What if Q were to be found: in the canon or not?

[karebear92]

one of the gospels had to be written first, like Matthew. then the other writers refered to it when writing their gospel. Thus, it would be the first gospel that was written and not some lost gospel called Q that would explain the similarities.

Well, the Q theory holds that Mark was written first and then the others used, quoted, and referred to it, and then they used Q to fill in what Mark did not (Mark is the shortest gospel). I personally think Q might have existed and I also think that Q might simply be verbal teachings from the Apostles or disciple who heard the Apostles etc.

 

[fisherman_carl]

There are no early Church Fathers who mention Q or a lost gospel. It is only a modern theory.

 

[karebear92]

There are no early Church Fathers who mention Q or a lost gospel. It is only a modern theory.

Very true, which means one of four things: it didn’t come up, it didn’t exist, it wasn’t lost yet, or it didn’t matter.

 

[fisherman_carl]

In my mind it is likely that all of the NT was written prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Nowhere is it mentioned in Acts. Paul would have written his letters during the time of Acts yet nothing about Jerusalem’s destruction is mentioned in Acts or in his letters. It is unthinkable that it would not be mentioned at least in Acts. And in Revelelations we see the prophecy of the fall of the great city to be very soon. And the great city is where Jesus was crucified (Rev 11:8), Jerusalem. Rome did not fall until the 5th century.

 

[steve53]

Of course.

It is so obvious that no one wants to believe it.

 

[Dymphna82]

Am I the only person that thinks this is Star Trek related?

ETA: Okay, I see I’m not.

What’s a Q?

Whooooosh.

 

[patrick457]

There are no early Church Fathers who mention Q or a lost gospel. It is only a modern theory.

How beautifully this post sums it all up.

 

[patrick457]

I can handle Mark being written before Matthew. What I can’t handle is the COPYING of Q.

If Q were a cut and paste copying hodgepodge the people opposed to Christianity and the Jews would have absolutely shredded the validity of the gospels!

We have good Catholics that are skeptical of alot of things today. Are you going to tell me that Catholics from 50 to 100 wouldn’t have been skeptical of anything written about Jesus?

I’m telling you that they wouldn’t believe a cut and paste hodgepodge.

They would believe the real people–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John writing about Jesus!

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were mere dictation machines–they were true authors.

But they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Why do the gospels SEEM to be disjointed or cut and pasting of one another?

Because the authors didn’t sit down and write their gospels all in one sitting.

I believe that they pondered what they had seen and heard thermselves–checked things out that they didn’t personally see–and PRAYED about what they should write.

The result is that what we have is what the Holy Spirit wanted us to have for our salvation!

That’s why I think Q is a crock!

But if you’re asking me if there were many sayings of Jesus and recounting of his life that was done by the many early churches in the first century–yes I can believe in that–and I can believe that the gospel authors knew of such things and might have participated in the early churches recounting Jesus’ life.

That doesn’t mean though that FOLLOWERS of them YEARS later–cut and pasted and copied.

That is a crock invented by the devil and put forth by so called scholars.

Why is it so hard to conceive of the disicples that Jesus who is God–who picked them–as having brains enough in prayer with the Holy Spirit and inspired by that Holy Spirit as being able to write the gosples!!!

The reason it is hard for modern scholars is that they REALLY don’t believe in the miracles of Jesus and really in their heart of hearts they don’t believe in the resurrection!

Now they’re not going to say that because then they would be run out of their faculty positions in Catholic seminaries but I really do believe that is the case with SOME of them!

Lastly: why did someone as smart as St. Thomas Aquinas believe that the real Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the gospels?

Are you going to tell me that he was dumb?!

I too disbelieve in Q if you’ve read me carefully, but IMHO we need not necessarily think that it is a hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of man. Come on, it was the 18th and the 19th century, wherein scholars attempted to solve every problem by postulating another written source. B.H. Streeter, the guy who really honed the Two-source theory in fact went rather overboard and assigned a written source to each type of material - triple tradition from Mark; double tradition from ‘Q’; special Matthew from an ‘M’ document and special Luke from ‘L’.

 

[patrick457]

The Markan Priory theory holds that the Gospel of Mark was written between 65-80 AD, that the Gospel of Matthew was written between 90-110 AD, and that the Gospel of Luke was written between 95-140 AD.

Well, again, this is a relic of antiquated scholarship. I doubt there would be many people - even those who hold Markan priority and/or the Two-source hypothesis - who would dare assign late dates to gospel nowadays. Back in the days when most of the early New Testament papyri we have now were not yet discovered, people could run wild and even assign this or that Gospel to the 2nd or even the 3rd century. In fact, the modern trend it seems is to assign the gospels earlier and earlier in history.

From a Markan priority POV, the majority (but not the concensus) view today is that Mark would have been written around AD 70 or even earlier into the late 60s, Matthew is thought to have come shortly after Mark in the 70s or 80s, and Luke is now usually assigned somewhere around the 80s or 90s. Some historians would prefer earlier dates than these of course (so that the Synoptics would be written around the 50s-60s), but it’s pretty much agreed today that the Gospels were already in existence by the end of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd.

And about the Eusebius quote (Ecclesiastical History 6.14.5-7):

Again, in the same books, Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner:

The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it.

When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it. But, last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel. This is the account of Clement.

A curious element of his testimony is that Mark supposedly wrote his Gospel while Peter is still alive. Clement is apparently in the minority here: in other sources, such as Irenaeus and the author of the anti-Marcionite prologue to Mark, Mark is supposed to have written his gospel after Peter’s death (though the article disagrees). The article has already provided the English translation so I’ll provide the Greek and Latin.

Ὁ μὲν δὴ Ματθαῖος ἐν τοῖς Ἑβραίοις τῇ ἰδίᾳ αὐτῶν διαλέκτῳ καὶ γραφὴν ἐξήνεγκεν εὐαγγελίου, τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ τοῦ Παύλου ἐν Ῥώμῃ εὐαγγελιζομένων καὶ θεμελιούντων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. Μετὰ δὲ τὴν τούτων ἔξοδον, Μάρκος, ὁ μαθητὴς καὶ ἑρμηνευτὴς Πέτρου, καὶ αὐτὸς τὰ ὑπὸ Πέτρου κηρυσσόμενα ἐγγράφως ἡμῖν παραδέδωκεν. Καὶ Λουκᾶς δέ, ὁ ἀκόλουθος Παύλου, τὸ ὑπ’ ἐκείνου κηρυσσόμενον εὐαγγέλιον ἐν βίβλῳ κατέθετο. Ἔπειτα Ἰωάννης, ὁ μαθητὴς τοῦ Κυρίου, ὁ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος αὐτοῦ ἀναπεσών, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐξέδωκεν τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, ἐν Ἐφέσῳ τῆς Ἀσίας διατρίβων.

Ita Matthaeus in Hebraeis ipsorum lingua scripturam edidit Evangelii, cum Petrus et Paulus Romae evangelizarent, et fundarent ecclesiam. Post vero horum excessum, Marcus discipulus et interpres Petri, et ipse quae a Petro annuntiata erant, per scripta nobis tradidit. Et Lucas autem sectator Pauli, quod ab illo praedicabatur Evangelium in libro condidit. Postea et Ioannes discipulus Domini, qui et supra pectus eius recumbebat, et ipse edidit Evangelium, Ephesi Asiae commorans.

Of this the article claims:

The Latin version may imply that Irenaeus was thinking that Mark and Luke wrote after the death of Peter. However, the perfect tense used in the Greek version makes it clear that this is not so. Irenaeus was merely saying that the gospels of Mark and Luke have handed on the traditions taught by Peter and Paul when they were still alive ((RO 163)). …] ‘Demise was also used by the Greeks to denote ‘departure.

The basic thought of the Greek perfect tense is that the progress of an action has been completed and the results of the action are continuing on, in full effect. In other words, the progress of the action has reached its culmination and its results are now in existence. Unlike the English perfect, which indicates a completed past action, the Greek perfect tense indicates the continuation and present state of a completed past action.

The word in question is ἔξοδον (exodon), which does literally mean ‘departure’, i.e. an exodus. However, it could also mean ‘departure in death’, and is so used in Luke 9:31 and 2 Peter 1:15, as well as in some early Christian literature. This is the sense most commentators read Irenaeus’ comment.

 

[patrick457]

I would quote from Chapter 1 of The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in earliest Christianity by James G. Crossley (2004):

The central chronological issue frequently discussed is the interpretation of ἔξοδον, literally ‘departure’ but it can be used figuratively as ‘death’ (cf. Lk. 9:31; 2 Pet. 1:15) and most commentators read Irenaeus in this latter sense. According to this conventional interpretation of Irenaeus, Mark’s gospel was written in Rome in the mid to late sixties, after the deaths of Peter and Paul, probably during the persecutions under Nero, 64-65 CE. Footnote 1: See e.g. M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London: SCM Press, 1985), pp. 2-3.] In favour of such an interpretation is the evidence of Peter and Paul dying in Rome being fairly secure (cf. e.g. 1 Clem. 5.1-7; 6.1; Ign., Rom. 4.2-3, Iren., Adv. haer. 3.3.2; Eus. HE 2.25; 3.1.3 [Footnote 2: Based on a lost fragment of Origen’s third volume of his commentary on Genesis.])

There are, however, problems with this traditional understanding. One famous criticism is that it is of course possible to take ἔξοδον in the sense of ‘departure’. Ellis, for example, does precisely this. He notes that the usual word for death in Irenaeus is θάνατος (=mors), occurring some 38 times in Adversus haereses Book 3 [Footnote 3: E.E. Ellis, ‘The Date and Provenance of Mark’s Gospel’, pp. 801-815, in F. Van Segroeck (ed.), *The Four Gospels 1992 (Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1992), pp. 803-806.]. Ellis combines this with an argument developed by J. Chapman who claimed that παραδέδωκεν should be translated more conventionally as something like ‘handed down’ [Footnote 4: J. Chapman, ‘St. Irenaeus on the Dates of the Gospels’, *JTS 6, 1905, pp. 563-69. Chapman has also been followed by, for example, A. Harnack, The Date of the Acts and the Synoptic Gospels (London: Williams & Norgate; New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1911), pp. 130-131; J.W. Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke. A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), pp. 239-42.]. This would mean that Irenaeus was talking ‘only of the transmission of Mark’s Gospel after Peter and Paul departed from Rome. He is thinking not of their deaths but rather of their further missionary travels after an initial evangelization of Rome, i.e. after Paul’s release in c. AD 63 and after an earlier visit and departure of Peter’ [Footnote 5: Ellis, ‘Date’, p. 805.] This would imply that the later Christian tradition of Paul’s release from his imprisonment in Rome (e.g. HE 2.22.2; Jerome De Vir. III.5; cf. 1 Clem. 5.6) is reliable and that there was a tradition of Peter in Rome before departing from Rome and returning later. Another significant implication of this interpretation would be that Irenaeus tells us very little concerning the precise dating of Mark other than it being written when Peter and Paul were still alive. There are other possible interpretations of Irenaeus. If Chapman’s translation of παραδέδωκεν as ‘handed down’ is not followed but the translation of ἔξοδον as ‘departure’ is accepted we would have c. 63 as the earliest possible date for Mark’s gospel but nothing more precise than that, i.e. after Paul’s supposed release from prison. If Chapman is followed and παραδέδωκεν is taken in the sense of ‘handed down’ but ἔξοδον is translated as ‘death’ then Irenaeus would tell us next to nothing about the date of Mark other than when it was transmitted to the Romans [Footnote 6: Wenham, *Redating, pp. 239-42.]. These arguments would also be supported by a probably independent tradition claiming Mark was written during Peter’s lifetime (see below).

These criticisms cast some doubt on the conventional dating of Mark after c. 64, and deserve to be taken more seriously than much of modern scholarship will allow. However, while the reading of Irenaeus in support of a post-64 date suffers linguistically the alternative readings suffer historically. Ellis’ view that Irenaeus claims Mark’s gospel was transmitted to the Romans after a departure of Peter and Paul from Rome requires Peter to have made a departure from Rome sometime close to the sixties and Paul to have been released from his Roman imprisonment in order to depart from Rome. The evidence to support this is not strong. There are traditions suggesting Peter was in Rome during the reign of Claudius, some suggest as early as the early forties, but it is difficult to know whether these traditions are reliable, as we will be argued below.

 

[patrick457]

Most significantly for our present purposes, it appears that Irenaeus places the activities of Peter around the same time as Paul, which would be sometime around the sixties and, while there is early evidence of Peter in Rome in the sixties (e.g. 1 Clem. 5.1-6; cf. Mur. Canon [on Acts]), it is weaker in suggesting a departure. It has been conjectured that Peter went on to Rome and departed from there in the fifties after he was apparently active in Corinth (1 Cor. 1.12ff.; 3.22-4.1, 9; 9.5; 16.12) [Footnote 7: E.g. T.W. Manson, *Studies in the Gospels and Epistles (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1962), pp. 39-40; Ellis, ‘Date’, pp. 808-809.], but there is no evidence as to where Peter went after supposedly travelling to Corinth. Indeed it is not even certain from 1 Corinthians that Peter ever went to Corinth, only that he had supporters there. The late second-century view of Dionysius, the Bishop of Corinth, that Peter did indeed visit Corinth (HE 2.25.8) is difficult to assess because it may simply be an inference from 1 Corinthians. In the case of Paul it appears that he first arrived in Rome in the sixties (Acts 28.16; cf. Rom. 1.10, 13ff.; 15.22ff.; 28f.) and there is indeed a tradition that Paul fulfilled his ambition to go to Spain after arriving in Rome (e.g. 1 Clem. 5.6f; Acts Pet. 1, 6; Mur. Canon [on Acts] but this may be secondary, deduced from Rom. 15.24, 28. Thus, while Irenaeus may have believed that Peter and Paul departed from Rome around the sixties, the historical accuracy of the tradition remains questionable. There are also problems with the idea of understanding as ‘handed down’ in support of Irenaeus believing Mark to have been written earlier than the mid-sixties. In fact it would still carry the implication of being written because it is difficult to imagine that the gospel would not have been widely disseminated if already written Footnote 8: Cf. R. Bauckham (ed.), The Gospel for All Christians. Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998).], not least in a relatively long-established Roman community, other this would mean the unlikely situation of a (the?) written gospel being withheld from the Roman Christians for some time. Thus even if it were to be accepted that Mark passed on Peter’s preaching in written form surely the implication would be that this was the first time of it being put into writing. More, and this is a criticism of both post and pre- 64-65 views, Irenaeus is a little suspect because, as Wenham noted, chronology is not his strong point: Irenaeus claimed that Jesus’ ministry lasted ten years and that Jesus died before the age of fifty (Adv. haer. 2.22.5, 6) Footnote 9: Wenham, Redating, p. 242.]. Of course, it is not impossible that he could have had an accurate tradition in the case of Mark’s gospel.

 

[steve53]

Impressive as always, Patrick.

If you speculate that Luke of Macedon was Paul’s traveling companion and was caught up in Nero’s persecutions of A.D. 64 himself, then Mark, as a source for Luke’s Acts of the Apostle, would have to be earlier.

 

[Chaplain777]

Am I the only person who thought this thread was going to be about Star Trek?



(Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

Am I the only person that thinks this is Star Trek related?

ETA: Okay, I see I’m not.

What’s a Q?

Whooooosh.

First, “Q” was a character on Star Trek the Next Generation. He was an all-powerfull being that wreaked havoc in a likeable way with the Star Trek crew. He was from the Q Continuum…blah blah blah…go here for more insight… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_The_Q_Continuum

So, the “Am I the only person that thinks this is Star Trek related? ” statement was an inside joke for Trekkies, which by the way was Excellent!!! :clapping:

As for the REAL topic the “Q Document” this is a hypothetical document that some speculate may be the source for the synoptic Gospels, that explains their similarities in stories, chronological order and word structure. That is the nickel explaination. Hope that helps.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Nowhere is it mentioned in Acts. Paul would have written his letters during the time of Acts yet nothing about Jerusalem’s destruction is mentioned in Acts or in his letters…

Acts: Well, you don’t mention WW2 in a history of WW1, either. Paul’s letters precede the writing of the Gospels as we have them, which is why he does not quote from them.

“As we have them,” means that they weren’t the work of one sitting of one writer, for the most part.

For instance, many scholars believe parts of Mark were written during Jesus’ Incarnation. That most of Mark is from a set of letters sent home by one of the disciples, possibly an Apostle. If you read Mark, most of it does come across as a kind of travelogue, or diary of someone following Jesus around.

People copied letters and sent them on, but they didn’t copy the greetings and things, just the news and put several things together to save on precious paper and sent letters back and forth. These letters would have been valued very much by Jesus’ followers who couldn’t actually follow Him around. When Jerusalem fell, this was when it became so necessary to write things down in a more organized fashion for evangelization and certainly the letters of Mark would have been used, with an introduction and conclusion added.

You know, we are Catholics. It is not our job to decide these things based on our own thoughts. The introduction to Mark in the NAB begins: “This shortest of all New Testament gospels is likely the first to have been written.” It also says, “The Gospel of Mark ends in the ancient manuscripts with an abrupt scene at Jesus’ tomb, which the women find a empty. (16:1-8) … Other hands have attached additional endings after 16:8.”

If you go to the Scripture at the USCCB website, this is the version you will find with the Introduction intact. usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?bk=Mark&ch= I’m not a fan of contradicting the Bishops or replacing their judgement with my own.

So we see that the Gospels are written in stages. Possibly Luke was entirely the work of one hand. But if “other hands” added the ending in Mark, the question is: *where did it come from? * In any case, please read this notes to the ending of Mark:

• [16:9–20] This passage, termed the Longer Ending to the Marcan gospel by comparison with a much briefer conclusion found in some less important manuscripts, has traditionally been accepted as a canonical part of the gospel and was defined as such by the Council of Trent. Early citations of it by the Fathers indicate that it was composed by the second century, although vocabulary and style indicate that it was written by someone other than Mark. It is a general resume of the material concerning the appearances of the risen Jesus, reflecting, in particular, traditions found in Lk 24 and Jn 20.

The Freer Logion: Found after v 14 in a fourth-fifth century manuscript preserved in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, this ending was known to Jerome in the fourth century. It reads: “And they excused themselves, saying, ‘This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things dominated by the spirits [or, does not allow the unclean things dominated by the spirits to grasp the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal your righteousness now.’ They spoke to Christ. And Christ responded to them, ‘The limit of the years of Satan’s power is completed, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who sinned I was handed over to death, that they might return to the truth and no longer sin, in order that they might inherit the spiritual and incorruptible heavenly glory of righteousness. But….’”

• [16:20] The Shorter Ending: Found after Mk 16:8 before the Longer Ending in four seventh-to-ninth-century Greek manuscripts as well as in one Old Latin version, where it appears alone without the Longer Ending.

 

[Dymphna82]

Thanks, Chaplain.

 

[steve53]

Acts: Well, you don’t mention WW2 in a history of WW1, either. Paul’s letters precede the writing of the Gospels as we have them, which is why he does not quote from them.

*How do you know that? Unfounded.
*

“As we have them,” means that they weren’t the work of one sitting of one writer, for the most part.

*Again, how do you make that assumption?
*

For instance, many scholars believe parts of Mark were written during Jesus’ Incarnation. That most of Mark is from a set of letters sent home by one of the disciples, possibly an Apostle. If you read Mark, most of it does come across as a kind of travelogue, or diary of someone following Jesus around.

Who are they? There are scholars and there are scholars. The field of religion is riff with “scholars” of dubious credentials. Total speculation about Mark being a compendium of letters.

People copied letters and sent them on, but they didn’t copy the greetings and things, just the news and put several things together to save on precious paper and sent letters back and forth. These letters would have been valued very much by Jesus’ followers who couldn’t actually follow Him around. When Jerusalem fell, this was when it became so necessary to write things down in a more organized fashion for evangelization and certainly the letters of Mark would have been used, with an introduction and conclusion added.

*Jerusalem was hardly the center for Christianity during the Jewish revolt, and the fall of Jerusalem. Years earlier, the High Priesthood declared an all-out war against the remaining Christians, with the execution of James the Just and other Christian leaders in A.D. 62. Rome was the real center, but even there, two years later in A.D. 64 Nero wiped out Paul and Peter and the rest of Roman Christian leadership. We can only assume that the Jews (High Priesthood) were equally hostile to the Christians in the years leading up to the revolt in A.D. 66. So the destruction of Jerusalem was not the impetus for the writing down of the gospels and recollection. If there ever was an impetus, it would have been the persecutions of A.D. 62 and 64. But likely the Gospels and Acts, and certainly all of Paul’s letters, were written before the Roman onslaught in A.D. 64. *

 

[Chaplain777]

Thanks, Chaplain.

shaw: My pleasure.

 

[steve53]

Excepting John, of course. My bad!

 

[Julia_Mae]

“As we have them,” means that they weren’t the work of one sitting of one writer, for the most part.

*Again, how do you make that assumption?
*

Well, for one thing my Church says so. The Church says so in the edition of Scripture on the USCCB website which is the edition from which all readings in the United States come at all Masses.

 

[patrick457]

Well, for one thing my Church says so. The Church says so in the edition of Scripture on the USCCB website which is the edition from which all readings in the United States come at all Masses.

You do realize that it’s not ‘the Church’ as a whole, right?