Getting More Sceptical on Q

In recent years I have been becoming more and more pessimistic about the existence of Q due to my readings of Luke. Two particular texts burn in my mind:

1. Jesus' Confession Before Caiaphas

Mark 14.62: καὶ ὄψεσθε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ δεξιῶν καθήμενον τῆς δυνάμεως καὶ ἐρχόμενον μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.

Matt 26.64: ἀπ' ἄρτι ὄψεσθε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καθήμενον ἐκ δεξιῶν τῆς δυνάμεως καὶ ἐρχόμενον ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.

Luke 22.69: ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν δὲ ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καθήμενος ἐκ δεξιῶν τῆς δυνάμεως τοῦ θεοῦ.

I find it an amazing coincidence that Mattew and Luke would both independently qualify the Marcan Jesus' statement to the effect that "from now on" you will see/it will be the Son of Man seated besides the Power.

2. Jesus and the Centurion and the Eschatological Reversal Saying

Matt 8.5-10 and Luke 7.1-10 both include stories of Jesus' encounter with a centurion at Capernaum. This is unique among Q material as it is the only narrative in Q itself (and some rightly attribute it to an independent tradition known to both Matthew and Luke). However, Matthew finishes this story with a reference to a saying of eschatological reversal (8.11-13) and yet Luke has this same saying but in a completely different context (13.28-30).

Now earlier I thought that it would be unlikely for Luke to split up Matt 8.5-13 into two parts (Luke 7.1-10 and 13.28-29) if he had access to it when it would be so congenial to his pro Gentile interests. But there again, Matt 8.11-12/Luke 13.28-29 might be another independent saying known to both authors. Luke can also omit some missional material because he intends to bring it up in his second volume (e.g. Mk 13.10).

More telling is the fact that Luke inverts the order of the saying in contrast to Matthew, but Luke also includes "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων) which is arguably a distinctive Matthean expression.

3. Conclusion

I am gradually coming around to the position that Luke used Matthew, but I don't think I'm prepared as of yet to give up the notion that there were still some shared and independent traditions between Matthew and Luke consisting of both oral (e.g. the centurion at Capernaum) and perhaps even written materials (e.g. parable of the mustard seed).

But I'm not Synoptic problem guru and I'll leave it to other minds to figure out.

The Schizophrenia of Q Research

I am currently reading through E. Earle Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents (Leiden: Brill, 2002) and finding his approach to the formation of the NT most enjoyable (it is kinda like J.A.T. Robinson meets Birger Gerhardsson). There's this gem of a quote about Q:

"Q is a single document, a composite document, several documents. It incorporates earlier sources; it is used in different redactions. Its original language is Greek; it is Aramaic; Q is used in different translations. It is the Matthean logia, it is not. It has shape and sequence; it is a collection of fragments. It is a Gospel; it is not. It consists wholly of sayings; it includes narrative. It is all preserved in Matthew and Luke; it is not. Matthew's order of Q is correct; Luke's is correct; neither is correct. It is used by Mark; it is not used by Mark" (pp. 17-18).

Well, I'm dizzy already!

BTW, Ellis is one of my favourite Baptist NT scholars (up there with George Beasley-Murray) and we should look forward to his forthcoming commentary on 1 Corinthians in the ICC series. But don't hold ya breath as last I heard is that he's only up to chapter five.

The Cynic Hypothesis Once More!

Over at Thoughts on Antiquity Chris Zeichmann offers a post on A Brief Defense of the Merits of Cynic Hypothesis over and against my relegating it to one of the worst ideas to gain currency in NT scholarship.

Chris is fairly nuanced in his criticism and he acknowledges some of the weaker elements of the Cynic hypothesis, nonetheless, he still finds that it has a certain utility in relation to the Q tradition. He finds the value of Cynic parallels with Q to be: (1) It avoids treating the Q woes in a law-gospel antithesis indicative of Protestantism; (2) It allowed the practice of the Q community in a systematic way that was eventually developed by the Christian Origins seminar; and (3) It avoids supersessionism and refutes the view that all pagan parallels are irrelevant to early Christianity. In response:

(1) Let us all say together the Meieranean Creed: "I cannot help thinking that biblical scholarship would be greatly advanced if every morning all exegetes would repeat as a mantra: 'Q is a hypothetical document whose exact extension, wording, originating community, strata, and stages of redaction cannot be known.' This daily devotion might save us flights of fancy that are destined, in my view, to end in skepticism." (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol 2, p. 178). In case I appear too heavy-handed in my criticism about Q reconstructions consider the following remarks: Dunn (Jesus Remembered, 158) writes, “The various attempts to build hypothesis upon presupposition can scarcely inspire confidence in the outcome.” S. G. Wilson (“Review of The Formation of Q,” University of Toronto Quarterly 58 [1988]: 227-28) declares that Kloppenborg’s proposal “involves hypothesis upon hypothesis upon hypothesis, a house of cards which can easily tumble.”Call me a sceptic if you wish, but if the best value of the Cynic hypothesis is explaining the contours and dynamics of a document and a community that might not have even existed, I find it hard to get too excited about its utility and virtue. That said, I am willing to posit Q as a working hypothesis (Goodacre has not convinced me just yet, but he has made me far more cautious about Q itself) but talk of stages of redaction and a Q community are shifting to a more tenuous and uncertain realm. Much of Q studies reminds of the markings on the fringes of medieval nautical maps which say on the outer edges: And here there be dragons! In other words, no-one knows for certain what is beyond and before Q.
(2) Drawing attention to the Cynic tradition was principally the work of Hengel and Theissen who noted its analogy to elements of the Jesus tradition (not the least of which is the mission discourse in Mark 6). But they did not take in the direction of Mack, Vaage, Seeley, Crossan, Downing, Cameron, Price which is exactly why Theissen called the Jesus Seminar's Jesus the "Californian Jesus".
(3) The Q hypothesis has been related very closely to a high level of Hellenisation in Galilee as Chris himself notes. Here I commend the work of J.L. Reed who has pointed out that the Q tradition seems to know of some contact between Jesus and an urban environment, but with M.A. Chancey we have to keep in mind that Galilee was only in its infancy of hellenization in the first century.
(4) I also like the short comment of H.C. Kee: "Jesus’ wisdom does not consist of pious, timeless aphorisms on an allegedly Cynic model, as a contingent of New Testament scholars have tried to show. The true analogue between Jesus and the Stoic-Cynic tradition is rather what might be called an eschatological-ethical theme: the gods will reward and sustain the king who honors virtue, who is humane, and who is characterized by prudence (phronesis), temperance (sophrosune), justice (dikaiosune), and courage (andreia)." (H.C. Kee, The Beginnings of Christianity, 459).

I have made other comments on the Cynic Hypothesis here and in my EQ article on "The Peril of Modernizing Jesus and the crisis of not contemporizing the Christ" (2006).

Arland Hultgren: Q and Early Christianity

I have benefitted from several of Arland Hultgren's books (e.g. The Parables of Jesus, Paul's Gospel and Mission, Jesus and his Adversaries - evidently a Synoptics and Paul man!) and I found this quote in his book The Rise of Normative Christianity:

What seems particularly strange in some of the current discussions of Q is that, precisely at the moment when scholars far and wide are calling for the dismantling of long-standing conceptual walls between religious and cultural traditions of antiquity (for example, between Palestinian Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism, or between orthodoxy and heresy), some are portraying the Q community as walled off from the rest of early Christianity, even though such persons will claim that itinerant missionaries went out from (and presumably returend to) the Q community, traveling about Palestine and Syria! Surely the theology and life of the Q community had dimensions that are not reflected in the Q document itself. Since it narrates no fellowship meals, must we assume that the community had none? (p. 38).

Apparently Hultgren is working on a Romans commentary (though I cannot remember this source of this information).

Q and the Gentiles

I am slowly and spasmodically reading through James Crossley's book Why Christianity Happened? (you must read the one review of this book on the Amazon.com link at the bottom of the page!) and I find myself agreeing with parts and groaning at other parts of his volume.

On Q and the Gentiles (something I have thought and written about), it will take more than a footnote to H. Schurmann to convince me that Mt. 10.5-6b is part of Q and I think a better case can be made that Mt. 8.11-12/Lk. 13.28-29 does refer to Gentiles than what Crossley admits. But I do think, in general, that Crossley is correct in following Chris Tuckett about Q and a Gentile mission. Most of the mentions of Gentiles in Q are rhetorical and seem to be aimed at calling Israel to repentance (e.g. Mt. 12.41-42/Lk. 11.31-32). I surmize that Q knows of a Gentile mission, has no problem with it, but is fundamentally concerned with the renewal of Israel. A perspective that probably reflects a Judean or Galilean or Syrian provenance for the use of Q.

The Q Theory

I'm currently reading James Robinson's book Jesus According to the Earliest Witness, and I am amazed at the certainty that some scholars possess regarding their views on the layering, stratifying, and editing of Q . Some scholars seem to act as if Luhrmann and Kloppenborg are right and that is just a self-evident fact to anyone with a Gospe Synopsis and a Ph.D. But, by analogy, if you think you can discover layers, tiers, and editorial work of pre-Marcan material by using Matthew and Luke, I think you are slightly too optimistic about the nature of the evidence and your scholarly abilities. The same is true for Q. And Q (if it existed!) is a jigsaw, and with a jigsaw you can imagine someone putting the corners together first, then maybe the frame, but after that you enter that part of scholarship where we have to say, "We just don't know!" Have a guess by all means, but let us not pretend to be certain of things which we have no right to be certain about. My biggest complaint about the Q-Thomas theorists is that they treat what is hypothetical as if it were factual (Q) and make what was peripheral out to be central (Gospel of Thomas).

Otherwise, Robinson's book contains an excellent chapter entitled, "Theological Autobiography" about his studies in Europe, his move from Systematics to New Testament, his work on Q, and the Nag Hammadi codices, and the story of the publication of the Nag Hammadi contains elements of subterfuge, intrigue, plots, and conspiracies that would leave Dan Brown in awe.