The Q document refers to material which is common to Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. It does not include any material about events subsequent to Jesus’s arrest.
If it had been produced in the late 60’s CE, then
1. Where did the information come from?
If it came from the disciples, why do Matthew and Luke not acknowledge such an important source?
If it came from Paul’s followers, how could Mark have been unaware of it?
If it came from some third party, why would Matthew and Luke accept it as genuine?
2. Why no post-arrest material?
The four gospels all have accounts of Jesus’s trial, crucifixion, burial and subsequent appearances. Why would a document written in the 60’s CE exclude such material?
In the absence of any better explanation, I suggest that the Q document was written during Jesus’s lifetime by a literate supporter who was about 20 years old. When Jesus was crucified, the document was kept secret. The author did not trust the disciples and avoided contact for fear of consequences of association. In the late 60’s CE, when the author was about 55, he fled from impending war into exile in one of the diaspora communities where he met Paul’s followers and was free to disclose his information which was used by Matthew and Luke in their gospels.
This suggestion explains where the information came from, why Matthew and Luke considered that it was reliable, why it contained no material subsequent to Jesus’s arrest and why the disciples, Paul and Mark were unaware of it.
Some evidence to support this hypothesis is from Q document reports in Matthew 19:28 and Luke 22:30 that Jesus told his disciples that they would sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. After Judas’s betrayal, it is unlikely that any author would suggest that Jesus intended him to sit on a throne but if this report was recorded before crucifixion it could have been faithfully copied ever since.
Luke also starts his gospel by saying that he is following traditions handed down by original eyewitnesses. This is not generally considered to be a reliable statement but it is clearly possible.
Good questions. Unfortunately, few good answers. The material as we have it consists mostly of sayings with only a smidgeon of narrative. Does this mean there was a community who were more concerned with Jesus’ life and teachings than with his fate? The sayings are thoroughly apocalyptic and seem to indicate a Judaean milieu. Does this mean they’re early and authentic sayings of Jesus? The problem is that based on what we know about the “historical” literary practices of these ancient writers they just weren’t interested in what we would consider factual disinterested reportage. They were more interested in verisimilitude. They were more than willing to make stuff up if they thought it got their point across. This horrifies moderns but the ancients didn’t think the way we think.
“If it came from the disciples, why do Matthew and Luke not acknowledge such an important source?”
Aside from Luke’s vague reference to prior accounts in Lk 1:1-3, they don’t acknowledge any of their sources. I mean, we know that they both had and used Mark, but neither says so.
“If it came from Paul’s followers, how could Mark have been unaware of it?”
Why should we think that Mark knew everything that was going on in all of Paul’s scattered communities? Or maybe he did know of it but chose to reject it.
“If it came from some third party, why would Matthew and Luke accept it as genuine?”
Maybe they were credulous. It seems like a mistake to treat Mt and Lk as though they were modern historians who competently investigated their sources’ provenance and historical authenticity.
“Why would a document written in the 60’s CE exclude such material?”
Perhaps the material was simply out-of-scope. If the purpose of the work was to record the master’s teaching, rather than his biography, it would make sense to exclude even important life-events if there was no significant teaching in them. Or again, you could ask the same question about Acts excluding Paul’s death.
Porphyry “Yes there is. Mt and lk got the material somewhere, and even if mark knew it, he didn’t record it, so they didn’t get it from him.”
One of the central pillars of Markan priority is the implausibility of the redactional profile of Mark if he’s writing second.
“What kind of author is Mark if he’s using Matthew?”
“Why would he leave out so much material from Matthew?”
This argument is fatally undermined if Mark knew the Q material (ie the material common to Matthew/Luke).
Robert
“No, not at all. Markan priority is a much, much stronger consensus among scholars, regardless of secondary hypotheses.”
Its not a question of how strong the consensus is or how much evidence for Markan priority there is. Its a question of logical necessity. If there is evidence for Mark knowing the Q material there is necessarily evidence for Mark knowing material found in Matthew/Luke while writing his gospel.
“If you are unable to respect that, I will move your posts to a separate thread that can be ignored by sensible people.”
Why? What’s stopping sensible people ignoring them here?
One of the central pillars of Markan priority is the implausibility of the redactional profile of Mark if he’s writing second.
“What kind of author is Mark if he’s using Matthew?”
“Why would he leave out so much material from Matthew?”This argument is fatally undermined if Mark knew the Q material (ie the material common to Matthew/Luke).
No, it isn’t.
It would be undermined if someone said that Mark knew the Q material through Mt or Lk. Then you could ask the questions you did: If Mark is writing second, using one of the other synoptics as a source, then why would he omit so much important material from that source he is relying on? “Why would he leave out so much material from Matthew?”
It is not undermined if Mark knew the Q material through an independent, hypothetical, lost source document–let’s call it “quelle”–and chose (for any number of possible reasons) not to use it.
Mark knowing Q itself (and choosing to reject it) and Mark knowing Q material through Matt or Lk (which he did–hypothetically–know and use) are two entirely different scenarios.
Porphyry “It is not undermined if Mark knew the Q material through an independent, hypothetical, lost source document–let’s call it “quelle”–and chose (for any number of possible reasons) not to use it.
Mark knowing Q itself (and choosing to reject it) and Mark knowing Q material through Matt or Lk (which he did–hypothetically–know and use) are two entirely different scenarios.”
The argument is the implausibility of the redactional profile of Mark if he knew Matthew/Luke.
However if Mark knew the material in Q this a priori implausibility becomes irrelevant. Mark will be leaving out the material regardless of whether he’s writing first or second. So the argument is no longer applicable to the priority question.
It’s this particular argument for Markan priority that will be undermined if Mark knew the Q material, not Markan priority per se. Oher arguments will have to be given to support Markan priority.
Would an author with access to all that lovely text in what has come to be called “Q” really not use a single line? Really?
He might very well choose to exclude it all, if, for example, he thought it spurious (and cared about authenticity).
But of course, that scenario wouldn’t address the question of Mark-Q overlap.
I will qualifiedly grant bren’s point: If we postulate that Mark knew Q in order to explain, for example, the minor agreements, then we are are not just speculating that Mark may have known that source, but we are then suggesting that he actually used it, and then the problem of the implausible redactional profile reasserts itself: If Mark had and used Q, why would he choose to use these bits and to pass on those?
So going back to bren’s original comments:
Any evidence that can be given for Mark knowing Q is necessarily equivalent evidence for the Griesbach hypothesis.
That is an overstatement. Evidence that Mark knew (and used) Q renders one line of argument for Markan priority irrelevant (as bren noted in his last post). But obviously that line of argument is not the whole case for Markan priority, and, at least in my estimation, it isn’t even a particularly strong line of argument. Evidence that Mark knew (and used) Q doesn’t constitute direct evidence for any priority.
If Mark knew the material in Q there is no longer any need for Q.
Again, it doesn’t follow; Mark knowing the Q material doesn’t establish Matthean priority, and so doesn’t obviate the need for Q.
It is theoretically possible that Mark knew of Q but decided to ignore it. This also applies to Paul.
It is much more probable that neither of them refer to Q because they did not know about it.
A hypothesis for when Q was written needs to explain why it was not available sooner and where the material came from.
The hypothesis that all information was transmitted orally until finally recorded in the late 60’s CE is not satisfactory.
It is not credible to suppose that information was transmitted by Paul’s followers in the diaspora without comment by Paul,
but it is possible that transmission occurred between followers of the disciples in Israel, the ones that Paul avoided.
It is also possible that some of these people fled into exile in the 60’s CE and told their stories to the Q author.
In that case, why did they not talk directly to Matthew and Luke? Possibly some people did so, but this does not explain
the common material unless people told the same story to both Matthew and Luke or if one of these two copied from the other.
There are endless possibilities but the most probable and coherent explanation is that the Q document was written before the crucifixion
and the author kept it secret until taking it with him into exile in the late 60’s CE.
The hypothesis that all information was transmitted orally until finally recorded in the late 60’s CE is not satisfactory. It is not credible to suppose that information was transmitted by Paul’s followers in the diaspora without comment by Paul
I don’t know that this holds up. I think there is evidence that Paul may have been familiar with some Q material though he doesn’t quote it verbatim or explicitly attribute it to Jesus.
Imagine there was an oral tradition that preserved the gist of Jesus’ teachings, and it was known to Paul and his communities. I can imagine that oral tradition being formulated and written down late and subsequently adopted.
why did they not talk directly to Matthew and Luke?
How could we possibly say? We don’t know who Matthew and Luke actually were, and we have only hints about where they lived. Likewise we don’t know who the author of Q was. We have no idea whether direct communication was even a realistic possibility. We aren’t talking about the 20th century, where you publish a book and the next day everyone interested can order a copy on Amazon, and if they want to be in contact they can just shoot you an email.
There are endless possibilities
I think that is the real issue. There is so much that is just lost at this point. We simply have no idea. Imagine we have 8 possibilities, each with a 10% chance of being the real explanation. We have a 9th with a 20% chance. You can say the 9th is the most likely of all options, but it’s still only got a 1/5 chance of being correct.
the most probable and coherent explanation is that the Q document was written before the crucifixion
and the author kept it secret until taking it with him into exile in the late 60’s CE
Your argument–as I recall–is based on Q not including material dealing with the crucifixion.
But if the author sat on the work for decades after the crucifixion before sharing it with anyone, why wouldn’t he add material pertaining to the crucifixion in those intervening years before sharing the work?
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert