The “Q Document” Hypothesis Revision

States and Dates BURTON MACK – four successive states of Q : protoQ1, Q1, protoQ2, Q2 Q1 presents Jesus as a wise teacher Q2 Jesus is apocalyptic & prophetic Q3 Jesus is superhuman (developed after the Jewish war (70) Q now included statements about Jesus being divine).

History of Q Hypothesis Friedrich Schleiermacher gave impetus to the idea when interpreting an earlier statement about Matthew compiling the sayings of Jesus. Schleiermacher decided that a document existed containing Jesus’ sayings, not both what he said and did.

Evaluation No documentary evidence/No shred/No manuscript. No reference made by any church father to such a source. According to Linnemann – identical words between texts can be accounted for by oral culture in Jesus’ day.

Boyd: Assumptions Boyd argues that Q is based on an incredible number of assumptions (see worksheet). Boyd’s summary “the basis of Q amounts to nothing more than a pile of arbitrary assumptions built on other arbitrary assumptions”.

Conclusions ? “The Gospels report the words and deeds of Jesus. They do this partly through direct eyewitnesses (Matthew and John) and partly through those who were informed by eyewitnesses (Mark and Luke). The similarities as well as the differences in the Gospel accounts are just what one expects from eyewitness reminiscence”.