3. - 1 Thessalonians 2:2
". . . we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the face of great opposition." [RSV]
Early Christian writers like Paul are constantly referring to the message they carry as the "gospel of God." They also talk of the work of God, the saving actions of God, the call of God (cf. Romans 1:16, 3:24, 1 Cor. 1:9, Phil. 1:6, Gal. 4:7, etc.). If these apostles were preaching a message about an historical Jesus who had himself taught about God and his own relationship to him, surely they would style it the "gospel of Jesus." Why is there no mention in the epistles of an earthly ministry of Jesus?
1. Silences in passage/challenge to a historical Jesus:
Jesus had an earthly ministry, the gospel of Jesus.
2. Relevancy within context:
The issue of Jesus' earthly ministry is relevant to the passages given. However, the expectation of certain wording may not be warranted. Paul refers to the gospel in different ways. In Romans alone he calls it the "gospel of God" (1:1), "concerning His Son" (1:3), "my gospel" (2:16), and "gospel of Christ"(15:19). Out of the roughly 80 times Paul refers to the gospel he calls it the "gospel of God" only 6 times. That hardly sounds like the "constant" reference Doherty labels it to be.
Matthew has 5 references to the gospel, or literally "the good news". None refer to it as the "gospel of Christ" or Jesus. 3 refer to it as the "gospel of the reign" (or kingdom). The 3 times Jesus is talking, he doesn't call it "my gospel". He calls it "this gospel" or "the gospel". In Mark it is mentioned 8 times. Only in the first verse is it called the "gospel of Jesus Christ". In none of the other 7 is it implied that it is Jesus' gospel. In none of Luke's 10 references to the gospel is it said it is Jesus' gospel. It isn't mentioned in John. In Acts, it is mentioned 17 times. A few times it is stated that the good news is about Jesus, but never is it called the gospel of Jesus.
Paul's reference to the gospel aren't out of line with the references in the synoptics themselves, other than his occasional reference to the gospel as being from himself. For these reasons, I don't find his argument regarding the references to the gospel as valid. In addition, as we saw with #2 above, Paul's gospel primarily is not the same as those alleged to have been taught by Jesus in the Gospel accounts. His is a message of salvation to Gentiles. Jesus' message very possibly didn't address Paul's main focus on how the kingdom of God was unfolding for the Gentiles.
3. Related information in other early writings:
Do we have clues in the early writings to an earthly ministry? Yes. In the answer to #1 I gave references to early teachings and possible teachings of Jesus. Paul may even be quoting Jesus' teachings in some cases, since in the Greek there aren't quotations, and Paul does this with OT passages, many without specifying the source. Even if Paul doesn't quote Jesus, his writings contain many "echos" of teachings found in the gospels, possibly known already to his readers. They even share a lot in common with the hypothetical Q1 layer proposed by Burton Mack. The most obvious similarities between Q1 and Paul are the following teachings:
Love your enemies, don't worry about things, give up all to follow Christ, don"t judge lest you be judged, don't be a hypocrite, don't just hear-obey, the kingdom of God is mysterious, don't cling to this life and it's concerns, be peaceful and humble, God's kingdom isn't just for the privileged, apostles have certain specific instructions or rights.
The most obvious differences between them is that Q1 illustrates these points with analogies and in story form, and attributes them directly to Jesus. Is Paul just passing along the main messages from Q1? Is Q1 building on Paul's main messages? Do either know of the other? Are there clues of which of them may have been influenced by the other? How much OT influence is there in each?
4. Conclusion
The expectation for Paul to have referred to the gospel as the gospel of Jesus is found, after a review of similar references by Paul and within the gospels, to be without merit. The more general claim that the epistles don't mention an earthly ministry by Jesus is debatable, given a few references that sound like they are to Jesus as teacher. The similarity of teachings by Paul to those of the gospels and even Q1 may provide a further clue. Other early writings, as shown in #1, do refer to Jesus' earthly ministry of teaching.
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