Conundrum

[Epistemes]

I’m finishing Kloppenborg’s “Introduction to Q” and William E. Arnals “Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Settings of Q.” Now, I have several books of NT essays which I’ve yet to touch in addition to recently acquiring Eisenman’s “James, the Brother of Jesus,” but I find myself compelled to read either Kloppenborg’s “Excavating Q” or I’m also interested in Reed’s “Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus” or Tuckett’s “Q and the History of Early Christianity.” So many decisions!

 

[Apollos]

I’m finishing Kloppenborg’s “Introduction to Q” and William E. Arnals “Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Settings of Q.” Now, I have several books of NT essays which I’ve yet to touch in addition to recently acquiring Eisenman’s “James, the Brother of Jesus,” but I find myself compelled to read either Kloppenborg’s “Excavating Q” or I’m also interested in Reed’s “Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus” or Tuckett’s “Q and the History of Early Christianity.” So many decisions!

Wow, people still believe in Q? I thought that was a discredited hypothesis.

 

[Epistemes]

Wow, people still believe in Q? I thought that was a discredited hypothesis.

It’s hardly discredited if scholars continue to engage in conversations about it, whether pro and anti. The alternatives? The ‘Two Gospel Hypothesis’ (proposed some two centuries ago by Griesbach) and ‘Mark Without Q’, among whom Mark Goodacre (over at Duke University) is a strong proponent. None of the anti-Q arguments have really matched the pro-Q arguments, though, as they end to involve editorial and redactional procedures on the part of the Evangelists somewhat akin to nuclear fission. If anything, in North America and the UK, a LOT of folks (including scholars) have really engaged in a kind of anti-Q backlash, in part, I think, because the conclusions of Q scholarship run counter to more traditional understandings of the origins of Christianity. And after reading Arnal’s book, I can see how scholars, having dedicated their life’s work to myths such as “Jesus was an itinerant prophet-preacher,” would find the need to reject such readings.

 

[NotWorthy]

I don’t see any reason that there needs to be a Q. There was a basic Gospel that was spread verbally. Peter, who is thought to be the influence on Mark’s Gospel, found that certain points of the Gospel were more influential with his audience than other points. Luke and Matthew found the same things out.

That’s why there is the same basic Gospel, but each has their own flavor.

I think that proponents of “Q” need to have a little more proof. Is it mentioned by any early Church Fathers or early Theologians?

 

[Apollos]

For me, the fact that proponents have so much difficulty isolating its hypothesized content is a stroke against it, not to mention its inferiority to alternative hypotheses such as the crystallization of oral tradition into stereotyped language. I recall a wonderful little book by Kikawada that blew the documentary hypothesis for the Pentateuch out of the water (cf. amazon.com/Before-Abraham-Was-Unity-Genesis/dp/0898702399), and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Q hypothesis succumbs to a similar critique.

In the end, however, both hypotheses smack of nineteenth century antisupernaturalist bias.

 

[Erich]

I was taught Q in high school, but it’s always bothered me that Q – a (hypothetical) collection of sayings and quotations of Jesus – was omitted from all the early Church catalogs and was unmentioned by all the fathers of the early Church. Wouldn’t Q – if it existed – be among the most highly treasured documents in all of Christendom? It certainly seems odd that no copies, no fragments, have survived.

From Wikipedia:

The gospels often recount the same stories, usually in the same order, sometimes using the same words. Scholars note that the similarities between Mark, Matthew, and Luke are too great to be accounted for by mere coincidence.

If the two-source hypothesis is correct, then Q would probably have been a written document. If Q were merely a shared oral tradition, it could not account for the nearly identical word-for-word similarities between Matthew and Luke when quoting Q material. Similarly, it is possible to deduce that Q was written in Greek. If the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were referring to a document that had been written in some other language (for example Aramaic), it is highly unlikely that two independent translations would have exactly the same wording.

I much prefer the Clementine Tradition, described/defended at great length in The Authors of the Gospels.

 

[Epistemes]

Q may not exist; but then again, neither does the Gospel of Mark - both are reconstructions; both are hypotheses.

That is to say, in New Testament scholarship, an exegesis of any given passage is laboring under a whole series of assumptions and hypotheses (most of them well founded) and ultimately raises a whole series of epistemological concerns: that Mark is the earliest canonical Gospel, that our understanding of Koine Greek is accurate, that what we call “Mark” represents a single text, and (most of all) that the textual reconstruction of Mark in the exegete’s Greek Bible is not simply a synthetic backproduct but corresponds more or less to the first-century original (autograph).

Thus, such skepticism regarding Q has something of the character of creationism in the context of academic biology. Hypothesis is piled onto hypothesis, although few would claim that efforts to classify a particular species are irresponsible or frivolous.

For the sake of laypersons who prefer traditional fundamentalist responses to the Synoptic Problem rather than weeding through the layers upon layers of scholarly discussion, such an position, while comfortable and placid, should be expected and is ultimately to be rooted in particular religious experiences, but, in regards to actual scholarly discussion of Q, the process of discussion will continue until better alternative hypotheses are formulated or until the hypotheses in use can be proven false.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I was taught Q in high school, but it’s always bothered me that Q – a (hypothetical) collection of sayings and quotations of Jesus – was omitted from all the early Church catalogs and was unmentioned by all the fathers of the early Church. Wouldn’t Q – if it existed – be among the most highly treasured documents in all of Christendom? It certainly seems odd that no copies, no fragments, have survived.

From Wikipedia:

I much prefer the Clementine Tradition, described/defended at great length in The Authors of the Gospels.

As
Chesterton said of the “Missing Link”: It is most important to note that it is missing."

 

[Axion]

Except of course that it’s not up to traditional believers to “prove” that Q, or any other historical-critical hypothesis, is false. It is up to the “scholars” who have dreamt them up, to PROVE their theories are true. This is something they have signally failed to do.

All we have are suppositions that get us very little further to understanding the Gospels and learning from them. Unfortunately, actually LEARNING from the Gospels is one thing that these sort of scholars seem to be LEAST interested in doing. They are far too interested in making up imaginary histories of their supposed derivation, assembly and falsification by various shadowy figures.

As some have said, no copies scraps or even, early references to Q exist. Maybe there was such a document, we don’t know. But what many object to is people teaching these (and worse) unproven theories as if they were facts.

 

[Epistemes]

As
Chesterton said of the “Missing Link”: It is most important to note that it is missing."

This, of course, could have been said about the Nag Hammadi library up until 1945 - at which point Chesterton would have just made an *** of himself.

 

[NotWorthy]

Q may not exist; but then again, neither does the Gospel of Mark - both are reconstructions; both are hypotheses.

That is to say, in New Testament scholarship, an exegesis of any given passage is laboring under a whole series of assumptions and hypotheses (most of them well founded) and ultimately raises a whole series of epistemological concerns: that Mark is the earliest canonical Gospel, that our understanding of Koine Greek is accurate, that what we call “Mark” represents a single text, and (most of all) that the textual reconstruction of Mark in the exegete’s Greek Bible is not simply a synthetic backproduct but corresponds more or less to the first-century original (autograph).

Thus, such skepticism regarding Q has something of the character of creationism in the context of academic biology. Hypothesis is piled onto hypothesis, although few would claim that efforts to classify a particular species are irresponsible or frivolous.

For the sake of laypersons who prefer traditional fundamentalist responses to the Synoptic Problem rather than weeding through the layers upon layers of scholarly discussion, such an position, while comfortable and placid, should be expected and is ultimately to be rooted in particular religious experiences, but, in regards to actual scholarly discussion of Q, the process of discussion will continue until better alternative hypotheses are formulated or until the hypotheses in use can be proven false.

uhhhhh… come again? :hypno:

There’s just one problem with all that gobbly-gook. The Gospel of Mark comes from the earliest Christian Tradition. “Q” doesn’t.

 

[Epistemes]

uhhhhh… come again? :hypno:

There’s just one problem with all that gobbly-gook. The Gospel of Mark comes from the earliest Christian Tradition. “Q” doesn’t.

To emphatically state that the Gospel of Mark comes from the earliest Christian Tradition and, likewise, that Q doesn’t is to misapprehend everything which you (mis)quoted by me. So, yes, come again?

 

[NotWorthy]

To emphatically state that the Gospel of Mark comes from the earliest Christian Tradition and, likewise, that Q doesn’t is to misapprehend everything which you (mis)quoted by me. So, yes, come again?

That’s because I didn’t understand what you were saying.

If we were having this conversation face to face, I’d say, “I see your lips moving, but I can’t hear what you are saying”.

BTW, what did i (mis)quote?

 

[Erich]

in regards to actual scholarly discussion of Q, the process of discussion will continue until better alternative hypotheses are formulated or until the hypotheses in use can be proven false.

From The Authors of the Gospels:

There are three main schools of thought:

    ~ The Jerome Tradition (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)
    ~ The Markan priority theory (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John)
    ~ The Clementine Tradition (Matthew, Luke, Mark, John)

THE JEROME TRADITION asserts that:

• The order of Gospel composition was in the sequence they appear in our Bibles today.

• St. Jerome and some other early Christians made use of this order.

• If internal evidence contradicts these historians, the literary analysis must be in error.

THE MARKAN PRIORITY THEORY asserts that:

• Those, who wrote second and third, would have improved the literary form of the Greek in the borrowed verses. They would not have deliberately corrupted the Greek.

• Marks Gospel is in poor Greek` when compared to that of Matthew and Luke.

• So Matthew and Luke must have borrowed from Mark.

• This shows that Mark wrote prior to the other two (i.e. Markan priority).

• Matthew the Apostle (an eyewitness of the public life of Christ) would not have borrowed from a non-eyewitness when forming the basis of his account.

• This indicates that Matthew the Apostle did not write the Gospel named after him. It must have been composed by an unknown person at a later date, using Marks Gospel as a basis and adding additional material from other sources (these are referred to as Q`).

• As Luke also improved on Greek of Mark, he must also have written late. This means he could not have been a companion of Paul.

• These findings of modern literary analysis show that the ancient historians were in error. They are not therefore a reliable source for the historical claim that the fourth Gospel was by John the Apostle, eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus…

• As none of the authors of the Gospels were Apostles or their companions, their writings can not be seen as accurate accounts of what Jesus said and did.

+The authors must have been unknown writers, living at late dates, expressing their beliefs in the form of stories.
As the Markan priority theory is based upon modern scientific research, and the Jerome Tradition is based on historical records, Science should be trusted in preference to old traditions.

The Jesus of History is not the same as The Christ of Faith Christianity is therefore not built on a firm historical basis.
THE CLEMENTINE TRADITION

• Challenged by Markan priority, Protestants and Catholics, at the beginning of the 20th century, encouraged a deeper study of ancient languages and placed large resources at the disposal of archaeological researchers in Palestine. This has born rich fruit.

• Linguists have confirmed the ancient tradition that Matthew wrote in Hebrew.

• In the early records the Gospel according to Matthew is always listed first.

• Clement of Alexandria, stated that Luke wrote before Mark, so producing the chronological sequence of Matthew-Luke-Mark-John. The Church Fathers were familiar with and used the same order.

• When Jerome made a fresh translation of the New Testament in the fourth century, he chose to adopt the Matthew-Mark-Luke-John sequence. This is why we find this order in our bibles today.

• A growing number of modern literary analysists recognize that Mark borrowed from Matthew and Luke alternately, so confirming the historical evidence that Mark wrote third.

• Both the historical and literary evidence shows that Matthew wrote for the Jews and that Luke wrote for the Gentiles.

• Historical evidence and modern literary evidence, both point to Peter giving a series of talks during which he alternately quoted from both Gospels while adding reminiscences of his own. In this way he was authorising the work of Luke (a non-eyewitness Apostle).

• The words of Peter, as recorded by Mark in shorthand, were distributed to those who made requests. This explains the apparent poor Greek of Mark. His Gospel was not composed in literary Greek, but was an unedited verbatim record of the spoken words of Peter, for whom Greek was not his native tongue.

• By Peter supporting distribution of Mark`s transcript, he was granting it authorisation as an official Gospel.

• This vindication of the reliability of the historical records makes them a reliable and firm authority for accepting that John the Apostle wrote the fourth Gospel.

• The Clementine Tradition brings the ancient historical records and the latest literary analysis together in perfect agreement.

THE CHURCH

• Dei Verbum, a Doctrinal Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, insists that eyewitness Apostles wrote two of the gospels.

• The Markan priority theory, as normally understood, is in conflict with Dei Verbum.

• The Clementine Tradition is in agreement with Dei Verbum.

• Rome urges the use of both historical evidence and scientific literary analysis

• The Holy See has issued many recent statements in which the historicity of the Gospels is accepted as a fact.

 

[NotWorthy]

Protons have mass? I didn’t even know they were Catholic!

I heard something the other day that reminded me of your signature.

If our parish were to buy a bus to bring people to Church and back home, would we call it “Mass Transit”?

BTW, good point on the synoptic Gospels. Notice that none of those theories make note of a “Q” source.

 

[Ismael]

I’m finishing Kloppenborg’s “Introduction to Q” and William E. Arnals “Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Settings of Q.” Now, I have several books of NT essays which I’ve yet to touch in addition to recently acquiring Eisenman’s “James, the Brother of Jesus,” but I find myself compelled to read either Kloppenborg’s “Excavating Q” or I’m also interested in Reed’s “Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus” or Tuckett’s “Q and the History of Early Christianity.” So many decisions!

Eisenman’s book is sloppy work… mostly speculation. Most of Eisenman colleagues dismissed his book “James, the Brother of Jesus” as nonsense.

Also he bases many of his speculations on texts found in Nag Hammadi, which are of gnostic origin and written 2-3 centuries after the canonical gospels…