The 'Q' source

[George Arnold]

I've recently read a book containing various versions of Q, and commentary regarding the origin of the early Christian communities, and subsequent development of the Cannonical and Sayings Gospels. Having read many informed and opinionated posts on this site, I would like to solicit information, opinions, and perspectives. Thank-you.

[Richard Leigh]

Dear George,

Having read the book you will know that "Q" stands for the German word Quelle, which means "source" and that the very existence of such a document is hypothetical. There is a website devoted to dispelling the notiong that therer really was ever such a document, explaining the agreements between the synoptic gospels in some other ways.

I think the idea that there was such a sayings source is accepted by the run of the mill new testament gospel scholar, though I did not actually take a course in the New Testament in the liberal seminary I attended, so cannot say for sure, but I can post my old professor and ask!

ITMT, I think it is a good enough theory to go with. I don't know about any Orthodox scholarship on the subject but I strongly suspect that Orthodox teaching on it is probably that the Gospels come to us as they left the pen of thier amenuenses, except for textual variations, of course. (I myself am not Orthodox, I might note here at the outset). I happen to have on my bookshelf right here a copy of The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q & Christian Origins by Burton Mack (who, I believe is on the Jesus Seminar --- an otious group to all us Lutherans --- yes, you are on an Orthodox site, which is found attractive to some Lutherans :-)

Sorry I couldn't be of any more help. I'm not sure that the topic is of particular concern to Orthodoxy in general.

Yours,

Richard

[Justin]

I'm afraid it's been a while since I've read stuff of this sort (and I did read the Q version edited by Marcus Borg), but I don't recall it having any real use for an Orthodox Christian. If you're someone who thinks that the truth got lost, or is buried under 2,000 years of dust, then maybe it serves a purpose. I'm not sure what purpose it would have for a Church that still has the tradition handed down by Christ through the Apostles. Seems sort of like trying to reinvent the wheel to me.

[Richard McBride]

monochos: george arnold & Q

Welcome to the list, Geroge, and I pray that you receive great discrimination in your travels.

Since no one has responded to the Q question, I will offer my own simple opinion. From what I know of it, Q launches one into esoteric fields which are plowed mostly by Protestant exegetes and possibly by a few (and only a few, I should think) Orthodox presbyters attached to academic posts.

From my limited knowledge, even Orthodox theologians are not too interested in it -- but I pray that I be corrected if I am wrong.

Does it not come from Hawkens and Harnak's earlier work? Probably, Matthew has an opinion and he correct these murky notions of mine.

Surely, the Synoptic Problem is of some interest to all theologians; but not being a theologian myself, I feel that none of this is likely to help me in conquering my passions -- in the struggles to purge my heart of its dead works. And my prejudice is, in spite of Hawkens' English background, that the whole notion of Q grows out of that compost heap of German Protestantism about a century ago, which had such a severe impact upon all Western Protestant thinking.

Again, George, this is my prejudice, and I indulge it in lieu of good knowledge.

richard mcb

PS
Just noticed Richard Leigh's and Justin's posts on this issue; I will add for Richard's thinking that I also believe the basis of Q as being from German "Quelle" in error; if so, then the whole thing must be ina mess? In any event, it doesn't seem a productive track to follow.

[Mark T. Kern]

Has anyone considered that "Q" might just be the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew? According to Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius and Jerome among others, Matthew wrote his Gospel very early, prior to leaving on his missionary journeys abroad. Jerome even stated that the original Hebrew was still available in his day in a library in Caesarea. Clement stated that the Hebrew and the Greek were not identical, suggesting that there may have been some editing by the other Apostles in preparing the Greek text.

The Hebrew text was used somewhat in the Early Church. Hippolytus stated that Nathanael brought a copy of Matthew in Hebrew to Thomas in India. According to the Epistle of Barnabas, Barnabas carried a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew with him after he and Paul split up.

From what I've read, speculation on "Q" includes both Matthew in Hebrew and an early version of Mark. If Matthew in Hebrew started circulating shortly after the death of Stephen (Approximately one year after Pentecost), this does represent an early version of the Gospel. Since the Gospel of Mark was drafted by the writer as a compilation of the preaching of the Apostle Peter, where Mark followed Peter much as Luke followed Paul, Peter's oral preaching represents an early version of Mark's Gospel.

What seems to be left out of many of these scholarly investigations is the organic life of the Church and the interaction of the Apostles and Bishops. For example, in putting together a list of who the Seventy were, I discovered that the Apostle Paul worked with 60 of the 70 at various times on his missionary journeys. For those who see Paul as a loose cannon, single-handedly saving the world, this may come as a surprise. Similarly with the rest of the Apostles. There was a very tight connection between them all in their evangelism. For us to look back at the First Century with the limited information that we have available, without the benefit of the teachings of the Church, we should not be surprised if strange theories rise now and then.

If anyone is interested in some of the references I've mentioned, or if anyone is interested in detailed studies on the lives of the Twelve and the Seventy, send me an e-mail and I will send you some of the things I've written on the subject.

[George Arnold]

Hello Justin and Richards,

Thanks for responding to my post- my first post on this site, and already I've been told I'm introducing an unproductive thread, and been informed that an entire religious tradition is a compost heap. Yikes!- actually I half jest, I appreaciate the candor and honesty.

I'm feeling a little sheepish here, 1. this is new to me, 2. I'm totally out of my league, and 3. you guys are a bit of a rough crowd.

At the risk of perpetuating an unproductive track (a little zen saying to get everybody frothing- "everybody knows that useful is useful, but many don't know is that useless can be useful as well") I would just like to add to my first question, with apologies to all those rolling their eyes out there.

So I read this book (the one mentioned by Richard #1) supposedly by a New Testament Scholar with what seemed to my ignorant eyes impressive credentials who discussed the textual archaeology behind the reconstruction of this original Gospel, supposedly a text utilized in the creation of the others including the Synoptics and John. What Mr. Mack does later in this work is make some pretty wild arguments regarding the construction of these later narrative Gospels, claiming to have discovered through this process that the original Christian community which this text purportedly grew out of, had a somewhat different view of the personage of jesus, specifically with regard to His divinity. Stuff I'd vertainly not been exposed to in Sunday School or in religious studies at a Catholic high school.

I was hoping that someone here among you very learned lot might actually be familiar with this issue, and be able to give me another viewpointon this- I guess letting me know that this is an inappropriate discussion vis a vis Orthodoxy, or by telling me in some other very diplomatic way to be quiet could be construed to be such a response.

Anyway, that's it, thanks again for indulging the newbie here. I promise not to add another post on this topic.

George

[Owen Jones]

Dear George,

The various schools of Biblical criticism date back to German protestant scholars beginning around the end of the 18th Century. So this is nothing new. The original stuff was very heady and gave great comfort to enlightenment thinkers who believed all along that you had to strip away the "superstition" from Christianity. What you had left was a God-given moral conscience which it is everyman's duty to exercise. This is essentially the message of Emmanuel Kant. It reflects a kind of middle class conservatism, or conventionalism you might say, if I were to define it in a class perspective. The burgeoning middle and merchant class did not want to reject Christian morality, but the theory was that if there was going to be economic freedom and social progress, you had to escape from the historic domination of the Church over society.

There are various schools of criticism. Literary, historical, and form criticism are the three basic schools. The most shocking theory or discovery, if you will, was that the Pentateuch was an ancient oral tradition that was not written by MOses, and that the language and themes and audiences of the various epistles are so different that Paul could not have written all of them attributed to him. Underlying or supposedly substantiating this apparently empirical criticism, is an underlying ideology however, which you have noted. It is that the New Testament Church had an ideology that was essentially propagandistic in nature, so they had to invent a divinized Jesus in their internecine battles within the Jewish community. So that of course implies that the empty tomb and the Ascension are artifacts of this propaganda effort.

The Church, in my opinion, has largely fumbled the response to this so-called higher criticism by retrenching. One of the responses is Biblical fundamentalism, which really did not exist prior to the 19th Century. It says that every word of Scripture is literally true and was virtually dictated by God to people who wrote it down verbatum.

The Orthodox situation is vastly different since it has virtually been cut off by Western intellectual cross-currents. It had more pressing problems -- such as the Ottoman occupation. In Russia, the 19th Century was a time of great intellectual and spiritual ferment, but the nihilists won out with the revolution in 1917. So Orthodoxy, to my knowledge, simply has not had to deal with these questions. One scholar who read all of the German criticism is St. Nicodemus of the HOly Mountain, and his response was to simply restate the Patristic tradition in his writings and compilations of ancient writings. He told his students not to bother reading the stuff. But I'm not sure this is the best advice for the Church today. One does not have to be totally convinced, for example, that St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, in order to understand its great power. But until you have heard it butchered by someone from a critical method perspective, its hard to imagine the damage that is being done by this.

So I believe our work in the Church is never done. We have to restate the tradition in every generation, in a way that illuminates it, that helps us to understand it and live it. And in the process, we need to shred the false presuppositions of the schools of higher criticism, not just because it blasphemes, but because it is intellectually invalid, as all ideologies are.

[Richard Leigh]

Dear George,

One of the first criticisms of the Q theory was that there were no "sayings gospels." Then the Gospel of Thomas was discovered.

I think it is important to note that as a theory, Q seeks to explain the fact that so much of what is in the synoptics are the same, while not always in the same order.

I think that if there really was a "Q" it was written in Greek. But I don't seriously believe one can tell from something as limited as what is contained in Q, what the community out of which it came thought of Jesus, either his divinity, resurrection or what have you. So, that is the first thing I would offer you as help regarding this issue.

The fact that there is no extant copy of "Q" indicates that if it did exist, the Church could tell that it was not the complete Tradition. Hence completed Gospels, both synoptic and John.

After that, it doesn't much matter what any community which might have produced "Q" thought of Jesus anyway, that its material was entirely contained in the Synoptic Gospels tells us that the Church recognized Jesus' speaking in it.

I personally find it a useful theory in that it answers some puzzling questions, though certainly not all of them, and it is important to note that whether or not there was a real "Q" is not the teaching of the Church. The teaching of the Church is found in the Gospels, Acts, Epistles and Revelation (with the entire Old Testament).

Richard L.

[George Hawkins]

Dear George, Richard et al

Surely if there were a "Q" Gospel, an 'original ' Gospel, (one not found in our present Bible), it would have been treasured by the Christians of the time it was written, and would actually be in the Bible and part of Holy Tradition.

(I hope this makes sense!)

George H

[Richard McBride]

monochos: A better (I hope) welcome to George Arnold:

Blessed of the Lord, George:

Thank you for reading my drivel on Q. Thinking back, I should not have sent it, given my lack of knowledge -- but that goes for so many things, I wouldn't be able join the discussion at all if such a rule were enforced.

So, ignoring the rule of wisdom to keep my mouth shut, I should try to repair some of the disruptions I have caused. I susupect they are small disruptions, for you don't seem too offended.

The real point of my response to your Q question was aimed at the inadequacy of any such discussion of Q -- which is to say, my perceived value of it. Thus, I could well be wrong, for it is one of the subjects I pass over after a quick read. That is the way I approach most books: If the first paragraph strikes me as being poorly done, then out it goes. If it is only so-so, then maybe a second paragraph gets the nod.

Q falls into the first category of quickly slamming the door. This primarily explains why I know nothing about it, and why you are perfectly justified in completely dismissing anything I have to say -- about anything.

From the other side, that in which I do have a bit of experience is in establishing markers around the body of works which are properly Orthodox, leaving everything which falls outside such a pale to the exegetic wolves. There is that which is Orthodox, and then there is everything else.

Most of the work of the exegetes falls outside the pale, and that seems primarily to be because their mind-set follows the large energies emitting from German Protestant theology ('Seraphim' Jones mentioned these energies, and I believe I vaguely mentioned them too).

So much of all that is negative, however. On the positive side is the question of that which most well read Orthodox would agree is necessary reading. There is, indeed, the essential body of works of the Fathers which amplify, entirely without changing, the Will of the Word passed down to us in Scripture. This ability to amplify-wihtout-change is only possible because of the great and wonderful work of the Truth, or the Helper, whom the Lord sent to us on Pentecost for this very purpose -- that is, the purpose of amplifying that which He had said, and what His Apostles then said in the Gospels (plus the works in the canonically accepted Epistles).

To my mind, Q falls entirely outside this body of Scripture-plus-Amplification. My own energies are limited, so my purpose is to understand better the works inside the pale. Everything outside it, or not defended by this body of Scr+Amp, is NOT leading me on my chosen path and may in fact be leading me astray.

This directive seems fairly clear to me. What is much less clear is the way in which we struggle to adapt Scripture+Amplification by the Fathers to our own lives -- when we should be working oppositely, to adapt our lives to the Scriptural model. I assume your Q question falls into this huge category of problems.

Only slightly more specifically, there are then the hundreds of adaptive questions such as, Why am I death on exegetes? Why may you be indulging an undercover agenda of modernist presumption? Why may this list prove its final effectiveness in only one way: By everyone signing off and sending no more messages?

Until that point, if my words are without meaning, George, it is probably because I don't know how far into Orthodoxy you have come. So, Please, don't be made shy by my earlier harsh message. Tell us what you think, how you feel about Orthodoxy -- and then step back and prepare for the replies.

Is it in today's readings that the Apostle said:
"The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." ! Cor.3:20

Lord, help my pompous wisdom
richard mcb

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Richard

"Q," or its putative discovery, is not a result of exegesis but form "criticism," by which we mean the exercise of any discernment we think we have.

I think you are talking about evaluating books about "Q," not "Q" itself. Is this correct? I can understand a derisive attitude to German (or even English) schools of biblical criticism from the nineteenth century. I suppose the fathers would attribute such schools to inordinate curiosity and the seeking after things to high for man, given that the scriptures are God's work through whom He inspires. OTOH, being the curious sort myself, I can understand that some people would recieve extreme value from discerning the design in God's fine editing of his work. It can be argued that after the house is built, few buyers examine the foundations, but I would think wise ones would. After all, many things in this day and age are passed off as "God", and the "Word of God" which are not. Frank Lloyd Wright designed even the furniture of many of his architectual creations. Sad to say, many buyers did not understand how the houses' interior form and decoration were designed to enhance each other, or liked one without the other, and put the furniture in the garage! I said all that to illustrate some people's delight in trying to find the ways in which different parts of God's literary production fit together. One of the things such criticism has done for protestantism, BTW, is to give it a new appreciation for Tradition, in the Orthodox sense of the word, which Georges Florovsky and others say is the ongoing expression of the Holy Spirit, which I presume (from my own perspective) is from the Word (not by way of "procession', I hasten to add, for my Orthodox friends here on this board).

It's when the reductionists come to the table with no idea of Tradition and look at the bare bones of a production and decree that that, and only that is the work of God, or the infallible Church, and the flesh is only fat added by some putatively "fallible assembly" of power hungry white males from a presientific age,intent on opressing some group or other that we get into problems. That would be critique of a different order, that attempting to discern between the "True" and the "False" church.

George's concern I think was for this latter critique that would (does?) exegete from the hypothetical "Q" the "original" and thus "pure" beliefs of, what? The earliest community of believers? I think that is what they were after. "Q", if it existed as a lone entity, was a "sayings-gospel." As I said in the earlier post on this subject, this was one of the criticisms of the theory, but this criticism collapsed when the Gospel of Thomas was discovered at Nag Hamadi, where, it turns out, all the available heretical writings were gathered so the Fathers could read and refute them. And of course the Gospel of Thomas was written far later than the New Testament Scriptures.

"Q" is defined as the material that is in both Luke and Matthew which is not also in Mark, and Mark is posited as the earliest Gospel. I have seen convincing evidence that Luke-Acts was not written as a "history" or a "gospel" per se but as a legal brief in defense of St. Paul before the Tribunal at Rome. Luke said he had sources for what he wrote and it looks as if Mark's Gospel was one of them. What the church has received and called Matthew's Gospel (the human author or amenuensis of the Holy Spirit did not, as Mark did not, give his own name) seems also to have used Mark as a source, but much later than Luke, who seems to have written shortly after Mark.

All this is theoretical, of course and the church does not teach theory (in this sense of the term), it (rather She) teaches what God has said in the entire canonical scripture, but this conjecture can be followed further to note the order in which the Church places these Gospel renditions (for there is only One Gospel, it is given according to four evangelists). They then are not placed in chronological order of their writing, but in the order of the chronology of the spread of the Gospel throughout the world, for Matthew is concerned with a Jewish audience. Thus we begin in Judea with the birth of Christ, and this Gospel is attributed to an Apostle. It is followed by Mark, who I think was asked to write for those in Rome, for he was companion to the Apostle Peter whose last preaching of the Gospel was there. Gnostics had used Mark's gospel though and taught from it that Jesus could not be proved to have come in the flesh. I would not say this is the only reason Matthew started with the annunciation and birth of Christ, but I would expect it to be one of them. But after all, the Jews were expecting God's Messiah to be descended from the King, and thus heir to the throne of Israel, which, as Matthew pointed out, He was. The two volume set of the Apostle Paul's companion Luke is "divided" by the latest of all the Gospels, that of the Apostle John the Theologian, who's telling reaches back beyond the begining of the Ages.

I understand that the first three gospels were used as catechesis for the catechumens, and that the last gospel was used as instruction for the initiated. I don't know if this is true, but it would make sense to me. But the bottom line is that it is what the scripture says in its entirety, not how its entirety was acheived, that is the teaching of the church. I just think the design traced out (even if not accurate in all its details) is a marvelous witness to our God and Savior, who does all things in order.

R. Leigh

[Owen Jones]

Einstein would never have developed his theories of relativity if he had approached the inner workings of the universe from the perspective of criticism, doubt, and skepticism. While he was a pantheist of sorts in his dogma (or non-dogma), the point is that he approached the universe as intelligible, ordered and MEANINGFUL in some way. There was an aesthetic principle of harmony that he BELIEVED IN Regarding the universe, without which he would have made no discoveries.

But the bottom line is that you really have to see someone applying critical method to a specific book or "pericope" to understand the flaw in the method. It ends up rendering the text MEANINGLESS. What it does do is it gives the critic a sense of gnostic POWER over the text. Therein lies its appeal.

[Richard Leigh]

Dear George Hawkins,

The proponents of the Q theory assert that it is indeed in the scriptures as that material in Matthew that corresponds to Luke. As a theory it is an attempt to explain the correspondence.

The fact that (so far, at least) it has not been found as an intact document is a clue that if it did exist, it was recognized as incomplete.

Of course, as Owen was, I think pointing out (and as I myself atttempted to point out) there are no "IF's" in Faith, so it doesn't matter much one way or the other to the believer as such whether it did. It only matters that one not believe any nonsense that it was sufficient in and of itself.

A negative clue is found in the fact that, though a "sayings gospel" (Thomas) was found with several other varieties of gostic writing at Nag Hamadi, "Q" was not. This indicates (again, "IF" it even existed) that it was not from a gnostic group. It is only an investigative tool, BTW, not what a scientist would call proof.

Richard

P.s., in case anyone wants to know my position on the matter, I rather think it's true, but not to the degree I'd put any money on it, and recognize that it may well not be. I have no doubt, OTOH, that the four Gospels and all the other books of the New Testament are the infallible written word of God, and am delighted to meditate upon it with prayer to the Holy Spirit Who inspired its authors. ---R

P.p.s., speaking as a Lutheran, of course, with no intention of leading astray the Orthodox :-)

[John Curtis Dunn]

I've recently read a book containing various versions of Q, and commentary regarding the origin of the early Christian communities, and subsequent development of the Cannonical and Sayings Gospels. Having read many informed and opinionated posts on this site, I would like to solicit information, opinions, and perspectives. Thank-you.
----

Sorry folks, I have been out from home for a while and return to see a subject line titled simply *Q*.

This is just a guess, but I think *Q* was the code name for the scientist who created all the gizmos by which English undercover agents could escape from the empirical evidence for a historical Christ. But you'll have to take that on faith.

john

[Richard McBride]

monochos reply concerning Q

My dear Lutheran Brother in Christ:

It would not be beyond suspicion that you are urging me to continue making a fool of myself by drawing me into this silly Q debate. The very fact that it has had such a popular run among exegetes should tip you off to its basic insipidity. Like so much in academe, it is a phantom, a mere presumption. And a gentleman of faith, as yourself, should not waste the few precious hours left him by contemplating such things.

That is where I should sign off, for this is the point at which I am deserted by even a modicum of wisdom on these things. ..............Oh well.

Being unable to agree that 'form criticism' is not exegetic, you will, I think agree that both conditions are taken from the hermeneutic kit (or bag of tricks). [Your distinction upon "evaluating books about "Q," not "Q" itself" is, of course, reference to all there is; there is nothing but interpretation in books. There is no Q itself; even the putative Quelle is fiction, as I understand this reference to the head waters, or source of the spring, to imply (but I do not know the history of this usage; so, as in all of this, I could be wrong)]. Nevertheless, the lack of 'original transcript' has not kept the exegetes from doing their thing, has it? [The so-called Gospel of Thomas only clouds the picture more.]

I see nothing in this business which should attract one seeking Truth.

Also I think, once you have time to look it over, you will want to forget this notion of, "God's fine editing of his work". It anthropomorphizes God. But I suspect your point was to work in the 'design' motif. And dear Richard, you must suspicion that this is all wrong. The problem with FLW's clients gives it away. Just as Wright's walls were often purposefully constructed to make the hanging of pictures impossible (he wanted no art but his own to impinge upon the resident's consciousness), just so his chairs were not made for sitting -- they are impossible to sit in, although they decorate well. And that for which his clients carried a real beef was during a rain storm -- one might just as well be outside. [There is a story of him being found, during a rain storm, in the only place at Taliesin which was dry: The huge fireplace. He was huddled on a stool in the fireplace.]

As with the almost unparalleled egotism FLW exhibited, those who are driven to seek,
"the ways in which different parts of God's literary production fit together" are seeking to put their own stamp upon something. Yes, one sees this often in architecture. I have had to fight it myself, thus, I suppose there is some parallel with the people who hire architects -- who are usually wanabe architects themselves (most of them 'took a class in architecture' at some time) -- and the people who cannot, upon faith and love, take Scripture for what it is, as determined by the Fathers and the Church. This calls to mind the admonition in the epigraph of Saint John of Damascus' "An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith". It reads:
"That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not to pry into and meddle with tire things which have not been delivered to us by the holy Prophets, and Apostles, and Evangelists."

The 'reductionists' you speak of in your third paragraph are inseparable from the curiosity which leads one astray. There are no differences here -- differences which might lead one toward salvation, at any rate.

In trying to make the distinction to which you refer, Richard, you are swimming UP a swift river, and soon you will be met by the log jam floating down [I use to live in Oregon and am partial to these logging metaphors].

However, if you are less than impressed by logging figures of speech, you might pick up the Lutheran thread as it began to merge with the large figure of Ludwig Wittgenstein in Germany, which was not without similarities in the British encounter with Bertrand Russell on the other side of the French Channel. In either nation the impact upon all thinking from these radical shifts of the meaning of 'meaning' was large -- we have only to seek out the Vienna Circle and its resulting Positivism, to find in your favorite hermeneutic theses, the core of this truly drastic shift of emphasis. As one isolates this new influence of linguistic theory, from the body of that which preoccupied the Fathers, one should detect a trail through Nominalism leading back to Thomas Aquinas (and other such modernist inventions) to Blessed Augustine.

There are indeed certain differences and nuances to be found, as you say. But the difference from falling out of a tree is not all that remarkable from being shaken out. The bigger picutre does not trifle with such details.

In this Q buisness, however, there is the interesting figure of Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930). Probably, you have sought him out already. If I were inclined to delve into the matter (and I am not so inclined), I should pick up on his 'Ritschlianism', which I am led to believe was his critique of the Father's wholesale adoption of metaphysical form taken from the Greeks. His understanding of Patristics from the Lutheran viewpoint was unequaled, they say. Furthermore, he was noted for upholding the early dates for the Synoptic Gospels, thus throwing a monkey wrench into the Q game. Hans Urs von Balthasar was quite offended by Harnack's thesis, which he compared to Bultmann ["The Glory of the Lord; Seeing the Glory; vol 1; p. 534ff].

Contrary to my objections above, there is some optimism to be found in your George Hawkins message. You say, "Of course, as Owen was, I think pointing out (and as I myself atttempted to point out) there are no "IF's" in Faith, so it doesn't matter much one way or the other ..." [big snip here] ..." the four Gospels and all the other books of the New Testament are the infallible written word of God, and am delighted to meditate upon it with prayer to the Holy Spirit Who inspired its authors. ---R

Richard, you have only yourself to blame for drawing me into this. And I am wondering, how you rightly accept the Faith needed to study the Word, yet ignore the admonitions of the Father's and Scripture against 'questioning' it [I should say, 'reinventing'].

Forgive my foolishness; if the Truth were in me, I should not be here at this moment.

richard mcb

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Richard,

Far be it from me to draw a brother into folly. This is intrigueing though, I hadn't known there was a debate. I have so far argued that Q's existence is an unknown, at best, and that faith in the Whole gospel as presented in canonical scripture is the source of Life (at least, I tried to say that).

I find Gospel parallels useful tools in teaching the Gospels, and the putative "Q" is mentioned in them. It only amounts to a side issue which need not derail one from the major issue, which is what God has said, and of course how He said (and says) it is quite a part of what He is saying.

Naturally I speak from a spiritual heritage of questioning scholarship (or should that be "scholastics"?) Questioning does not necessarily imply doubt, not that there aren't a serious number of "teachers" to doubt. It may very well imply faith that the Questioned has the answer.

It is of no consequence to me whether or not "Q" exists, but then, I see the anthropomorphic hand of God in everything. Anthropomorphising God BTW is not necessarily a bad thing, it is a quite biblical figure of speech, so I suppose that if one knows what one is doing (i.e., using a figure of speech), one is not sinning in doing it.

It might interest you to know that when we Lutherans question the Fathers we are looking for what is biblical in what they say from so long ago and such a foreign language and culture.

Richard

[Serafim robberstad]

Dear Fathers, brother and sisters *or sister and brothers...*

I need a copy of the monastic ritual for Rasophore and Staurofore - in = English.

I hope sombody on this list can help me.....



In Christ

Serafim+=20

unworthy hieromonk in Sweden.

[Donald Wescott]

John,

Many thanks for injecting some badly needed humor into this somewhat silly subject. Being somewhat of a Bond fan, it really made my day!

Under the Mercy,
Donald Eusebios

[Richard McBride]

"It only amounts to a side issue..."

Again, how much time do you have to spend on side issues?

I was blessed with the answer to this question some time ago. A student friend and I were working jointly on a design project at University of Oregon, and had found a beautiful site. I got all excited, and since I had my first, new camera (a Leica), I began jabbering about all the pictures we could take, how we might blow them up to six feet, make a smashing presentation, on and on. My friend, B-Bar, was quiet until I settled down. Then he quietly and laconically said, "You've got to decide whether you want to be a photographer or an architect."

I have been truly blessed.


"I speak from a spiritual heritage of questioning scholarship ..."

and


"...when we Lutherans question the Fathers we are looking for what is biblical in what they say from so long ago and such a foreign language and culture. "

That, to me, perfectly describes the ambitions of the Q seekers.

Are these not the same types of arguments one uses to justify NOT giving up a sin -- such as smoking? Is not a clever person able to put themselves awash in all manner of wordy stratagems, attempting to hang on to that sin?

In that situation, I think curiosity is good -- as long as it does not let one rest in one's own suffocating wordiness -- as long as curiosity is just barely able to give the hint of some error lying under piles of stuff. I speak from experience.

The purpose in the curiosity is to lead one to Truth. That accomplished, curiosity is tossed overboard. One no longer lives ont he milk of questioning, but thrives on the solid food.

Also, none of this should be taken in frustration of a career in theology; the Fathers example that sort of theology; the Q seekers example something else.

[Daniel Jeandet]

When I first saw this topic "Q" I thought we were going to be talking about the character from Star Trek.

Oh well http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/sad.gif

[Marjorie Parsons]

I've recently read a book containing various versions of Q, and commentary regarding the origin of the early Christian communities, and subsequent development of the Cannonical and Sayings Gospels. Having read many informed and opinionated posts on this site, I would like to solicit information, opinions, and perspectives. Thank-you.


There seems to be a great deal of heat about "Q". Actually, as one of the posters did say Q is quite harmless. There is material in Mathew and Luke which is the same, but does not occur in Mark. Both Mathew and Luke also contain material that does occur in Mark and each contains material which occurs nowhere else in the Gospels. This much is just a fact you can check if you want and have not much else to do right now. It was suggested that
the material common to Mathew and Luke, but not Mark came from some source, probably written, which was available to them when they were writing the Gospels. Nothing more can be reasonably said about this source (quelle in German) besides the fact that it contained these passages and pre-dated the writing of Matthew and Luke. It is not unreasonable to postulate such a source and I can't see that it affects faith in the Gospels one way or another unless one believes the Gospels were directly inspired verbatim, as through dictation.

This said, much nonsense has been written about Q. We do not have Q so we can't say anything much about it.

[Shawn Lazar]

I wouldn't worry about the issues raised by the hypotheical 'Q'.

I am not aware of many (or any) Orthodox or Catholic Bible scholars, so I can only point you to conservative evangelical authors who have treated this and related issues:

1) Is There a Synoptic Problem? by Eta Linnemann (a former student of Bultmann, and convert to Evangelicalism - all of her works are very helpful)
2) The Synoptic Problem, by Stein
3) Rethinking the Synoptic Problem, by Black and Beck
4) the works of N.T. Wright

More importantly, I would also suggest consulting conservative Bible commentaries on the Gospels (again, these seem only to be produced by evangelicals) which inevitably deal with some of the questions you raised. See the appropriate books in the following series:

1) The New International Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Fee
2) New American Commentary
3) Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
4) Pillar New Testament Commentaries
5) Baker Exegetical Commentary
6) Expositor's Bible Commentary (the abridged set is nice)