The Ministry of Jesus

Abstract The bulk of the four canonical Gospels is concerned with the period of Jesus ‘ public ministry from his baptism to his death. These New Testament Gospels are full of the teachings, miracles, and travels of Jesus. By contrast, the post-Biblical traditions seem to have been less interested in amplifying or supplementing such material. Nevertheless, several apocryphal texts do concern themselves with the period of Jesus ‘ earthly ministry. We find in them sayings and miracles. Some of these are related to the material in the canonical New Testament, but many are quite new and different. Even those sayings close to the New Testament are usually not identical in content or language, and this suggests a degree of independence. The existence of additional stories and ‘secret sayings ‘ (to use this conventional, but erroneous, description) need not surprise us. The New Testament authors themselves did not claim to give a complete record of everything that Jesus did and said.