avi

Here is your link to the Danish newspaper story. Thank you for this interesting thread.

Questions:
1. Isn't "Q" required because of the assumption that Matthew and Luke wrote independently from one another, i.e. without conversing, without exchanging information...etc?
Would it be so difficult to accept a hypothesis that first or second century "Christians", if they be that, met together, to discuss various aspects of the story line, so that, in essence, Matthew and Luke did know each others' literary intentions? Is that hypothesis any more incredulous than belief in a non-extant document?

2. Philosophically, is it not the identical intellectual process, to accept on faith, the existence of a book, which has never been seen, nor documented, as to accept on faith, the many fables found in the Bible/Quran?

3. With regard to carts and horses, what right do we possess that would enable our decision to regard the existence, or nonexistence, of Q, as representing axiomatic truth?

I am most intrigued, by this last line, in the newspaper:

How does "Q" relate to either of the two supposed standards, the "western" rank of appearance (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John), and the "orthodox" listing, with Mark last, preceded by John, Luke, and Matthew? Do we really know anything at all? Where do these dates come from??? Is this similar to the explanation offered by spin, regarding my question, earlier today, about the dating of P45, i.e. lots of secular documents from that era, permit one to study the writing style....OOPS, yes, that's right!! haha. WE DON'T HAVE any original documents from any of the gospel writers, in order to study handwriting........

Yeah, right, then we turn to the "patristic" evidence....another kettle of fish, or at least, very fishy sounding stories....Q, Justin Martyr, Marcion, Tertulian....hmm. How about this, while we are on the subject of fishing, maybe a wealthy guy, who sought heaven upon his demise, gave some silver talents to Luke, along with a copy of Mark and Matthew, and said, here, write a better story.....

avi

Chili

Because they were written from noetic vision which belongs to the philosopher king who only is able to interpret lyrical vision. Then of course we intellectuals come along and look at it from below with hyletic vision and think that we know or want to know and must know because we have our salvation invested in it, . . . and have dearly paid for that.

I believe that no one wrote that better than Boethuis in his "Consolation of Philosophy" when he was adoring the 'woman' standing over [him]: " . . .. Her dress had been torn by the hands of marauders who each carried off such pieces as he could get." (Penguin Classic Book 1 second page).

maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi Quote: Originally Posted by maryhelena What would be the repercussion for NT studies, the historicists and the mythicists positions, if Q is rejected? Here is your link to the Danish newspaper story. Thank you for this interesting thread. Questions: 1. Isn't "Q" required because of the assumption that Matthew and Luke wrote independently from one another, i.e. without conversing, without exchanging information...etc? Would it be so difficult to accept a hypothesis that first or second century "Christians", if they be that, met together, to discuss various aspects of the story line, so that, in essence, Matthew and Luke did know each others' literary intentions? Is that hypothesis any more incredulous than belief in a non-extant document?

I’m not the expert around here.....more like the elephant in the china shop..

Yes, something like what you wrote above ie Matthew and Luke have some unknown source, Q, that they both used, to account for the details they did not find in Mark.

As to a group of ‘Christians’ getting together to discuss details and how they were to write their storylines: I don’t think much creativity ever comes out of a committee, composite mind sort of thing. Sure, once there is a template of sorts, then others can utilize that framework and do their own thing. But, methinks, J.K.Rawlings would have quite a hissy fit if anyone suggested Harry Potter was the result of some big group think...

Quote:

2. Philosophically, is it not the identical intellectual process, to accept on faith, the existence of a book, which has never been seen, nor documented, as to accept on faith, the many fables found in the Bible/Quran?

Indeed, yes, Q is very much a ‘source’ that is taken on faith - albeit those involved like to think it has some scholarly grounding...

Quote:

3. With regard to carts and horses, what right do we possess that would enable our decision to regard the existence, or nonexistence, of Q, as representing axiomatic truth?

I’m not sure what you mean here re rights. We all have the ‘right’ to think for ourselves and come to conclusions - nothing wrong with that. We just have to be aware that our conclusions should never be set in stone.

And as for ‘truth’ - I like this quote:

Quote:

"Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth." Umberto Eco (b. 1932), Italian semiologist, novelist. Brother William, in The Name of the Rose, "Seventh Day: Night (2)" (1980; tr. 1983).

Quote:

I am most intrigued, by this last line, in the newspaper:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor Mueller We will examine if it is possible to understand the book of John as another source for the Gospel of Luke which in that case is to be seen as the youngest of the four gospels.

Yes, me too....so lets see where it goes...

Quote:

How does "Q" relate to either of the two supposed standards, the "western" rank of appearance (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John), and the "orthodox" listing, with Mark last, preceded by John, Luke, and Matthew? Do we really know anything at all? Where do these dates come from??? Is this similar to the explanation offered by spin, regarding my question, earlier today, about the dating of P45, i.e. lots of secular documents from that era, permit one to study the writing style....OOPS, yes, that's right!! haha. WE DON'T HAVE any original documents from any of the gospel writers, in order to study handwriting........ Yeah, right, then we turn to the "patristic" evidence....another kettle of fish, or at least, very fishy sounding stories....Q, Justin Martyr, Marcion, Tertulian....hmm. How about this, while we are on the subject of fishing, maybe a wealthy guy, who sought heaven upon his demise, gave some silver talents to Luke, along with a copy of Mark and Matthew, and said, here, write a better story..... avi

Dating the gospels seems to be one big problem!
I recently read something which set off a few brain cells...



Well now, an ‘apocalyptic handbill’ - some prophetic boilerplate! Seems to me that if this is what historians are using to date the gospels, especially Mark, then, surely, they have left the field of history and are, themselves, being like elephants in a china shop! All they are doing here is to date the ‘apocalyptic handbill’ - the sort of thing that most likely were a dime a dozen in a historical context full of expectations of messiahs and end times. (and interestingly, from Detering, above, it is Matthew’s gospel that is best used to reconstruct the original form of the ‘apocalyptic handbill’...

James Crossley has an argument for an early date for Mark - I think somewhere between 40 -50 ce. An argument dealing with the Law and handwashing (don’t know all the details) and he says he is not interested in dating Mark by the chapter 13.



I loved this: "......gave some silver talents to Luke, along with a copy of Mark and Matthew, and said, here, write a better story....."

spamandham

I think it means we would have to rethink the datings, and start looking at these books as works over time. It always seemed to me like the Q idea was invented for the purpose of maintaining early datings for the gospels, and not because it was really needed.

I have the same suspicions. If there really is a sequence of (for example) Mark -> Matthew -> Luke -> John, then it seems reasonable to allow some amount of time between them. It also seems reasonable to think that Mark was not written in a vacuum, but was itself probably based on pre-existing text(s) as well.

Mark as we know it seems to me to be post Bar Kochba, not merely post 70, although it may have built on something earlier.

DCHindley

Any historical narrative can be emplotted in any way. Those relationships are those that Hayden V White thinks are most commonly associated with one another. Of course, these are not hard and fast rules.

DCH

maryhelena

Yes, that seems to be where I think this will go - re-thinking the dating of the gospels. And, methinks, the bigger the gap between Mark and Luke the more interesting the whole scenario becomes. I doubt that the historicists would want all the gospels very late - and, here, I will side with them. Mark, or early Mark, needs to be viewed as very early - discount dating the 'apocalyptic handbill' and it's open season for dating this gospel....In fact, I would go so far as to say, for the sake of trying to date Mark - put Luke's gospel on the shelve for a while. A large gap between these two gospels means that for a long time all the gospel storyline involved was Mark's very basic storyline. A storyline that can be viewed as placing the crucifixion close to the end of Pilate's rule in 36 CE. It is Luke's gospel that muddies these waters....little wonder that it's the literalists that found Matthew more to their liking - leaving Luke to that heretic Marcoin...The gospel of Luke upset the applecart...

EarlDoherty

Mary Helena,

Your entire post, with one small exception, simply illustrates my point. You advocate dispensing with Q on the basis of the “postulated advantages” in doing so, without considering whether the textual evidence in fact supports it. You claim that Q “comes up short” in answering questions, but what are the questions it fails to answer? One of the questions it does answer is, What preceded Mark? The idea that the Gospel of Mark was simply invented whole cloth with no antecedents raises all sorts of questions for which there are either no or very strained answers. What was Mark’s motivation? Who was he writing for if not for a community he was a part of and which preceded him? Where did he get his ideas? (Please don’t tell me it was from Paul, since the case for that is extremely weak, as I have pointed out.) What was he high on?

Q in fact answers such questions. (Well, maybe not the last one.)

An early sayings ‘gospel’ is not an “assumption.” It is a deductive conclusion based on textual elements. Nor does one have “faith” in its existence, as though it comes from revelation. Some dissenters seem fixated on the idea that because something is not extant, there is no possible legitimate reason to postulate it. That is ridiculous. If textual evidence exists which points to such a thing (and it does in the case of Q), then we have to evaluate that evidence, especially if the only conceivable alternative is limited to a case which is weaker and more problematic.

It’s all well and good to try to counter problems in the position that Luke used Matthew by saying that Luke was his own man and made wholesale changes, expressing his own creativity (an inevitably subjective exercise in its application), but if those changes sever all clear evidence that in fact he DID use Matthew, the legs supporting that position are undercut and one is left standing on a floating platform of ad hoc explanations as to why Luke did NOT give us clear evidence he was using Matthew.

Consider Anthony Flew’s famous illustration about claims for the existence of God: A garden is said to be owned by God who is concerned with taking care of it. Yet the garden is overgrown with weeds, watchers never see a Gardener arrive on the scene to do any work, a neighboring garden not owned by God looks exactly the same as the first, and so on. Believers may attempt to come up with ad hoc explanations for this state of affairs which might conceivably make some sense (though usually not). But this does not change the fact that there is no actual evidence of God the Overseer being present, and a lot of evidence that he is not which requires such ad hoc explanations. That is pretty well the situation I see in the Luke used Matthew position.

Nor am I denying Luke elements that are “pleasing” to him, but one must define by supporting textual evidence what in fact makes something “pleasing” to him, and demonstrate how that is consistent with those elements he has in common with Matthew. Simply to equate the two arbitrarily without such analytical support is fallacious and merely creates a circular argument.

You offered an explanation for Luke rejecting the “Peter…Upon this rock” addition by Matthew to Mark’s periscope. The thought per se might conceivably make sense. But is it borne out by the rest of Luke’s Gospel? (Do you actually know?) Or is it simply an ad hoc reason in a list of many other ad hoc reasons for other discrepancies? Can it have any weight against the overwhelming fact that we cannot clearly identify Luke as carrying over any of Matthew’s redactions of Mark? (If we could, the issue would probably be settled.) The latter in itself is such an unlikely situation were Luke in fact drawing on Matthew that all the ad hoc explanations in the world are worthless. (The so-called “minor agreements” are a somewhat different matter and have their own solution.)

You virtually advocate rejecting Q because it gives historicists a perceived advantage. This is hardly a legitimate reason to adopt a position which is so problematic.

Earl Doherty

DCHindley

The two top issues that seem to generate more heat than light are disputes between advocates of the various Synoptic Gospel relationship solutions, and advocates of the various suggested origins for the "sectarian" (i.e., non-biblical) Dead Sea Scrolls.

The chart was to show that sometimes ideologies produce some strange bedfellows.

Radicals (who think Jesus was a cross between a campus radical and an eastern guru, who protested against the big bad Roman colonial machine by promoting good vibrations) and Liberals (whose Jesus serves as a moral beacon for the betterment of mankind) love Q because they think that it represents the very core of Jesus' teaching. Any distinct Jewish ideas about eschatology or apocalyptic prophesies that are mixed in are actually contaminants as the Q community, the true followers of Jesus, were assimilated into settled Jewish society.

Anarchists (those who hate all authority and often propose that Jesus is a myth so as to negate him as a moral or religious authority) and Conservatives (who concentrate on the relationship of the individual to his god by means of the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus' life for the sins of mankind) either don't want Q (e.g., accepting it as a document sort of concedes that a real person could have been the source for it) or don't want it messing up the reconstruction thought up by Church fathers, who show no knowledge of it.

DCH

tradewinds

If Mark is considered the earliest work, then Q was discovered afterward. Now Mathew was a follower of Peter and Luke, of Paul. Therefore, each would use Q differently. Peter would favor the Jews, while Paul to Gentiles. They are all synoptic gospels. John which is not, is thought to be the last written. If this idea is not true, there could be implications for the lost Q source.

maryhelena

Hi, Earl

My thanks for your response. You have so rightly questioned my knowledge re the technicalities regarding the issue of Q (Do you actually know?). It's obvious that I am not in a position to debate these technicalities. However, being on the consumer side of all of this - I'm finding that the whole Q issue is rather hard to swallow. Hence looking at alternatives - or more accurately - looking at the gospels without going first through a Q lens.

Sure, there is more to the gospel of Mark than the version we presently have - but that in no way necessitates the existence of Q.

Regarding the following statement - I think you have seriously misread what I wrote. Indeed, the historicists have a vested interest in Q - but, heaven help me, I'm not about rejecting Q on that basis! I am rejecting the notion of Q because the gospel storyline does not need it.