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AGRAPHA

(Gk. ágrapha)

A technical term (lit., “unwritten [things]”) referring to sayings of Jesus not recorded in the four canonical Gospels. Sayings attributed to Jesus elsewhere in the NT (e.g., Acts 20:35; 1 Cor. 11:24-25) are sometimes considered agrapha; however, the term is usually reserved for extracanonical sayings. The agrapha are located in various sources, such as ancient manuscripts of the NT (e.g., Codex Bezae [D] at Luke 6:5), apocryphal texts (e.g., Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip), papyrus fragments (e.g., Oxyrhynchus Papyri), the writings of the church fathers, the Talmud, and Islamic texts. A limited number of agrapha (esp. some in the Gospel of Thomas) might be authentic sayings of Jesus, but the agrapha are more indicative of how the Jesus tradition was developed and appropriated to suit the needs of diverse communities.

Bibliography. J. Jeremias, Unknown Sayings of Jesus, 2nd ed. (London, 1964); W. D. Stroker, Extra-canonical Sayings of Jesus (Atlanta, 1988).

Jeffrey T. Tucker






Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)

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