Q trajectory -- how realistic?
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:31 am
Does anyone care about questions related to Q anymore?
I'd like to know of any movements, historical or contemporary, that are known to have followed the trajectory of the movement said to be behind the different layers of Q (Kloppenborg and repeated by Doherty).
The model is that Q1 sayings are sapiential, "smooth" sayings, gentle, etc. and arose from the earliest days of the community's preaching when hopes were high that they would win many over to their cause.
The second layer is apocalyptic and judgmental, quite unlike the first. This is thought to have arisen from a later period after the community had experienced rejection and seeing their message fall upon hard-hearted ears (how's that for a poetic metaphor!).
Sounds logical, but is that how any movements work in reality? (For the sake of argument let's grant the reality of Q.)
But I have been reading a work on extremist and various types of counter-establishment movements, Friction : how radicalization happens to them and us, and learning lots about would-be messianic (politically speaking) movements from the Russian students in the nineteenth century to the Weathermen of the 1970s and Islamic extremists today -- and not one of them appears to follow the trajectory thought to underlie Q.
They all start out benign, perhaps, appealing to the people, trying to awaken political consciousness, but when they fail they do not denounce those same people. They turn inward and/or direct their frustrations and anger at others. They may eventually lose genuine interest in the welfare of their original target audience as they become more extreme over time, and demonstrate little real care or interest in them, but they will at least maintain a public face of longing for and working for their welfare. They don't denounce or threaten them.
A counterpart to a historical or countemporary movement might be, unless I am mistaken, be turning their wrath against Roman rulers or demon rulers.
The only way I can imagine the Q trajectory would work in real life is if the community had initially, right from the get-go, seen the scribes, Pharisees, etc as the enemy beyond any hope of salvation and the cause of everyone's blindness and misery. That is, the seeds of the apocalyptic and condemnatory mindset had to be there from the beginning.
I'd like to know of any movements, historical or contemporary, that are known to have followed the trajectory of the movement said to be behind the different layers of Q (Kloppenborg and repeated by Doherty).
The model is that Q1 sayings are sapiential, "smooth" sayings, gentle, etc. and arose from the earliest days of the community's preaching when hopes were high that they would win many over to their cause.
The second layer is apocalyptic and judgmental, quite unlike the first. This is thought to have arisen from a later period after the community had experienced rejection and seeing their message fall upon hard-hearted ears (how's that for a poetic metaphor!).
Sounds logical, but is that how any movements work in reality? (For the sake of argument let's grant the reality of Q.)
But I have been reading a work on extremist and various types of counter-establishment movements, Friction : how radicalization happens to them and us, and learning lots about would-be messianic (politically speaking) movements from the Russian students in the nineteenth century to the Weathermen of the 1970s and Islamic extremists today -- and not one of them appears to follow the trajectory thought to underlie Q.
They all start out benign, perhaps, appealing to the people, trying to awaken political consciousness, but when they fail they do not denounce those same people. They turn inward and/or direct their frustrations and anger at others. They may eventually lose genuine interest in the welfare of their original target audience as they become more extreme over time, and demonstrate little real care or interest in them, but they will at least maintain a public face of longing for and working for their welfare. They don't denounce or threaten them.
A counterpart to a historical or countemporary movement might be, unless I am mistaken, be turning their wrath against Roman rulers or demon rulers.
The only way I can imagine the Q trajectory would work in real life is if the community had initially, right from the get-go, seen the scribes, Pharisees, etc as the enemy beyond any hope of salvation and the cause of everyone's blindness and misery. That is, the seeds of the apocalyptic and condemnatory mindset had to be there from the beginning.