Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§7.4 The Sources
7.4. Q
The attention given to Mark at the end of the nineteenth century is paralleled by
the amount of attention lavished on Q in the closing decades of the twentieth century.
Consequently we must pay particular attention to Q and to the issues raised
in recent discussions, not least because of Q's potential significance for any inquiry
into the mission and message of Jesus.
a. A Q Document?
The second conclusion of the two-document hypothesis has not achieved such an
overwhelming consensus among NT scholars, but still remains a persuasive
working hypothesis for the substantial majority. 28 The close verbal similarities
between many Matthean and Lukan, non-Markan, passages are difficult to explain
otherwise than on the hypothesis of literary dependence when the tradition
had already been put into Greek. 29 That Matthew and Luke drew at least these
passages independently from a Greek source Q continues to provide the best
working hypothesis; though it is also worthy of note that for some reason, the
only alternative offered has been that Luke drew his 'Q' material from Matthew,
with the possibility hardly considered that Luke was written prior to Matthew
and provided the source for Matthew's 'Q' material. 30
28. See particularly the arguments of Kloppenborg, Formation ch. 2; also Excavating Q
87-111; C. M. Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity (Edinburgh: Clark, 1996) ch. 1;
these include the unavoidable conclusion that Q was written in Greek (Formation 51-64; Excavating
Q 72-80; Q 83-92) and Kloppenborg's important restatement of the argument concerning
the order of Q (Formation 64-80). D. Catchpole, The Quest for Q (Edinburgh: Clark, 1993)
argues overall persuasively that in sixteen shared pericopes Luke has preserved the original
form (1-59). The International Q Project has now produced J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, and
J. S. Kloppenborg, eds., The Critical Edition of Q: Synopsis (Leuven: Peeters, 2000). For earlier
presentations see A. Polag, Fragmenta Q: Textheft zur Logienquelle (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1979), followed by I. Havener, Q: The Sayings of Jesus (Collegeville: Liturgical,
1987); J. S. Kloppenborg, Q Parallels: Synopsis, Critical Notes and Concordance (Sonoma:
Polebridge, 1988); Miller, ed., Complete Gospels 253-300.
29. The best examples are: Matt. 3.7-10, 12/Luke 3.7-9, 17; Matt. 6.24/Luke 16.13;
Matt. 6.25-33/Luke 12.22-31; Matt. 7.1-5/Luke 6.37-42; Matt. 7.7-1 I/Luke 11.9-13; Matt.
8.19-22/Luke 9.57b-60a; Matt. 11.2-11, 16-19/Luke 7.18-19, 22-28, 31-35; Matt. 11.21-27/
Luke 10.12-15, 21-22; Matt. 12.39-45/Luke 11.29-32, 24-26; Matt. 13.33/Luke 13.20-21;
Matt. 24.45-51/Luke 12.42-46.
30. Possibly a carry-over from the old assumption that the first Gospel was written by
one of Jesus' twelve disciples and that Luke, the author of the third Gospel, must have been
more remote from what he recorded. Or, more likely, the influence of Luke 1.1, indicating that
Luke was aware of 'many' predecessors. But Flusser is convinced that Luke is the oldest Gos-
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