khalimirov

After reading Kloppenborg's work on the Farrer hypothesis (Matthew and Luke used Mark and Luke also used Matthew) I have serious doubts concerning the existance of Q. What do others think?

Doug Shaver

After discovering the Farrer hypothesis, I had doubts too, for a while. After trying to defend it in a debate on another forum, I've pretty well gone back to the consensus view, but I do still have reservations. Q's existence does seem likely, but I think it tends to be assumed with more certainty than the evidence warrants.

I am especially skeptical of efforts to reconstruct the document, especially to a level of detail that involves a sequence of layers. Maybe the scholars have good reasons to think they know exactly what was in it and what was added to it what stage of its development, but I'd sure like to have a better look at those reasons than I've gotten so far.

S.C.Carlson

Have you read Mark Goodacre's Case against Q?

khalimirov

Yes, I'm sorry. I actually meant the work of Mark Goodacre instead of John Kloppenborg. I've been reading them both and mixed up the names in my OP. After reading Mark Goodacre's work I don't see any good argument left for Q. Does anybody here disagree with this?

khalimirov

Why do you think Q's existence is likely?

andrewcriddle

Whether Q is likely IMHO depends on how much of the sayings material in Matthew but not in Mark is dependent on a pre-Matthean written source of some sort and how much is Matthean creation from oral tradition.

If one regards the non-Markan sayings material in Matthew as largely a Matthean creation then Luke is clearly influenced by Matthew and there is IMO no need for Q.

If one regards the non-Markan sayings material in Matthew as very largely based on pre-Matthean written sources then one can IMO plausibly explain the differences and similarities of Matthew and Luke on the basis that Matthew and Luke used a common non-Markan written source (Q) but Luke did not have access to Matthew as such.

Andrew Criddle

khalimirov

If the non-Markan sayings material in Matthew are from pre-Matthean written sources then the similarities between Matthew and Luke can still also be the result of Luke using Matthew. The differences would then be due to Luke rearranging and editing the non-Markan Matthean material.

andrewcriddle

Yes this would be quite possible.

My point is that if non-Markan material common to Matthew and Luke could plausibly have been available to Luke without Luke having read Matthew then the similarities between Luke and Matthew (mostly) stop being evidence for Luke knowing Matthew while the differences of Luke from Matthew are IMO large enough to suggest Luke did not know it.

(Another way of putting it is that if Matthew used a written sayings source then in some sense Q existed. The question is whether or not Luke used Q or Matthew. The absence of pasages in Luke that are clearly derived from Matthean redaction suggests that it is easier to have Luke using Q than using Matthew.)

Andrew Criddle

S.C.Carlson

Did you mean to omit "from oral tradition" in formulating this alternative? Michael Goulder would agree with that, but I think that Goodacre properly allows for Matthew's use of oral tradition and, in some cases, that Luke's oral tradition overlaps with material in Matthew. Advocates of the Mark-Q model also call for overlapping oral tradition in some cases (e.g. Robert Stein), so both models are on more or less equal foot in this regard.

I think the Q hypothesis proper supposes a single common written source independently used by Matthew and Luke. The supposition of multiple common written sources, on the other hand, invites some kind of a fragmentary hypothesis that went out of favor after Schleiermacher (1830s). (The agreement in sequence for the material tends to doom fragmentary hypotheses.)

Stephen

spamandham

If you examine the canonical in exclusion of all else, I think it is possible to conclude that Mark, is Q:

Mark -> Matthew -> Luke -> John (as demonstrated by Price)

However, there are Q like thoughts found in pre-apostolic writings - "The Great Declaration of Simon Magus" as well as "The Sayings of Jesus" - so I think the case for Q is strengthened by these.