To Q or not to Q? ... that is the question

[Metacrock]

John wrote:How do the proponents of the Q document account for the fact* that the early church fathers didn't show awareness of/discuss/quote the purportedly independent Q document? It would appear to be a strange omission if such a document existed (and was available to atleast two independent authors 'Matthew' and 'Luke', who incorporated it in their writings). If the Q document was anything comparable to the gThomas in structure, and a revered piece of scripture by some ancient community, it would seem extremely weird that it escaped mention by any author in the early church tradition.

*pardon my ignorance if that is not the case, it is my understanding that no reference to any separate document (independent of 'Matthew' and 'Luke') with the content of the hypothesized Q document is extant.

that's right. but that's not a serious problem because the assumption is that when Q was incorporated into Mat people said "I see we can combine stuff" then stopped copying Q by itself and started copying Matt.