Who are the current best proponents of Q?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: Who are the current best proponents of Q?

Post by Giuseppe »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:22 am
Doherty is free to assume such a source (and many others sources and layers). But such a source is not Q as German New Testament scholars once developed it as a theorem.
really Doherty has started with your definition of Q "as German New Testament scholars once developed it as a theorem" and only in a second logical step he has wondered about why there is not a bit of suffering of Jesus in Q.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: Who are the current best proponents of Q?

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:26 am
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:22 am
Doherty is free to assume such a source (and many others sources and layers). But such a source is not Q as German New Testament scholars once developed it as a theorem.
really Doherty has started with your definition of Q "as German New Testament scholars once developed it as a theorem" and only in a second logical step he has wondered about why there is not a bit of suffering of Jesus in Q.
Giuseppe, don't you see that this is a completely different situation?

Among the early Christian writings there are texts that agree in content and wording to such an extent that there is a literary relationship between these texts. Either one author used the other author's text as a source, or both authors shared a common source. This close literary relationship applies, for example, to

- GLuke and GMarcion
- many pericopes of GMark, GMatthew and GLuke
- some pericopes of GMatthew and GLuke
- John's pericope of the anointing at Bethany and the synoptic parallels
- Paul's Lord's supper and the synoptic parallels

In all these cases, there is a need to explain this literary relationship: Who wrote first and who used whom as a source, or whether there is a common source.

In contrast, there is no need to explain the content of GMark in terms of this kind of literary relationship to Paul and I assume, that Doherty did not suggest that. Even assuming that Mark was a Pauline theologian, we need not conclude that he necessarily had Galatians 2 before him when he wrote GMark 7:1ff. He may be influenced by Paul in a common sense. He may have had it in mind and alluded to it. But he didn't need Galatians in front of him as text. I can even assume that Mark wasn't influenced by Galatians at all, but that it was general thought in certain Christian circles. There is no agreement in content and wording that compels me to assume a literary relationship between Galatians and GMark.

Since Q does not exist as a currently available text, there is also no literary relationship to GMark that would have to be explained. I can take Q as a pipe dream of some New Testament scholar from 100 years ago. But I can't do that with GMatthew and GLuke. I have only to think of Mark, Matthew and Luke as creative theological writers who made up their own stories and otherwise copied from each other. And that's exactly what I do.
Giuseppe
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Re: Who are the current best proponents of Q?

Post by Giuseppe »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:25 am Since Q does not exist as a currently available text, there is also no literary relationship to GMark that would have to be explained.
I am not taking positions for the moment, but I see that you appear to be hostile to the idea that Mark was based polemically on Q.

While I will quote soon from McDonald's book on Q and Mark, I assume that he would agree with Gary Greenberg about Mark being embarrassed by the prophecy found in a previous gospel about the destruction and reconstruction of the temple, since he put that disturbing second half of the prophecy (the reconstruction) on the mouth of false witnesses.

So there is a relation. And it is a literary relationship, since McDonald appears to know very much well that it is hard to imagine a historical Jesus who predicted the reconstruction of the temple. It is not something a mere man could say. In addition, it would confute the Acts' s tradition about the apostles praying in the same temple that their teacher would have wanted to destroy. To not say about the gnarled knees of James the Just of the anti-marcionite Hegesippus...
gryan
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Re: Who are the current best proponents of Q?

Post by gryan »

Mark Mattison (a man I have considered to be a personal friend since way back in the 1990s when my wife and I met with him and his wife socially) wrote a book on Q (for well educated non-specialists) that he intended as a representation of the scholarly consensus in 2016.
https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Jesus-Pro ... 1537607138

In this recent History Valley interview, he suggests in passing that GMark was influenced by Josephas, and thus he gives it a relatively late date of origin. He also thinks GMark is Pauline in character. By contrast to GMark, he views Q as earlier, and as more of a clear window to historical Jesus.
The Gospel of Q: Jesus' Prophetic Wisdom - Mark M. Mattison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIr5bC_VYLA
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: Who are the current best proponents of Q?

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:35 am
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:25 am Since Q does not exist as a currently available text, there is also no literary relationship to GMark that would have to be explained.
I am not taking positions for the moment, but I see that you appear to be hostile to the idea that Mark was based polemically on Q.
...
So there is a relation. And it is a literary relationship, ...
No, I'm completely calm, just unhappy when intelligent people talk about Q as if the former existence of such a text is beyond a doubt (since the minor agreements speak against it). The reality is that there isn’t a literary relationship between GMark and Q, but between

- some verses of GMark and some pericopes of GMatthew and GLuke, and
- that Q-scholars explain the agreements of these pericopes of GMatthew and GLuke with the use of the assumed Q as the common source of both.
- They call it "Mark-Q overlaps" (for example Mark 11:25 and the Lord’s prayer).

imho regarding Q, there is a fact, a thesis and fiction

- Fact is that some pericopes, shared only by GMatthew and Gluke, agree in content and wording to such an extent that there is a literary relationship between these pericopes.

- Thesis: One of the possible theoretical explanations is that Matthew and Luke could have used a common source. Let's call it “Q”.

- Fiction is when some scholars reconstruct this assumed source and postulate a Q-community.
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