Q

[Sugar_Ray]

I’ve read lately a numer of references to what sound like ancient church documents known as Q.

Can anyone direct me to where I can learn more?

Thanks

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I’ve read lately a numer of references to what sound like ancient church documents known as Q.

Can anyone direct me to where I can learn more?

Thanks

Look for the Pontifical Biblical Commission document, ***The Interpretation of The Bible in The Church. ***The section on the Historical-Critical Method.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I’ve read lately a numer of references to what sound like ancient church documents known as Q.

Can anyone direct me to where I can learn more?

Thanks

The Q source is thought to be a document that was written prior to the synoptic gospels that Matthew, Mark and Luke referenced when writing their books.

The document obviously doesn’t exist today, but offers an explanation as to why the synoptics share so many verses in common.

Q may stand for “quelle” which is German for “Source.”

Final thought: I seem to recall reading that the Q theory may be losing some ground among scholars, but I may be completely in error on this point…

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

 

[Godfollower]

I’ve read lately a numer of references to what sound like ancient church documents known as Q.

Can anyone direct me to where I can learn more?

Thanks

Q is the first letter in the German word quelle, which means “source.” It came up like this:

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic (syn + optic = same look) Gospels because of their great similarities among each other compared to John. One theory is that Matthew and Luke both had the Gospel of Mark when they wrote their Gospels and incorporated a lot of it into their Gospels (after all, why reinvent the wheel?). This would explain why most of Mark shows up in both Matthew and Luke. One problem with this theory is that Matthew and Luke have some similarities with each other that do not occur in Mark – but they also have some differences from each other, indicating that neither Matthew nor Luke had the other’s Gospel when writing his own.

So: if neither Matthew nor Luke copied from the other, how do they have similar passages that are not included in Mark? Simple: they must have had a second source available to both Matthew and Luke but not to Mark; then, because of the widespread use of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and (later) John, that souce fell out of use and was lost. Biblical scholars have christened this theoretical other source “Q” for quelle. This is because the theory of Q was mostly advanced by German Biblical scholars (though others have taken up the cause).

Mind you, the theory that a document (now called Q) existed from which Matthew and Luke cribbed while also cribbing from Mark is not doctrine; it’s just a theory among Biblical scholars – and a disputed one, at that.

Hope this answer wasn’t too long. Sorry!

 

[Contarini]

The Q source is thought to be a document that was written prior to the synoptic gospels that Matthew, Mark and Luke referenced when writing their books.

The document obviously doesn’t exist today, but offers an explanation as to why the synoptics share so many verses in common.

Q may stand for “quelle” which is German for “Source.”

Final thought: I seem to recall reading that the Q theory may be losing some ground among scholars, but I may be completely in error on this point…

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

I think there’s a greater openness to the idea that “Q” might be oral tradition–which makes sense to me. Though I have also speculated that “Q” might be the original Gospel of Matthew (i.e., it might have been written down by Matthew in Aramaic and then combined with Mark and some other material by someone else).

Edwin

 

[porthos11]

Q is based on the hypothesis that Mark came first and that Matthew was originally in Greek.

However, if it is hypothesized that Matthew came first in Aramaic, then Mark, then Matthew Greek, then the similarities can be reconciled without introducing Q.

The Jerusalem Bible (1966) presents a likely scenario (no Q, Matthew initially in Aramaic) presented before the beginning of Matthew. This Rock also gives another plausible scenario with the assumption that Matthew was originally in Greek, but came first.

 

[JimG]

There is no historical or acheological evidence that Q ever existed. It is pure speculation. Further, as Porthos 11 mentioned, it is predicated on Mark being the first gospel, which was never the tradition of the Church, being an idea introduced only recently.