Toto

Sorry, Nomad, I was going on my impressions without checking the data. My impression was that you like to try to control the discussion by starting your own threads, and trying to get the discussants to work within your framework. I am thinking in particular of the multiple threads relating to the historical Jesus and the resurrection. And I don't pay much attention to EOG.

But back to the subject. I gather Nomad would like to include the Passion narrative in Q, because otherwise it looks like the earliest Christians did not know or care about how Jesus died, or think there was any significance to his death. But I have seen no scholarly support for Nomad's view.

Michael.

Normally I do not like to do this, but my time is becoming more limited (because of the upcoming debate). At the same time, since you offer no arguments in your post, it is difficult to respond to your questions. As I have said, "Q" is a hypothetical construct that has helped scholars to attempt to piece together how the Synoptic Gospels were formed. There are a number of defining characteristics of "Q", all of which have been arbitrarily assigned by scholars:

1) Nothing found in GMark can be in "Q"
2) No miracles are included in "Q"
3) The Passion Narrative is not in "Q"
4) "Q" is not found in GJohn at all

Clearly, these a priori assumptions about the nature of Q are going to drive our investigation of this source. Personally, I prefer to think of a pre-Gospel tradition that may or may not have included sayings, the Passion of Jesus, and miracles of Jesus. I do not think it is useful to simply draw a line, tell us before we get started that only sayings that are found jointly in Matthew and Luke can be considered, and everything else must be discarded from consideration.

As to Toto's point, no, I do not think that the Passion should be included in Q. I think looking for a sayings source and calling it Q is fine. At the same time, we must not preclude the possibility that just as there was a pre-existent sayings tradition, there may well have been a pre-Gospel Passion story. There also clearly must have been a number of miracle stories circulating, forming the basis of the Synoptics and John as well. To assume that Mark or any other Gospel was the first written record of the life, acts and death of Jesus is a position that extremely difficult to defend.

Now, specific criticisms of the Cross Gospel theory as offered by J.D. Crossan, I would recommend Raymond Brown's Death of the Messiah, Vol. 2 Appendix I, pgs. 1317-1348.

For a withering attack on the entire "Q" theory (a view I do not share 100%, but for which I have strong simpathy as I have examined the case for "Q" more and more carefully), see Donald Akenson's Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus especially Chapter 2 pgs. 108-116 and Appendix B pgs. 321-8.

If you have specific questions about either the Cross Gospel or Q, or the attacks made against them, please let me know.

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited May 07, 2001).]

The now-public and near-popular examination and discussion of the source material Q common to Matthew and Luke cannot help but be a good thing for Christianity. It has become the "elephant in the living room" for many evangelicals and fundamentalists who deem to peep in time to time on the wider world.

It can show us the canonical evidence of Jesus is not necessarily the normative portrait and things are never as simple as they first seem.

Many of the so-called heretical strains of early Christianity were deemed such by eccesiastical fiat and political necessity, not to keep an unbroken line of tradition alive. In the early first-century, there was no global village and interpretations of the faith--as evidenced by a careful reading of the texts--was fragmented and variable.