramaic , predated the four canonical gospels . In the 18th and early 19th century several scholars suggested that a Hebrew proto-gospel (a so-called Ur-Gospel ) was the main source or one of several sources for the canonical gospels. This theorizing would later give birth to the two source-hypothesis that views Q as a proto-gospel but believes this proto-gospel to have been written in Koine Greek. After the widespread scholarly acceptance of the two-source hypothesis, scholarly interest in the Hebrew gospel hypothesis dwindled. Modern variants of the Hebrew gospel hypothesis survive, but have not found favor with scholars as a whole. The foundation of the Hebrew gospel hypothesis is usually an early Christian tradition from the 2nd-century bishop Papias of Hierapolis . According to Papias, Matthew the Apostle was the first to compose a gospel, and he did so in Hebrew. Papias appeared to imply that this Hebrew or Aramaic gospel (sometimes called the Authentic Matthew ) was subsequently translated into the canonical Gospel of Matthew . Jerome took this information one step further and claimed that all known Jewish-Christian gospels really were one and the same, and that this gospel was the authentic Matthew. As a consequence he assigned all known quotations from Jewish-Christian gospels to the "gospels of the Hebrews", but modern studies have shown this to be untenable. The hypothesis has some overlap with the Aramaic original New Testament theory , which posits Gospels originally written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew. Modern versions of the Hebrew gospel hypothesis often overlap with the Augustinian hypothesis .

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1295895484.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “group of theories based on the proposition that a lost gospel in hebrew or aramaic lies behind the four canonic”. Today it says “main source or one of several sources for the canonical gospels”. Read the current article and compare.
20152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2015, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

group of theories based on the proposition that a lost gospel in hebrew or aramaic lies behind the four canonic

Now

main source or one of several sources for the canonical gospels

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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