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The Gospel of Q

C

cre8

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"In the 19th century German theologians Christian Hermann Weisse, Paul Wernle, and Heinrich Julius Holtzmann (among others) noticed some interesting patterns in the Synoptic gospels. A different gospel emerged: The Q gospel. Q is from the German Quelle or “source.†It got its name from scholars who recognized that certain passages in Luke and Matthew formed a unified source of material for the two gospels. In other words, Luke and Matthew were both reading from a common manuscript(s) that is not in the current Bible. Because hundreds of books were excluded (rejected) from the final Bible, the Q manuscripts could have been destroyed or lost. The first disciples of Jesus who produced Q were very different from the later communities." -Gary Lenaire
 
Cre8 said:
"In the 19th century German theologians Christian Hermann Weisse, Paul Wernle, and Heinrich Julius Holtzmann (among others) noticed some interesting patterns in the Synoptic gospels. A different gospel emerged: The Q gospel. Q is from the German Quelle or “source.†It got its name from scholars who recognized that certain passages in Luke and Matthew formed a unified source of material for the two gospels. In other words, Luke and Matthew were both reading from a common manuscript(s) that is not in the current Bible. Because hundreds of books were excluded (rejected) from the final Bible, the Q manuscripts could have been destroyed or lost. The first disciples of Jesus who produced Q were very different from the later communities." -Gary Lenaire
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Cre8,

The idea of a "Q" is entirely speculative. It presumes that the Gospel writers didn't know each other, and thus HAD to rely on a WRITTEN version of the life of Chirst to draw their Gospels from. There is absolutely no evidence of such a document in the writings of the earliest Christians. They never mention it. Historically speaking, it is a theory based on people 1900 years removed from when it was supposedly written. It is much more likely that the idea of "Q" was perpetrated by "intellectuals" of the age who wished to discount the Church's Gospel accounts. Deists were looking for any leverage to separate the Gospel from Jesus.

Regards
 
I think a good article about this comes from Straight Dope. This snippet is a little long, but I think it is pretty interesting because it tries to address all the books of the New Testament.

Recent scholarship or, more correctly, recent rethinking of previous scholarship has brought an intriguing possibility to the table. Matthew, Mark and Luke are termed the Synoptic Gospels, so called because they generally agree on the details and timeline of Jesus' life, sometimes even using the same words to describe the same events. Because of this similarity, quite a few scholars posit that there was a previous collection of Jesus' sayings and works which all three gospel writers relied on when compiling their histories. This collection, as yet just a theoretical construct, has been given the name "Q" (short for Quelle, German for "source").

It's a tempting idea. Mark is regarded as the earliest gospel and hence closest to Q. Of the 661 verses in Mark, only 24 aren't quoted in either Matthew or Luke. Matthew and Luke occasionally disagree with Mark regarding Jesus' words or the order of events, but they never both disagree on the same point.

Burton Mack in The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins offers another conjecture. It's possible Q was the work not of a single person, but rather of a community trying to give written form and substance to what it believed. If that's the case, the question of authorship in the usual sense evaporates. But rather than have this discussion come to an abrupt end, we'll work on the assumption that the authors were individuals, not a committee.

Mark, not an apostle himself, was an associate of the apostle Paul for a short time, but the gospel bearing his name is (to some minds) based on the preaching of Peter. It's generally assumed to have been the first gospel written, coming in right before Matthew at about 65 AD.

The author of Matthew is traditionally held to be the tax collector mentioned in Matthew 9:9, sometimes referred to as Levi. However, Matthew borrows heavily from the Gospel of Mark. It's hard to believe someone who was in close contact with Jesus would have had to rely on secondary sources. Since this gospel has the most quotations from the Old Testament, sometimes going to ridiculous lengths to try to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, it's assumed that Matthew was written for a Jewish audience. There is suspicion that it might have been originally written in Hebrew, although only Greek texts have ever been found. Scholars differ on the composition date, but most agree on roughly 65 - 70 AD with a few placing at as late as 100 - 134 AD.

The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are assumed to have been written by the same person, since they are addressed to the same individual, a Roman named Theophilus. The author was a doctor, Paul notes in Colossians 4:14. If Mark represents the teachings of Peter about Jesus, Luke most likely represents the teachings of Paul. Luke claims to have researched his material, but his dating, especially in the early chapters regarding Jesus' birth, is inconsistent with other sources.

The book of Acts can be seen as a sequel to the gospel of Luke, starting where the previous book ends. But where in the earlier work Luke needed to research the story, in Acts he is a character in it. He was a companion of Paul on his missionary journeys and was present during his imprisonment. In this sense, Luke had more first-hand experience of Paul than he had of Jesus. Both books were probably written after Matthew and Mark, probably around 65-70 AD but before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

The Gospel of John differs markedly from the other three books both in tone and in some historical details. John does not follow the timeline in the other three and adds quite a few stories and details not found in them. For this reason, it's thought that John's gospel was not a child of Q, but a completely original work either by someone who knew Jesus directly or by one of his associates. The three letters of John found near the end of the New Testament are generally assumed to have been written by this same individual.

The identity of John has remained a mystery, although tradition has it that he is "the disciple that Jesus loved" mentioned in John 13:23. But here is a curious thing. In the entire gospel, John never mentions his own name (although he does mention other gospel writers). His purpose is to exalt the deity of Jesus. It seems out of character for him to pat himself on the back in that one verse, if in fact he was John the apostle.

William Barclay gives us an elegant answer. He states outright that even if John was not the direct author of the book, it was at least written under his authority. The book likely dates from about 100 AD, the last of the books to be written. If this dating is accurate, John would have been very old. Barclay posits that it was probably a group writing remembrances from John's fading memories, and it was they who described John as the disciple Jesus loved..

The letters to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus and Philemon are widely assumed to have come from the hand of the apostle Paul and are called the Pauline epistles for that reason.

E. P. Sanders says it's fairly clear Paul was unaware of the four Gospels, and the authors of the Gospels didn't know of Paul's letters.

A few small stylistic variations in Colossians and Ephesians make some scholars suspect Paul didn't write them, but the evidence is sparse and unconvincing. The letters to Timothy and Titus are suspect as well, and some critics feel they were later edits of some of Paul's more personal correspondence to individual church leaders, or pastors. Hence, they are often referred to as the Pastoral epistles.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews is completely unknown. Stylistic or literary criticism has failed to match it with any known author, although it is usually included among the letters of Paul. Some names that have been bandied about are Barnabas (an associate of Paul), Apollos, or even a dual authorship of Aquilla and Priscilla, two Christians who ran a church out of their house in Rome. Early tradition knew that it was anonymous, but since it was such a popular work among the early Christians, it was included among the letters of Paul in order to insure its apostolicity and thus its place in the Bible.

The letter of James isn't anonymous, but it's not known who exactly James was. Five people named James are mentioned in the New Testament, one of whom was the brother of Jesus. It's this person whom tradition has accepted as the author, although the evidence is sketchy.

It's always been assumed the first and second letters of Peter were in fact written by Saint Peter. No real objection to that belief has been raised until rather recently, largely because few early church fathers quoted it as they did other canonically accepted books.

The Revelation is often called the Revelation of Saint John. Tradition says this is the same as the author of the fourth gospel, but that seems implausible. The style of the Greek is different, and while the gospel author avoids mentioning his own name in order to focus attention on Jesus, the author of Revelation mentions his own name repeatedly. He doesn't call himself an apostle, as would be his right, but merely a prophet. Exactly who the author was is open to conjecture. There is no real consensus, except that he was apparently a Jewish writer, writing in Greek to the Jewish believers after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Most critics put the date at about 95 - 100 AD.
 
Quath said:
I think a good article about this comes from Straight Dope. This snippet is a little long, but I think it is pretty interesting because it tries to address all the books of the New Testament.
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Quath,

Especially interesting is the comments made in the article about a "Hebrew" version of Matthew - and for some reason, is dismissed by "scholars". Even though this Hebrew version is verified by other Christians, such as Jerome - for some reason, we are to place our trust in a "Q" that has absolutely no evidence of ever existing!!

Why is that?

The Hebrew version of Matthew is discounted because it would throw off the commonly-accepted version of Mark/Matthew/Luke order of the Synoptics and their respective interactions that these scholars presume. Also, it enables "scholars" to place the writing of the Gospels to a later date, attempting to separate Christ from the Gospels.

Another comment from your snippet is that the Gospels didn't know the Pauline Corpus and vice versus. Well, the Gospels are dedicated to Jesus Christ and His life, not the subsequent actions of the Apostles. Would we expect to hear about St. Paul before Christ died? And the absence of Paul's mention of the Gospels does NOT mean he wasn't aware of the WRITTEN Gospels. Paul didn't concentrate on the life of Christ but on the RISEN Christ. He rarely discusses Christ before the Crucifixion, with the notable exception of the Last Supper - which is quite similar to the Synoptics. Who is to say that PAUL didn't borrow from the Synoptics?

Regards
 
The Hebrew version of Matthew is discounted because it would throw off the commonly-accepted version of Mark/Matthew/Luke order of the Synoptics and their respective interactions that these scholars presume. Also, it enables "scholars" to place the writing of the Gospels to a later date, attempting to separate Christ from the Gospels.
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I agree that Matthew and Mark may have been written in Hebrew (only Matthew being explicitly mentioned) but Luke is beyond a shadow of a doubt pure Greek in origin. Any scholar can tell you that.

Now as for the existance of Q, depending on one's presupposed definition of it, I see no problem in seeing the existance of a document written in Hebrew penned by one of Jesus' disciples (most likely Matthew) which would have contained quotes of Jesus' words & teachings. Even John at the end of his Gospel tells us that Jesus said many, many other things and that he supposed the whole world could not contain the content thereof.

That being said why does anyone care about Q? So what if it existed, as John said we have what we need to believe, and Q is nothing more than a quote source book. If someone is shooting at trying to extrapolate a hypothesis that the Gnostic Gospels pulled from Q then they are mistaken. The Gnostic Gospels are in clear opposition to the teachings of the canonical NT and was refuted as a system by John and Paul (they wrote against "false knowledge" and John specifically against the Gnostic heresy.)

In addition to that, the Gnostic writtings are too late to be authentic representations of what Jesus taught. They were neither connected with the initial Christian Apostolic movement nor were associated with the Church, and any religion or revelation that they claim to have had is purely deception and falsehood and extraneous addition to God's word.

And after seeing two questionable topics posted by Cre8 I'm starting to wonder if he is not deliberately trying to cause dissention among Christians. Seeing also how he conveniently fails to reply to the threads he starts he cannot hope to possibly bring such an attack to fruition.
 
I think people want to know about Q to better understand how the Bible was created. It may also help someone decide which books of the Bible to trust since it was all voted in. Relevations was very iffy and many people wanted it out.

Maybe someone likes the Gospel of Thomas and thinks it should have been voted in.

Personally, I think the gnostic stuff came later. I think people were trying to make sense of the stories and they saw the differences in theology. When people misbehave in the old stories, God just kills people. In the new stuff, there is forgiveness. So it probably just seemed logical to say that Yahweh was evil and Jesus was good. And their creators were probably good.
 
Q ?????
i have not heard of this hmmm
I will need to look into this.
 
I think people want to know about Q to better understand how the Bible was created. It may also help someone decide which books of the Bible to trust since it was all voted in. Relevations was very iffy and many people wanted it out.
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Well since Q only deals with the Gospels the bit about Revelations is irrelevant for the purposes of this arguement. To refine the arguement down a bit, the canonical gospels can be attested to early in Tatian's Diatessaron, long before any significant council. No Gnostic elements can be found there.
 
I have read the text of Gospel Q months ago. It is a collection of Jesus' teachings. There was nothing about it that was gnostic. In fact, it could have been included as a fifth gospel, if it had been found early enough.
You can probably find a translation of it like I did at your local library so you can read it for yourself.
As for for three of the other Gospels(Matthew, Mark, and Luke) authors using it for a source, it is entirely possible.
 
ChristineES said:
I have read the text of Gospel Q months ago. It is a collection of Jesus' teachings. There was nothing about it that was gnostic. In fact, it could have been included as a fifth gospel, if it had been found early enough.
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There is no such thing as a "Gospel Q" that was written during the ancient times. Perhaps you are mistaking the title of a book that tries to tie the Gospel of Thomas to Q? The Gospel of Thomas is a Gnostic collection of Jesus' sayings written approximately the time of John's Gospel. The term "Q" was only devised in the 19th century.

Regards
 
ChristineES said:
I have read the text of Gospel Q months ago. It is a collection of Jesus' teachings. There was nothing about it that was gnostic. In fact, it could have been included as a fifth gospel, if it had been found early enough.
You can probably find a translation of it like I did at your local library so you can read it for yourself.
As for for three of the other Gospels(Matthew, Mark, and Luke) authors using it for a source, it is entirely possible.
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This indeed is a Gnostic Gospel and is really if I am not mistaken a 19th century ''discovery''... Its been a few years since I studied all of this, but make no mistake. It is NOT a 5th Gospel or God would have made sure it was in the cannon of scripture.... I could go on and on about this, but don't get sucked into it.... The Gospel of Thomas has alot of true sayings in it, but also has heresy in it. So what does that make it ? Its the same as the Gospel of Q..iTS JUNK
 
I think we should avoid calling the Q Source a gospel in the sense of Matthew and Luke and Mark. It's obvious that both Matthew and Luke relied on a source other than Mark, Luke directly states that he was gathering sources in compiling his gospel. It is possible that Luke and Matthew did not know of eachother's work and thus, would have relied on a mutual source. However, scholars act like they have the full text of this so called gospel, when in reality, they only have whats in both Mathew and Luke but not in Mark. Matthew+ Luke -M-L-Mark= Q

I don't think we should speak of the contents of Q with any certainty besides what we actually have of it in front of us....and even that can not be attributed to a full fledged gospel with the degree of certainty that we would like. Speculation about who wrote it, whether or not a community was behind it....they are just that, speculation.

I think it is also possible that there is no Q source and that Luke copied the gospel of Matthew and modified it to his liking. Note that Luke's gospel isn't just different, but in many cases, expands the traditions that are found in Matthew. The best example is the birth narratives which are significantly more detailed. I wonder if Luke used Matthew and expanded traditions that he felt he could say more about.
 
I am not mistaking the Gospel of Thomas with Q at all. I have read The Gospel of Thomas, too. Although Thomas is definately gnostic (as are The Gospels of Philip and Mary Magdalene), Q did not come across at all as a gnostic gospel and was similiar to Matthew, not exactly the same as Matthew or Luke, but they had some of the same writings, it was closest to Mark. The Q gospel (as scholars call it) is not complete by any means, but has many parts of it missing. Maybe you should read it for yourself.
Scholars believe that Q is a source of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (I know that scholars are not always correct). I am not sure if that is true or not.
 
ChristineES said:
I am not mistaking the Gospel of Thomas with Q at all. I have read The Gospel of Thomas, too. Although Thomas is definately gnostic (as are The Gospels of Philip and Mary Magdalene), Q did not come across at all as a gnostic gospel and was similiar to Matthew, not exactly the same as Matthew or Luke, but they had some of the same writings, it was closest to Mark. The Q gospel (as scholars call it) is not complete by any means, but has many parts of it missing. Maybe you should read it for yourself.
Scholars believe that Q is a source of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (I know that scholars are not always correct). I am not sure if that is true or not.
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ChristineES,

The "Gospel of Q" is an attempt by those scholars who believe in the "Two-Source" THEORY to put together what THEY BELIEVE such a "Source" would contain. Thus, it is called "Q", which is short for "Quell" - "Source" in German. It is not an ACTUAL Gospel, but some scholars' attempts to put together what this "Q" would have looked like. This is a theory based on the Marcan Priority AND PRESUMING that Matthew and Luke independently drew on BOTH Mark and this "Q", as well as their own sources. It is all a theory that is not shared by all scholars. More scholars are beginning to see the fallacy of the above presumption.

While most believe that the Greek Mark came first, it doesn't follow that Matthew and Luke drew independently from a common source besides Mark. This "Two-Source" theory is only one possibility that more scholars are beginning to doubt.

My point is that you haven't read a "Gospel of Q", but some scholars of very recent times putting together what they BELIEVE was Q. What is interesting is that these same scholars ignore that Matthew was written in Aramaic first, according to several early Christian sources and MAY be the source of some common sayings in the Synoptics. This would make the Aramaic Matthew Q - and would destroy the "Two Source" theory. We all know how much scientists and scholars are resistant to anything that would destroy the "theory" of the day. Consider Evolution and its continued existence as the "theory" of the day.

Regards
 
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