euangelia

Euangelia is the Greek term meaning "good news" or "gospel," and it is the plural form of euangelion. In classical Greek, euangelion referred to a report of favorable tidings or a proclamation of good news; the word is built from eu- "good" and angelion "message, news" (from angelos "messenger"). Grammatically, euangelion is a neuter noun, with the plural euangelia; the definite phrase ta euangelia means "the good news" or "the gospels."

In early Christianity, euangelion came to designate the message about Jesus Christ—the gospel itself—and, by extension, the written accounts that preserve that message. The New Testament uses ta euangelia to refer to the gospel message, and also to the four canonical Gospels as literary works. The term thus spans both content (the announcement of salvation through Jesus) and form (the Gospel texts).

The term has yielded several related English terms, including evangelion (a transliteration of euangelion), evangelist (one who proclaims the gospel), and evangelical (pertaining to the gospel or its adherents). Outside Christian contexts, euangelion simply meant "good news" in a secular sense and appeared in various Greek literary and documentary writings without a specifically religious connotation.

Today, euangelia is primarily encountered in scholarly, historical, or theological discussions about early Christian literature and Greek linguistics, where it illustrates how the concept of "good news" was understood in antiquity and how it came to shape the Christian concept of the Gospel.