EarlDoherty

May I (humbly) suggest that for further insight into the evolution and layering of Q that you have a look at my book The Jesus Puzzle (chapters 14 to 18). One reviewer on Amazon called it the best book on Q he had read. (Naturally, some here will not agree with that assessment!) Essentially, I think an understanding of the layering process, and particularly the why and what of the latest stage of Q3, is facilitated by the conclusion I reach and demonstrate that there was no "Jesus" at the root wisdom layer, and apparently not even yet at Q2. Q3 then becomes the process of introducing that imagined founder figure to the thinking of the community, inserting him to some extent into the earlier material, associating him with the sect's traditional teachings and miracle-working and the preached/expected Son of Man (who originally was not identified with any recent person, which Q itself demonstrates), and beginning the process of developing a biography for him (As Mack says, that included hints of divinization, but that was necessitated by, if nothing else, associating him with the Son of Man.) We should note, however, that this 'biography' did not yet involve identifying him as the Messiah, a title never used in Q (Son of Man is something else), nor did it involve giving him any soteriological role, certainly not one associated with a death and crucifixion, which are never mentioned. These processes were continued in the Gospel of Mark, who was part of the larger Kingdom preaching circle in Palestine and Syria, though he seems not to have possessed an actual copy of Q. He wedded that sectarian milieu to the hitherto separate cultic world of Paul, creating his composite Gospel and its composite figure of Jesus of Nazareth, Galilean teacher and sacrificial Savior. (Now that's syncretism!) These "layers" of Q, by the way, are not necessarily each one specific revamping at one point in time, but can represent a particular phase of working the document, the overall evolution of which probably spanned several decades.

As for "Gamera's" dismissive comment about a non-available Q and medieval schoolmen. If we took that attitude toward all scholarship we'd be depriving ourselves of a lot of accepted knowledge. Biblical scholarship has uncovered a pretty secure picture of the root sources and documents of the Old Testament and its pattern of evolution (even if there is no ironclad consensus on all details and maybe never will be), and it's based on similar processes to those scholars have used to reconstruct Q from extant documents that incorporated it. Should we just chuck all that work on the Old Testament as scholarly antics? There is a kind of knee-jerk reaction against Q in many circles that is unbecoming, and certainly unproductive. A process of analysing extant documents to uncover their non-extant sources is an accepted and valuable tool in historical research, and each case using that tool needs to be evaluated on its own merits, not just glibly dismissed as though scholars are out of their heads.

Those familiar with me in past debates here will know that I am a firm supporter of the existence of Q and have argued against the position represented by Goodacre, whose case for Lukan use of Matthew I consider too idiosyncratic to be convincing or to overturn the Q hypothesis. However, please note that I have no intention of reentering debate on that issue.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

S.C.Carlson

Respecting your desire not to reenter the debate over Q, can you provide a link to where you have previously discussed this issue?

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

That is the rap, but the procedure to me seem legitimate -- once one agrees with its premises (e.g. that Q existed, that it was a written document, that it was in Greek, that its contents, arrangement, and wording can be recovered to some extent, etc.).

Stephen

EarlDoherty

You are no doubt better than I at digging out past threads, something I rarely do. I have also discussed Q on other boards like JesusMysteries, and it's quite possible that I am conflating them together. But I'm quite sure I recall discussing Q and Goodacre at some point in the past on IIDB.

I guess this whole "tongue-in-cheek" thing is more difficult to evaluate than I thought (so I'll offer apologies to Ben and Kevin and try to be more obvious myself in future). But assuming there's a bit of sarcasm involved here, I'd say you have it backwards. "That Q existed, that it was a written document, that it was in Greek, that its contents, arrangement, and wording can be recovered to some extent, etc." is a result of a study of the relevant documents, not some a priori assumption brought to that study. That certainly was the case when Q was first postulated.

I hasten to add that this is not me contradicting my stated resolution. Just a comment on your (presumed) attempt at humor.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

Amaleq13

I only find a single post by you using "Goodacre" but the use is in a quote of someone else and neither he nor Q is actually being discussed.

Your discussion of Q and Goodacre either happened in another forum or the IIDB search engine cannot access it (too old?).



Doug

Ben C Smith

Attempt at humor? Stephen can be funny when he wants to be.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson

No humor involved. In fact, I specifically used the word "premises" so as not to label them "assumptions," much less an "a priori assumption."

Stephen

Gamera

Point well taken, and I don't take issue with trying to discern what content would be likely in Q assuming it is the source of various extant gospels.

But I think that's qualitatively different from attempting to discern "layers" in Q, which presumably is a claim to the sources of its composition. That's simply too subtle an inquiry.

S.C.Carlson

All the compositional analysis requires is a text of Q. If Q's text can be reconstructed, then it would seem to be a legitimate inquiry. On the other hand, if Q's text cannot reliably be reconstructed then it's GIGO.

Stephen

Gamera

This is a good argument. But I guess the problem is what constitutes a reliable text of Q. If we have a mss, we have the text and can investigate origins and influences. If we don't have a ms, but must reconstruct it from a presumed influence on later ms, an amount of unreliability is added to the equation.

I think its possible to conclude that we can reconstruct Q for the purposes of providing the possible outlines for the source of later gospels, while also concluding that the details of that text are too unreliable for it to be investigated as to its own origins.

So it's no so much GIGO, but the amplification of unreliability to the point that discussion of layers become purely speculative.