Talk:Q source

Rewrite

To the editors of this page: I'm afraid it needs to be rewritten.

I am a nonspecialist reader; today I was reading a series of Wiki articles on biblical scholarship (following up a meatspace argument about the historicity or ahistoricity of Jesus). As usual, wikipedia was endlessly informative and useful and quite good about balancing the discussion between atheist and christian interpretations. But then I ended up here and foundered. The article is basically unreadable and very un-encyclopedia-like; I would suggest that this is because it lacks an introduction, a sentence or two which discusses the state of biblical scholarship, and the various sources for the new testament, and where the Q Document fits into this. I would do this myself, but I know little or nothing about the topic.

A proper intro should read something like:"...a postulated lost textual source for the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke. The New Testament is generally recognized by scholars to be composed of writings from three sources; accounts by apostles of Jesus, written sometime after his death, collections of the sayings of Jesus, recorded in the form of epistles, and finally writings of early Christians such as Paul...." The Q document, if it existed, would be a common source for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which are epistles which generally seem to draw on information from the Gospel of Mark, but also information not present in Mark...

I have of course invented the previous (and factually incorrect)sentence to show what a proper introduction might look like if anyone wanted to write it.jackbrown 09:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)jackbrown

• I suggest that a couple diagrams could help even more. For example, a diagram of the Two Source Hypothesis with arrows from Mark and Q pointing to Matthew and Luke, as found in textbooks. A highlighted example of a synopsis, separating out Q material with yellow highlighter (as hypothesized), would also help. --Peter Kirby 18:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Can someone put this sentence into something resembling a legible sentence:

Further textual analysis tends to confirm this hypothesis as Q, the document generated by subtracting Mark from the intersection of Matthew and Luke, has a thematic structure and consistency that is generally considered unlikely to be due to chance.

It starts off in one direction and goes somewhere else. -- Zoe

It is trying to say that Q has certain themes that are more prominent in itself than in either Matthew and Luke that you would not expect to find by subtracting Mark from them. What this article really needed is a summation of all the arguments for Q, which I've provided now. -- Stephen C. Carlson

But it isn't grammatically correct. -- Zoe

It got rewritten, but that sentence could have used a comma before "as" since it was being used as a conjunction. -- Stephen C. Carlson

• In a month or two I could add a section about various uses of the stratigraphical hypothesis in the reconstruction of the historical Jesus. I think the arguments for and against need their own page, as most of it is more related to the two-gospel hypothesis than the topic at hand. Or perhaps it could go on the synoptic problem page... whatever. I think history could stand to be divided up into stages, too. NT times to Harnack, Harnack to Kloppenborg, and then stuff from the last twenty years. Perhaps there should also be a page about Kloppenborg's hypothesis, as it's gotten a lot of attention recently, too. Any thoughts on this? Zeichman 20:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

"Two-Source Hypothesis" is hyphenated on another page that refers to it, and I have altered this page so that it is hyphenated here. One newspaper headline says:

New Age-Discrimination Rules Proposed

and another says:

New-Age Discrimination Rules Proposed

The difference in meaning is a good argument in favor of the tradional way of using hyphens. -- Mike Hardy

If this article is going to have a "Case for Q" section, should it not also have a "Case Against Q" section?

Feel free to write one. Ashibaka (tock) 02:47, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• I added one, based partly on Goodacre's book The Case Against Q. It's always a good exercise to write for the "enemy" POV. :) --Peter Kirby 00:25, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

NPOV? I don't think so.

The first line states that "For alert readers of the New Testament, the recognition that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke share much material not found in their familiar source, the Gospel of Mark, has suggested a common second source, called the Q document (Q for German Quelle, "source")."

"For alert readers"? You must be joking. How is that a neutral POV? I've added the NPOV tag because of it. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:58, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

So, what is the Ta bu shi da yu adjective to specify those readers who might notice such things? Insert whatever the appropriate Ta bu shi da yu adjective may be, please, and remove the little tag. --Wetman 04:28, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Andriesb. "Alert readers" has been changed to "New testament scholars." Very telling change indeed. Does one see the shift in emphasis? The POV of Wikipedia is that the alert reader is not to be credited, and only "New Testament scholars" have the requirewd authority. The "alert reader" is very much the person Virginia Woolf dubbed The Common Reader in two collections of essays on literary subjects, as seen by the educated and alert, critical but non-professional reader. Is such a reader now an "elitist" at the cultural level of Ta bu shi da yu? A question to ponder, not to answer. --Wetman 19:52, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Speculative material =

Some have gone so far as to speculate that Q Source was one of the ‘parchments’ used by Paul in the persecution of the early Church.

I moved this statement from the main article. It could be a garbled form of a genuine position, but as written I'm not aware of a single scholar that advocates this. There are a lot speculative things about Q, but let's at least include those that a fair number of scholars actually hold. Stephen C. Carlson 03:30, 2005 August 9 (UTC)

Miscellaneous material

It should also be noted that the prominent liberal theologian Dr. John Robinson, concluded that Matthew's Gospel was written as early as 40 A.D. (see: Augustinian hypothesis). This is argued would undermine the Q document which accepts a later date.

Robinson did not reach any definite conclusion but deliberately set out to test the limits of what could be proven, not necessarily to prove such things as an AD 40 date of Matthew (yes I've read his book). More importantly, some have placed Q in the 30s and so this presents no absolute problem for a Q, only a subjective one (i.e. scholars who place Q in the 40s or 50s would be wrong, but that does nothing to affect the plausibility of the existence of Q).

John Wenham who the work that many scholars find to be one of the most prominent works supporting the traditional Augustinian hypothesis wrote the following in his work "The [Church] fathers are almost unanimous in asserting that Matthew the tax-collector was the author, writing first, for Hebrews in the Hebrew language: Papias (c. 60-130), Irenaeus (c. 130-200), Pantaenus (died c. 190), Origen (c. 185-254), Eusebius (c. 260-340), Epiphanius (c. 315-403), Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-86) and others write in this vein. The Medieval Hebrew gospel of Matthew in Even Bohan could be a corrupted version of the original. Though unrivaled, the tradition has been discounted on various grounds, particularly on the supposed unreliability of Papias, from whom some would derive the whole tradition." (John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke (1991), p. 116).

I have pared this down to what is necessary (it's a variation on the Farmer argument).

Historian David Hackett Fischer considers historical immediacy to be one of the key determinants of historicity and the church father Papias is a very early source in regards to testimony that the Matthew wrote his gospel first. Papias wrote the following:

I will not hesitate to add also for you to my interpretations what I formerly learned with care from the Presbyters and have carefully stored in memory, giving assurance of its truth. For I did not take pleasure as the many do in those who speak much, but in those who teach what is true, nor in those who relate foreign precepts, but in those who relate the precepts which were given by the Lord to the faith and came down from the Truth itself. And also if any follower of the Presbyters happened to come, I would inquire for the sayings of the Presbyters, what Andrew said, or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples, and for the things which other of the Lord's disciples, and for the things which Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, were saying. For I considered that I should not get so much advantage from matter in books as from the voice which yet lives and remains." (Eusebius (III, xxix).

According to Irenaeus, Papias was "a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp , a man of primitive times," who wrote a volume in "five books" (Against Heresies 5.33.4; quoted by Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 3.39.1). Polycarp is considered to not tolerate any deviation from the traditions of Christianity and he often asked his readers to turn back to the faith delivered to Christians from the beginning. [1] In Ephesus, Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John, who appointed him to be Bishop of Smyrna. [2] Matthew being written first is generally not accepted by Q source proponents.

All this is irrelevant because Papias, as quoted by Eusebius, does not say the Gospel of Matthew was written first.--Peter Kirby 21:06, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Dubious Material

This was moved from the main text (Stephen C. Carlson 04:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC))

Prof. Mack has argued that it is a non-Christian source. There is no direct reference to the resurrection or the Virgin birth and many of the quotations in Q would be considered blasphemy in the time of Jesus.

In any event, all we can say for certain is that ‘Q’ Source is not referred to by any of the Church Fathers as a Christian work, and no copy of Q has ever been found. It is a hypothetical source.

In the first paragraph, the contents of Q are in Matt and/or Luke. How's that blasphemous? In the second paragraph, we don't know Q's name, so how can we say for certain that it was not referred to by any of the Church Father at all much less as a Christian work? Stephen C. Carlson 04:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

ties to documentary hypothesis

I think there should be a short section noting the similarity of this hypothesis to the documentary hypothesis, since they were both formed around the same period of biblical scholarship and they both introduce lost sources to the books of the Bible. AUhl 02:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the documentary hypothesis about the first five books of the Jewish bible? This is about a completely different set of books in a completely different part of the Christian Bible. I don't see how they are related, other than both being origin hypotheses. Clinkophonist 14:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Jesus template

The only reason I added the {{Jesus}} template was that there is a link to this article from it (I was going from link to link to see which articles were where). However, upon further examination, I note that the link I clicked on was Jesus' sayings according to the Christian Bible which redirects here. Apparently, Clinkophonist transferred the original article to Wikisource and (according to edit history) "[redirected] to the closest article on wikipedia to the topic" [3] אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/poll) 01:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

AH! That makes a whole lot of sense now. Hmm.. Maybe just remove the link from the template? If someone clicks on a link in a template that says "Quotes" in regards to Jesus, I do not think they are refering to a hypothetical sayings Gospel.--Andrew c 02:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty, link stricken from the template. Much better :-) אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/poll) 02:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

"The Logia"

tThis Wikipedism betrays unfamiliarity with the literature. --Wetman 21:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Deuteronomism

"Certain themes, such as the Deuteronomistic view of history, are more prominent in Q than in either Matthew or Luke individually."

Something is wrong with this sentence, specifically the phrase "are more prominant in Q." No copy of Q exists. There is no consensus reconstruction of Q. How can we make a statement with this type of certainty? The given reference doesn't clear any of this up nor does it make any direct reference to Deuteronomism. More even importantly how is agreement between theories a proof?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.63.71.49 (talk • contribs) 3 August 2006.

This is like saying "Q contains the word 'blanket' 5 times as much as the rest of Matthew or Luke". Out of context, it would make sense if phrased "The material believed by scholars to have originated from Q contains the word...", however I believe that context is established already in this article, therefore the further explanation about what Q is, isn't needed. Regardless if it is a hypothetical grouping of sayings, or an actual early document, it is a clear fact that the material called by scholars "Q" has a different tone/set of themes than the rest of Matthew or Luke. That is all this sentence is saying. Whether this is a coincidence, or has another explanation is up for debate, but this article is about the Q hypothesis. Hope that helps.--Andrew c 16:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, another proposed link

I have been instructed to post here http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/q.html. The article defends Q as originally a separate document, and which was compiled around 80, after GMark was known, but before GMatthew & GLuke were written. Of course it would help if you like this webpage and post it as a link. Thanks. If posted, I will add up on it my name and a link to my bio, as I did for my front page, http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/index.html (which is already posted as a link on three Wikipedia pages).Bernard

Perrin and Wright

I have removed this from the main article:

Some scholars cite the contextual history of the pre Nicene canon which contained the controversy over Justin Martyr's student and later Valentinian Tatian and his Gospel harmony the Diatessaron, which could be perceived as almost the reverse argument of Q[ref]Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship Between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron by Nicholas Perrin published by the Academia Biblica Society of Biblical Literature 2001 ISBN-10: 1589830458[/ref]. It is noted that a harmony gospel was possibly attempted by Ammonius Saccas.

This sentence makes no sense, and I do not understand how this is a reverse argument of Q. I read the linked page in question, and the only thing I saw was that Perrin and Wright theorized that Thomas (not Q) was based off of the Diatessaron. I almost changed the wording to reflect that, except Thomas is off topic here. Please figure out a better, more informative way to convey this information. I'm sorry I couldn't fix it myself, but I do not understand what is trying to be said. Thanks-Andrew c 14:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Which sentence, there is more then one there? Also if the gospel of Q basis it's origin (even partially) on the existence of the Gospel of Thomas (which it does) then whats to understand from the reference? So you are now saying that the theory of Q does not use the Gospel of Thomas as a proof or support, that a quotes Gospel existed?

Is this not one of the points in the article already?

• "While supporters say that the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas supports the concept of a "sayings gospel," Professor Mark Goodacre points out that Q has a narrative structure as reconstructed and is not simply a list of sayings."

Or this one.

• "This state of affairs changed in the 1960s after translations of a newly discovered and analogous sayings collection, the Gospel of Thomas, became available. James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester proposed that collections of sayings such as Q and Thomas represented the earliest Christian materials at an early point in a trajectory that eventually resulted in the canonical gospels."

So whats the point of contention? Are you Andrew c now saying that this article does not reflect any connection between Q and the Gospel of Thomas? If it is off topic then why does the topic contain the above quotes? The Q theory states that the Gospels where fabricated from a single text composed of quotes or sayings. Nicholas Perrin stated that the historical proof for Q to validate this is the Gospel of Thomas. Nicholas Perrin states that the Gospel of Thomas was fabricated not from a tradition of a quotes or sayings Gospel (Q) but from a Harmony Gospel called the Diatessaron. So the synoptic problem is resolved either by a quotes gospel or a Harmony Gospel. So in the evolution of the Q theory why is the Diatessaron history omitted? Of course until Nicholas Perrin and Mark Goodacre point out that for the Q theory to work the whole history of a harmony Gospel including canons created by Ammonius Saccas and Tatian (both a matter of history) has been omitted. Why is a contridictory validatable history being ignored? One that shows a tradition of a fabricated quotes Gospel (the Gospel of Thomas) not having it's origin in Q but instead in a Harmony Gospel? Why are you omitting rather then correcting? IF you don't time for one how can you have time for the other? If there is contention please notify me before removing a contribution? Have you not asked for the same? I am open to work with others to make a more effective article. I am reverting my additions, if you can find a better wording please contribute but please don't blanket remove text under the excuse you don't have time to fix it. I will do my best to word it more clearly but the references I gave where clear. LoveMonkey 06:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The Q theory has very little to do, so far as I'm aware, with the Gospel of Thomas, which many many people who accept Q believe has no independent sources beyond the four canonical gospels. Q is based on the numerous similarities between Matthew and Luke that do not derive from Mark, and also on the fact that it is considered unlikely that the authors of Matthew and Luke had access to one another's work directly, because of the different genealogies, the different nativity stories, and so forth. Putting so much emphasis on the Gospel of Thomas seems very problematic to me - it is worth mentioning, but is not the main basis for the Q theory. john k 15:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

No I disagree. Also could you tell Andrew c to stop editwarring on my edits. His arguments seem pedantic. Why is he not on the talkpage here or on the several other aritcles he has went to and edited out, my contributions while deciding which scholars are note worthly and which ones aren't 1. Also why is it now people like Andrew c are deciding what SOURCED information is pertinent and what SOURCED information is not? Also if you want I can source the link between thomas and Q more thoroughly. But I will need you to support me adding content since Andrew c does not seem to do anything but war edit. Thanks LoveMonkey 06:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry my edits have offended you. I am really trying to work with you. I moved a controversial section to talk, and before there was consensus on that section, you stuck it back into the article. So I tried to edit your edit to make more sense, and what do I get? You attacking me here on the talk page. I believe my edit gets the point you were trying to convey in a concise manner relevent to this article. Perrin argues that Thomas cannot be used as evidence for Q because he believes Thomas is dependent on a Gospel harmony. Right? Sorry again.-Andrew c 07:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

For clarification edits don't offend me, war editing does. If you would like I can add a list of your war editing to several other articles and contribution to those articles that I made in the past two days. If you where trying to work with me then why all the edits first? No talk pages. Even after I came here and responded and since you did not I re-added the comments and then tried to accommodate you anyway. Your edit by the way does not get the point. It removed the fact that the very basis of Q is the synoptic problem. It removes that canonical historical context addressed by more then just Perrin. You also seem to like to pick and choose which scholars I can and can not add to articles, why is that? Please address this rather then just walking away and starting this whole mess all over again. LoveMonkey 07:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

You have to give me more time to respond. I posted at 09:00, 11 January 2007, you replied at 01:21, 12 January 2007 and then you edited the article at 01:31, 12 January 2007. You seriously think 10 minutes was enough time for me to respond here? I'm not going to throw around accusations of 'edit warring', but I will request that you be patient and give me more than 10 minutes to reply before you re-add content to the article. As for your specific concerns. The section in question is called The case against a common second source. We say in the intro that "The two-source hypothesis forms the simplest and the most widely accepted solution to the synoptic problem". I content that the section we have been editing is not the correct place to say that Q is a solution to the synoptic problem. This information is already included in more relevent sections of the article. So I did NOT remove this 'fact' from the article. It removes that canonical historical context addressed by more then just Perrin, if more than just Perrin addresses this, then you need to cite those authors as well. How does this point relate to Perrin's view on Thomas? Maybe this point needs its own bulleted section because it seems out of place where it currently is. Finally, that section is very verbose and convoluted. It was difficult to determine what was trying to be said. It used unfamiliar jargon like "Nicene canon" (gets less than 1,000 google hits). What exactly are you trying to say here? That there was an orthodox tradition of scripture that predates the "Synod of Carthage" and "Damasian list" of the 4th-6th centuries. Ok, point taken. How does the history of orthodox scripture relate to a criticism of Q? Please try rewording what you were trying to say, or explain in more detail here so we can work together. Finally, I am not trying to pick and choose what scholars you can add to this article. Sorry for the confusion.-Andrew c 13:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Gospel of Thomas

If I remember correctly, it has been argued that the Gospel of Thomas also stated that the format of that book, which was almost entirely quotations, was an additional reason for believing that some sort of "sayings source" was extant in the early years. Badbilltucker 02:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I am just a casual reader who noticed the enigmatic reference to the Gospel of Thomas. This section remains incomplete, and you who are working on this entry need to address it. My own sense from reading what you have written about Q and what little I know about Thomas is that there is overlap. This needs to be explained. Does Thomas precede Q and the synoptic gospels, or not? Formerwolfman (talk) 14:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement. You know, it's sometimes difficult to determine what is and what isn't being read, and so that makes it sometime a little harder to finish a project.

You saying "hey, that thing you were going to write-- I for one would like to read it" is a good motivator, and I'll try to get on it. Good work! --Alecmconroy (talk) 19:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Kloppenborg

Ya'll must know a lot about John S. Kloppenborg. Can you help me with rewriting the article recently created on him? nadav 12:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Some boldness ahead

Okay, I just finished two books all about Q, so, I'm gonna try to regurgitate this and polish up this article. :) Hang on to your hats! --Alecmconroy (talk) 16:17, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Andrew's C "do I have any sources for this new content! :) yes! I do. My own writing style is usually to write, revise, and finally source, as a double check. Often I do this on private subpages, rather than using the article itself as the rough draft. Since the page seemed to be languishing, I went ahead and just started writing on it directly, planning to come back, revise, and source.

If ya think it's best-- there's no reason I need to do this on the article itself, if you think the "half-way finished" product looks to bad, just let me know, and I'll do it on a private subpage. :) --Alecmconroy (talk) 17:31, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

My personal preference is to only keep finished products in the main namespace and leave rough drafts for sandboxes. But you are correct that this is not a top tier article, and that not many people are probably watching this article. So I wouldn't mind if you worked up your revisions here as long as it doesn't take more than a couple weeks.-Andrew c ^[talk] 19:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Lots of repetition of the basic idea of the Q document

I've just read through this article and I found that the basic concept of what the Q document is (a theoretical unpreserved source document) is repeated again and again. Each new section (up to "The case for a common second source") seems to say the same thing over and over.

I'm sure the first few large sections of this article could be quite easily summed up much more briefly without losing anything.

Grand Dizzy (talk) 02:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree - much of this article should be in the article on the Synoptic Problem (SP). The SP is the key to understanding Q, but a blow-by-blow precis of the SP (which is well written) should be in that article, and this article should refer and link to it. Learning about the actual Q document—ie. whether it was a document or a common tradition (which does involve the SP), who might have written it, where it was written, its literary characteristics, and theology—should be the meat of this article. I have added some referenced material on these, which I hope any rewrite of the article incorporates/preserves.

shouldn't it be the four-source hypothesis?

I wouldn't think that the only sources for Matthew and Luke were just Mark and Q... Since both are different gospels wouldn't each have a 3rd source of their own... meaning Luke would have its own sourse and matthew would have its own sourse... so if you arn't talking about just shared sources it would seem that there would be 4 sources involved... Gkeebler (talk) 03:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

A great question.

People do talk about "Source(s) unique to Luke" (L) and "Sources unique to Matthew" (M), resulting in a grand total of four sources. But "two-source-hypothesis" is the term used to describe the first step on the attempt to solving the problem-- that Matthew and Luke had "two sources" in common: Mark was one of them, and the other, Q, is "common source(s) that aren't Mark)".

Incidentally, it would be theoretically possible to accept the "two-source hypothesis" without also accepting the existence of sources L and M. Just posit the L are the parts of Q that only Luke quoted, M are the parts of Q that only Matthew quoted. Nobody actually believes that-- the L and M material is just too stylistically different from Q. But I just mention it to show that "four source" doesn't automatically flow from "two source"-- it requires one more step of logic. --Alecmconroy (talk) 04:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

finally gonna try to restarted a rewrite

Some polishing i've been meaning to do for a long time, but real life has interfered. Going to try to find the time to actually get it done now.

To do list

Just to organize my own thoughts, here are some subjects that need addressing between now and FAC.

• Did Paul or Mark or John have access to Q? (I know some people think Mark DID and they pull out some specific sayings in Mark as being Q-like).
• For that matter, did John the evangelist have access to Q?
• We need to characterize more the nature of Q, maybe with examples or something. I don't think the reader yet has a full idea of what Q is.
• Need to talk about the Q community-- what little there is to speak of.
• I know some people theorize Q itself has the fingerprints of multiple authors-- the so-called "Q Strata", but I'm not sure how notable or accepted this viewpoint is.
• And obviously, I or someone else needs to go through and source basically every sentence with inline cites. The article text is sort of "lazyily cited" as in, in the sense that if you read the books that are cited as sources, you would in fact find citations for the text that is here-- but I need to do better than that, once the article is further along.

More later --Alecmconroy (talk) 21:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Various issues

"It is a theoretical collection of Jesus' sayings" and "it appears to be a collection of Jesus' sayings and teachings" - What about the narrative elements and the sayings of John the Baptist?

Why do we have a relatively short "Introduction" section, after a stubby lead? Couldn't that information just be turned into the lead section?

This article needs to deal with how supporters of the two-source-hypothesis respond to the 'minor agreements', which is obviously the biggest problem for the theory. Q/Mark overlap and other arguments need to be addressed, and their mainstream acceptance assessed.

"no early church writer makes an unambiguous reference to a Q document." - Does anyone even make an ambiguous one? Are there any remotely plausible candidates anyone's put forward for the Q document, now that the Logia hypothesis is disfavored?

"Nicholas Perrin has argued that the Gospel of Thomas was based on Tatian's Gospel harmony the Diatessaron instead of the Q document" - What does this have to do with the rest of the article? Who thinks the Gospel of Thomas is based on Q?? -Silence (talk) 07:48, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Since I think it's a pretty sparse group editing this article right now, I'll take a stab at a reply.

• Lede-- I haven't even looked at yet. I always figure you can't really know what the lede should say until the rest of the article is very stabilized and polished. Since we're not there yet, I haven't bothered to put up an interim lede, but there's obviously plenty of room to improve on what we have here. Importing in text from the introduction, as you suggest, is good.

• I agree completely that one of the big gaping holes is the Q/Mark overlap. I just finished a book by Robert M. Price in which he talks about Mark using Q as if it were a given, but he doesn't really provide any argument for it-- I myself don't know just how accepted it is that Mark might have used Q (or even a proto-Q). Kloppenborg, who I think is more reputable, says "Scholars are very much divided on the issue of whether Mark knows the final form of Q". But again, I haven't seen the arguments firsthand.

• Kloppenborg has a nice discussion of the responses to the minor agreements, so we should definitely add that to the list of things to cover.

• As best I can tell, there simply aren't any explicit surviving references to Q. Says one site: "No reference to the document in early Christian writings has survived." [4]

• "The case against a common second source" section is a little weird at present. It seems like we are a little duty-bound to mention, somewhere in the article, that there is debate as to whether Q exists. That said, I feel like the best home for the full debate is over Two-Source Hypothesis, and this article is more about assuming, for the sake of argument, 2SH is true, and then seeing where that takes us. But, we do want to do that delicately, because we don't want to fly in the face of NPOV, so for the moment, I haven't tried to overhaul how best to present the argument for those who reject 2SH.

Great points all. --Alecmconroy (talk) 09:35, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

[5] and [6] both have information about some scholars theorizing Papias mentioned Q or something similar. However, most people think Q was in Greek, not Hebrew/Aramaic, so other scholars don't think Papias was referring to Q. May be worth mentioning though.-Andrew c ^[talk] 13:24, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Virgin Birth

Since Matthew and Luke both mention the Virgin Birth, but Q apparently did not, what was the origin or this story, since it does not appear in Mark? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.202.208 (talk) 10:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The best explanation I have is that people who lived prior to Matthew were not aware of the story of Jesus's virgin birth, whereas at least some christians living after the composition of Mark did know of the virgin birth.

• Paul, Mark, and Q do not make reference to the virgin birth, whereas Matthew and Luke do.

To figure out what kind of content or sources, written or otherwise, might have been used by Matthew and Luke, look at some of the things their birth narratives have in common:

• Jesus's birth was announced to one of his parents in a way that involved an angel
• Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but did not stay their long.
• Jesus's birth was the fulfillment of old testament prophecy
• Jesus was born of a virgin
• Jesus was a descendant of David, and this was definitely important.

Meanwhile, Matthew and Luke differ on a number of details that were potentially absent (or altered) in any source(s) they used:

• Which parent received the annunciation: Joseph or Mary?
• If Jesus was widely known to be from Nazareth, why was he born in Bethlehem? For Luke, there was a census, for Matthew there was the Massacre of Innocents and the flight to egypt.
• What exact old testament prophecies did Jesus's birth fulfill?
• How was Jesus a descendant of David? Both list genealogies, but the lists are different.

So, that's a very rough, original-researchish view of what sort of stories the two authors had in common, and what parts were absent (or changed). Given the lack of word-for-word commonalities in the virgin birth narratives, it's likely that whatever they had in common was oral tradition, rather than a common written document.

Where did the idea of the virgin birth come from?

• Maybe it really was factual, but was somehow, presumably miraculously, forgotten or not passed down until it was "rediscovered or revealed" sometime around 80 CE.
• Maybe stories from other religions got conflated with Jesus. The Mediterranean world was chock full of virgin birth stories for gods and heroes, so it makes sense that early Christians might assume the Jesus had to have been born of a virgin.
• Maybe people, convinced that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy, both looked to the old testament and both concluded that if a virgin birth had been prophesied, then obviously Jesus must have been born of a virgin.

Hope that helps. If anyone wants to try to incorporate all this into any articles, please try! :) --Alecmconroy (talk) 10:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Francesco Carotta

... has some interesting ideas about Biblical history ... interesting in a way that I think is the fringe of the fringe. There is thus a vote for deletion here. Those of you who are knowledgable and care about Biblical history, please check it out. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Crazy stuff! Goes to show that anyone can get an article up on Wikipedia and use all kinds of sophistry to defend it against common sense and almost all current scholarship.--Iacobus (talk) 04:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite needed

The more I read this article, the more obvious it is to me that its structure is flawed. At present it has the following structure:

1. The history of the Synoptic Problem
2. Brief and miscellaneous comments on the nature of Q
3. A section on Papias, which contains nothing about the Gospel of Thomas
4. Cases for and against a common source (which should be incorporated in the discussion on the Synoptic Problem and the formation of Q).
5. History of the scholarship on Q, with a lot of space devoted to Kloppenborg, and a large undigested quote criticising Klopp.
6. A brief list of some Q material in Matthew & Luke.

(Note that the above is my analysis of the structure, not the article's actual subheadings.)

Numbers 1 and 4 need to be combined. The focus needs to be on Q, and the solution to the Synoptic Problem (which is well presented in this article) can be left to that subject's article. Number 3 neesd to be incorporated elsewhere, withiout the block quote and more sumamrised (if at all). Number 5 needs to be incorporated thematically under other headings, because at the monent three areas of the article deal with the possible formation of Q. Number 6 can probably be retained. Number 2 needs a lot more content, like possible authorship, location, date, literary genres, themes and theology, historicity.

Perhaps the following structure? (following are suggested Wikipedia subheadings).

• Q and the Synoptic Gospels - details the formation of the Q hypothesis. The Synoptic Problem can be summarised in a shrot prargraph, perhaps using the great diagram which includes the Double tradition. Concentrates on why scholars thought there is a Q document.

• Origin of Q - questions of authorship, location of composition, date of composition, tradition behind Q, historicity of Q, purpse of Q, was it written or oral (the article is dogmatic that it was written, but there is scholarship to suggest its oral nature), why did Q not survive

• Characteristics of Q - literary genre, themes and theology of Q.

History of scholarship can be incorporated in all three, as Q is—in the absence of an actual manuscript—a scholarly construction. Subsections are probably appropriate for all three. Block quotes (Papias and Griffin) should be avoided as scholarly opinion should be summarised, and people are less likely to read long quotes. And the article needs many more inline citations.--Iacobus (talk) 04:29, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Yay! new blood. Most most welcome. Reading over this comment, all I can say is "Sounds good!".

Yes, things are a little messy here. Trying to remember what I was doing here when I got sidetracked-- I believe that "for and against arguments" is an older creation that should be absorbed and dropped into the earlier section.

The theory for including gospel of thomas and papias's mark is just to show the existence of sayings gospels like Q is theorized to be. But they don't need to be particularly long to make that point.

I too debated how much needed to be included on this page. On the one hand, maybe the article should be completely comprehensible without having to read any other articles. But on the other hand, maybe this article should be more of "one article in a series", where we pretty quickly summarized the synoptic problem with wikilinks and then got the focus onto Q. In the end, I never figured out where that line should go-- i just started writing and figured at some future point to figure out what information should go on which page(s).

So, I think you make some great points, I think this article has a lot of really interesting room to grow, and it could easily into one of wikipedia's best. Full speed ahead. --Alecmconroy (talk) 03:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

God bless her and all who sail in her!--Iacobus (talk) 23:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Weasel, NPOV,.Inestimable numbers?

"The synoptic gospels feature an enormous number of parallels between them." (emphasis added for emphasis)

The above statement should be removed or 'enormous number' replaced with "hundreds/dozens/a double handful/thousands/billions/117/2,093,000", or something more appropriate. An enormous number is incredbily vague for something like this. Glenn no last name (talk) 16:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can get verifiable number like hundreds/thousands because a biblical "parallel" is too ill defined. Some people would count the same basic story as one parallel, others look at similar sentences or even vocabulary.

But you're right-- enormous is a pretty intense word. Would "numerous parallels" be better? --Alecmconroy (talk) 18:34, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite

There is a general consensus that this article needs to be reworked. Most of the material is good, but the format, redundancy and piecemeal approach makes it hard to read. Also references are needed. - Ret.Prof (talk) 12:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge with Two-source hypothesis

The two articles heavily overlap. Either merge them or heavily rewrite both to make a single coherent non-overlapping exposition. Also keeping in mind the articles Synoptic problem and Synoptic Gospels. Otherwise the overall exposition of the whole topic of Synoptic Gospel looks rather chaotic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.69.71 (talk) 15:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose merge. The overlap is regrettable, but the Q document has a life of its own (note the many attempts at recreation) that are distinct from the Two Source Theory. Rewrite is a better solution and clarify the content goals of each page. Eusebeus (talk) 21:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose to merge. As Eusebeus has said, Q does have a life of its own. People treat it as an important source - it has a Christology; attempted reconstructions; startifications, etc. --Ari (talk) 10:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose to merge. I agree with Eusebius. 96.22.215.70 (talk) 02:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose: per Ari - Ret.Prof (talk) 01:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of Edits

Since some of my edits were just reversed, let me explain them here. I'm cleaning up the article slightly--it really needs to be entirely re-written--, rephrasing the description of some of the arguments which seem to me to be more caricatures, and removing references to non-academic non-peer-reviewed items that advocate fringe positions duly rejected by 99.99% of specialists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.2.240.165 (talk) 02:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I sympathise with this goal, but without explanations it is hard to verify you're not throwing away useful material. I always get nervous when references are deleted. Could you make smaller changes and then wait for a while to see if anyone objects? Martijn Meijering (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Q disambiguation page entry needed

This article needs to be added to the "Q" disambiguation page. 122.151.126.124 (talk) 23:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It only needs to be there once, and it is. Please see Q (disambiguation)#Other, second entry. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Like Analects?

I am reading Analects. While people have made a big fuss over this, it makes for terrible reading. I could not help but think of "Q". If it was like that, no wonder it "disappeared!" I would insert it as "See also" but have no WP:RS for even that minor contribution. Student7 (talk) 00:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

During the second century, when the canonizing process was taking place?

The canonization "processes" is sadly misunderstood by the person who made this statement. Canonization was the recognition of the books in circulation in the various churches. This is flawed logic. While they appear to be a RS, it doesn't pass the sniff test. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)