Tatian and the Dura Fragment

Scholars have devoted enormous attention to the differing compositional practices in Matthew and Luke but have not turned the same critical attention to later projects of gospel writing. This article assesses the compositional practices attested in two second-century projects of synthetic gospel writing. The Dura fragment and Tatian's Gospel - especially as attested by the Commentary on the Gospel attributed to Ephrem and by the Arabic Gospel Harmony - reveal different modes of gospel writing. While both integrate multiple prior sources, they exhibit consistent differences in structure, granularity, and redundancy. This analysis offers a new argument for distinguishing the Dura fragment from Tatian'sGospel. Beyond Dura and Tatian, this article proposes critical categories for analyzing the differing hermeneutical and material practices that one might employ in order to write a gospel.