Euaggélion and besorah in Jewish and Pagan Literatures

Abstract

The identification of “Gospel” with the “biographical writings” about a particular character does not take place until Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and in particular until the second Century, when Christianity became more consolidated. We try to examine all the possible meanings of euaggélion and its Hebrew equivalent besorah in non Christian literature, from OT to rabbinic literature, through the Hellenistic world and the targumic writings; we analyze how from positive meaning of besorah or euaggélion (“good news”), the term was neutralized to signify merely “news” in Jewish literature. In the Hellenistic literature, on the other hand, the meaning “good news” is maintained and with the expansion of Christianity the word euaggélion was useful for Kérygma and the
writings about/of Jesus.