This paper develops three high-order accurate discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for the one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) nonlinear Dirac (NLD) equations with a general scalar self-interaction. They are the Runge-Kutta DG (RKDG) method and the DG methods with the one-stage fourth-order Lax-Wendroff type time discretization (LWDG) and the two-stage fourth-order accurate time discretization (TSDG). The RKDG method uses the spatial DG approximation to discretize the NLD equations and then utilize the explicit multistage high-order Runge-Kutta time discretization for the first-order time derivatives, while the LWDG and TSDG methods, on the contrary, first give the one-stage fourth-order Lax-Wendroff type and the two-stage fourth-order time discretizations of the NLD equations, respectively, and then discretize the first- and higher-order spatial derivatives by using the spatial DG approximation. The $L^2$ stability of the 2D semi-discrete DG approximation is proved in the RKDG methods for a general triangulation, and the computational complexities of three 1D DG methods are estimated. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the accuracy and the conservation properties of the proposed methods. The interactions of the solitary waves, the standing and travelling waves are investigated numerically and the 2D breathing pattern is observed.