subject: Utilizing The Q Source To Search For The Historical Jesus [print this page] When we look at the gospels of Matthew and Luke we can see obvious parallels. Mathew and Luke used Mark's work as a basis for their own, which explains the similarities. Matthews gospel contains 90% of Marks work. Lukes gospel contains fifty percent of Marks work. This seems to suggest that Mark was their common source.
But how about the other 10% of Matthews gospel and the other fifty percent of Lukes gospel that did not get its information from the Marcan Source (Marks gospel)? Scholars have considered that there is a 2nd source that Matthew and Luke used to get the information to write their gospels. The source is a hypothetical document called Q. Q is the abbreviated form of the German word Quelle which means source.
Instead of identifying Q sayings by verses in both Matthew and Luke, (because the sayings in Q are direct similiarities to Matthew and Luke) scholars identify the sayings with Luke only because Luke appears to preserve the order of the original document. In other words, identifying Q sayings with Luke makes more sense.
The apocalyptic nature of Q hints that it came into being in the first or second generations after the death of Jesus. As we know from Paul's later writings, by roughly the year sixty-five, Christians had begun to wonder if Jesus would come back as some had predicted. This makes the timeframe for Q of later than 65 years less likely. Some believe that the story of the struggle with the devil in Q makes reference to a situation in 39 when there was a huge demonstration against the putting up of a statue of the Emperor Caligula in Jerusalem [1]. If so, the Q material probably was created after that date.
The Q material in Matthew and Luke is set in differing contexts, but in roughly the same order. This is a healthy argument against those who (like Michael Goulder [2]) have decided that there was no Q source and that Matthew and Luke either came from this material from somewhere else or created it themselves. The undeniably similar sequence reinforces the determination that Luke and Matthew werent using unique sources, but the same one.
One example is:
So also Mark 8.34-35 is used in Matthew 16.24-25 and Luke 9.23-24. A Q version also appears in Matthew 10.38-39 and Luke 14.27 & 17.33.
Overall, many suggest that Luke's interpretation of Q preserves the original more accurately than Matthew's. Scholars still come from the woodwork with reasons to dismiss it. But their reasons are overall weak.
If one accepts that Q is a now-lost written record of "what Jesus really said", then 'Q' can be thought of as a long-missing record of the things that Jesus supposedly said.
We must additionally accept the process used to analyze the gospel texts. We know about Q largely because many hundreds of scholars have torn the gospels apart down to their core elements. The details have been and will continue to be discussed. But the complete pictures of the process has endured the rigors of time.
A number of further assumptions can be validly drawn from the facts presented [4]:
The content of Q indicates that it had considerable status in the early Jewish-Christian communities centered around Northern Galilee. The people looked to it for help in life-issues.
Q wasnt written as one document. Instead, it was several separate documents which was added to from time to time. Some changes mightve been made by later, non-Galilean sources - though the evidence for this is fairly weak.
Because Q is a collection, any signs we can pick up within it regarding the what was going on in the community which originated it are likely to mirror what was happening socially within the Q community.
Our knowledge today about Jesus is therefore subject to all the strengths and weaknesses of normal human processes by which information is shared from person to person.
