04-02-2003, 11:35 AM
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Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Los Angeles area
Posts: 40,549
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Q found! (on April 1, natch)
A little in joke from Crosstalk
Quote:
LOST Q DOCUMENT FOUND IN CAVE
JERUSALEM, April 1, 2003 -- According to the Israeli Antiquities Authority, excavators in one of the caves around Qumran have today uncovered from an unsearched area of Cave 7 a scroll containing the long-lost source of Jesus's sayings.
For over 150 years, scholars have argued that Matthew and Luke used another source called Q in addition to Mark in composing their Gospels; however, critics have charged that no record of this source existed.
"What is important about this discovery," says leading Q scholar John S. Kloppenborg-Veblen, "is that it not only proves that this hypothetical document really existed but also provides a stunning confirmation of the text that the International Q Project reconstructed just two years ago."
Paleographer Peter Carsten Thiede dates the discovered Q document to A.D. 42 based on the shape of the letter "nu". "Another interesting thing about this document is that it is one of the first to use ellipses and double brackets extensively," Thiede said in a telephone interview.
The damaged scroll was labeled with the Hebrew letter qoph, likely standing for "Qumran," where the scroll was found. "Since the Hebrew letter qoph corresponds to the Latin letter Q," says Kloppenborg-Veblen, "it appears that the source really was called Q."
Q skeptics are still not persuaded, however. Mark S. Goulder said that even if this discovery was not an elaborate April Fool's joke, it still would be simpler to conclude that Luke used Matthew instead of both going to Qumran to research their Gospels.
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Stephen C. Carlson
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