The Q Gospel.

[fallingblood]

This has come up a couple of times now in a few threads, so I thought I would start a thread on it. The Q gospel, or just Q, is a hypothetical source that Matthew and Luke supposedly borrowed from (along with Mark). It is hypothetical, as we don't have any such source, but it was believed to have existed because Matthew and Luke (in areas that Mark does not contain), appear to have used the same source (as in they have the exact same phrases, which suggests that they borrowed from the same source).

I'm going to make two arguments here. The first being that Q is not a necessity; the second being that if Q does exist, it does not have to be simply a sayings gospel, as is generally assumed.

Q is just one possible option; however, it is not the only option. It seems that among many scholars, the assumption is that Q is a fact. There are a number of books written about Q as if we actually had such a document. As in they try to reproduce it. Personally though, I do not think that we necessarily need Q. It is clear that Matthew and Luke had a common source other than Mark. However that source could be none other than Matthew. As in, Matthew used Mark, and then Luke used both Matthew and Mark.

I like this idea partially because we have all of the documents. We don't have to make up a hypothetical source, and then guess at what it may have contained. There are weaknesses in it though (just like any of the options), such as the question as to why Luke left out the material he did from Matthew. However, I think that question is better than why don't we have Q anymore.

Q being lost does raise questions. Such as why don't we have any records of it? No one besides Matthew and Luke seem to mention it. That, and why wouldn't it have continued to be used? Mark was used even after it was copied from.

If we accept that Q does exist though (and I wouldn't be one to deny the possibility), we can not know for sure what it actually contains. Many scholars try to recreate this source. Some have gone as far as claiming that we can know what it does and does not contain. However, I think that is a ridiculous argument.

Looking at Q, what we can know for sure that it contains is the similar material in Luke and Matthew that is not found in Mark. This happens to be primarily sayings. Because of that, many have made the claim that Q is a sayings gospel. I think that is stretching it. We can know some of what Q would possibly contain; however, we can't know all that it contained.

We can see this by taking the material from Matthew and Luke that derives from Mark. Obviously, this is an easier task as we have Mark. However, one can see that Matthew and Luke do not contain everything that Mark does. So if we would try to reconstruct Mark by using Matthew and Luke, we would be only getting a partial picture of Mark. We would be missing a considerable amount of Mark. Thus, there is no reason to think that Matthew and Luke used everything that Q could have contained.

The reconstruction that we can make of Q logically does not contain all that was in Q. So at most, we can only get a partial reconstruction. Which also means that Q could be more than just a sayings gospel.

[ChristineES]

As there is no source for Q, then there is a distinct possibility that there is no Q. So what would it mean if there was never any Gospel Q? Why are Mark, Luke, and Matthew so similar? What about John? Why is it so much different than the others?

If there truly is a Gospel Q, I also wonder what happened to it. I saw some pieces of other gospels that were never published at all due to the fact that not enough of them remain to publish- like the Gospel of Peter (or Simon, I can't remember which it was). I did hear the small remaining parts from it on The History Channel and it was of Pilate and he washing his hands. Maybe Gospel Q ended up much the same way, if there is one.

[Quantrill]

Originally Posted by ChristineES

As there is no source for Q, then there is a distinct possibility that there is no Q. So what would it mean if there was never any Gospel Q? Why are Mark, Luke, and Matthew so similar? What about John? Why is it so much different than the others?

If there truly is a Gospel Q, I also wonder what happened to it. I saw some pieces of other gospels that were never published at all due to the fact that not enough of them remain to publish- like the Gospel of Peter (or Simon, I can't remember which it was). I did hear the small remaining parts from it on The History Channel and it was of Pilate and he washing his hands. Maybe Gospel Q ended up much the same way, if there is one.

The Gospels are similar because their Author is the Holy Spirit of God. Their distinctions also due to that which God wanted to emphasize in each.

John is different in a greater degree because it especially is for the Church. Its emphasis is Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Quantrill

[CynthiaCypher]

It could have been an oral tradition

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm not a big fan of N.T. Wright in general (to provide what one believes is evidence for Jesus' resurrection is one thing, but to right an entire volume which argues that one can make a historical argument for it is quite wrong as far as I'm concerned), but I did really enjoy something he wrote about Q in his second three-volume work Christian Origins and the Question of God
"to treat Q as a document at all is controversial. To treat it as a gospel…is more so; to postulate two or three stages in its development is to build castles in the air; to insist that the document was ‘composed in the fifties, and possibly at Tiberias in Galileee,’ is to let imagination run riot.” p.48

[Drolefille]

I was taught the Q Gospel in theology so I went back and looked into it some.

While Augustine and tradition saw Matthew as being written first and Luke taking his info from that, very few modern scholars seem to view this as the case. Luke is dated approximately to the same time as Matthew if not occasionally earlier -depends on sourcing some material from Mark - and so it seems really unlikely that Matthew could have been Luke's source.

The fact that Q is absent does make it harder, but stating that it should be this way because 'we have all the pieces' is a bit like jamming a puzzle together with a few missing pieces and stating that it must have been the whole thing.

I guess I don't find it that surprising that a document could have been lost, even such an important one, when relying on scribes and copies. It looks like after Matthew and Luke were written, Mark was less copied. It survived, but there's some precedence for a decline in interest in a document. For all we know there were hundreds more (ok probably just several) and there is at least some source "L" that Luke got more material from -oral tradition maybe, but perhaps another document.

I think Q is presumed because it is the best explanation we have. There are other explanations, but none that fit better at this time (at least not without jamming all the pieces together wrong.)

You're right in that Q could contain much more, but I don't know that serious scholars have really claimed to have reconstructed the whole thing, but have simply done what they were able to do. It seems like mostly in modern times they've attempted to textually analyze what they can create. I don't know enough about historical texts to state whether this is foolish attention mongering or serious scholarship or somewhere in between.

I can understand not liking a particular theory, but I don't think your disagreements are new or unheard of, and it seems that most scholars do accept the existence of a Q (as well as perhaps an L and M as well) so it doesn't seem weird for RF posters to do so as well.

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Originally Posted by CynthiaCypher

It could have been an oral tradition

There was a paper I read arguing that (J. Jeremias, perhaps?). But the larger issue is, I think, that while there is good reason to believe that Matthew and Luke relied on a common source other than Mark, there is reason to doubt that we have it in it's entirety and even if we did, many of the conclusions drawn from it are just so flimsy.

[CynthiaCypher]

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

There was a paper I read arguing that (J. Jeremias, perhaps?). But the larger issue is, I think, that while there is good reason to believe that Matthew and Luke relied on a common source other than Mark, there is reason to doubt that we have it in it's entirety and even if we did, many of the conclusions drawn from it are just so flimsy.

And if it were an oral tradition that would be good reason why Luke lacked what Matthew heard and vice versa

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Originally Posted by CynthiaCypher

And if it were an oral tradition that would be good reason why Luke lacked what Matthew heard and vice versa

That's true. But the same could be said of a written document.

[fallingblood]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

I was taught the Q Gospel in theology so I went back and looked into it some.

While Augustine and tradition saw Matthew as being written first and Luke taking his info from that, very few modern scholars seem to view this as the case. Luke is dated approximately to the same time as Matthew if not occasionally earlier -depends on sourcing some material from Mark - and so it seems really unlikely that Matthew could have been Luke's source.

The fact that Q is absent does make it harder, but stating that it should be this way because 'we have all the pieces' is a bit like jamming a puzzle together with a few missing pieces and stating that it must have been the whole thing.

I guess I don't find it that surprising that a document could have been lost, even such an important one, when relying on scribes and copies. It looks like after Matthew and Luke were written, Mark was less copied. It survived, but there's some precedence for a decline in interest in a document. For all we know there were hundreds more (ok probably just several) and there is at least some source "L" that Luke got more material from -oral tradition maybe, but perhaps another document.

I think Q is presumed because it is the best explanation we have. There are other explanations, but none that fit better at this time (at least not without jamming all the pieces together wrong.)

You're right in that Q could contain much more, but I don't know that serious scholars have really claimed to have reconstructed the whole thing, but have simply done what they were able to do. It seems like mostly in modern times they've attempted to textually analyze what they can create. I don't know enough about historical texts to state whether this is foolish attention mongering or serious scholarship or somewhere in between.

I can understand not liking a particular theory, but I don't think your disagreements are new or unheard of, and it seems that most scholars do accept the existence of a Q (as well as perhaps an L and M as well) so it doesn't seem weird for RF posters to do so as well.

I do agree that it is not weird to accept Q. I don't dismiss it, and I see that there is a probability that it exists. However, on the other hand, I also see that some blow it way out of proportion. Donald Akenson, in his book Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus, actually has an appendix called Hubris and Plasticity in the "Q"-industry.

The problem he talks about is certain scholars adding more into the Q source than we can assume there is, while at the same time demanding that it must be a sayings gospel, and thus ignoring possible narratives that could fit. And basically what we get is this expanded form of Q that contains items that it shouldn't (such as things only said in Luke, or that all of the Synoptics state), while leaving out things that should be considered (such as possibly the virgin birth narrative) simply because they are narratives and not just sayings.

In doing this, we see a number of scholars (coincidentally, many of them were also associated with the Jesus Seminar) who are reconstructing Q, as if that really is possible. The book that comes to mind on this subject is Burton Mack's work, the Lost Gospel (which follows along the same lines of John S. Kloppenborg), and really over reaches what we can know on the subject. And that is not to mention the general want to date Q early on, such as in the 50's, which realistically, we can't put it any further back than Mark.

As for Q actually being lost, or just not copied, that is a possibility. However, I just find it awkward that no one seems to mention it, and that even though it seemed to be popular (as in both Matthew and Luke use it) it was still lost. That is just a problem I see with it; however, I wouldn't argue that it didn't exist. Just that it has to be remembered that it is hypothetical, and we can't put too much emphasis on it, as there are other options.

As for Luke using Matthew and Mark, I agree it contains problems. It would mean that Luke has to be dated later, and I do see that as a possibility anyway. Since Luke and Acts seem to go together, I see a reason to push Luke back to the time that Acts was written. So I see a date in the 90's reasonable, and a date for Matthew in the 80's. And both are within a reasonable time frame. Now, I still realize that there is a problem in that; however, I think it is just as probable as a hypothetical gospel.

I agree that my disagreements aren't new or unheard of. I had to admit was firmly in the Q camp, until reading Akenson's work. It made me question my acceptance of Q. I'm not dismissing Q though, as I think it is a probable explanation, I just don't think it is the necessary explanation.