Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§7.4 The Sources
ments were known or unknown to the writers or recipients of each. 48 The life
and identity of any community of Jesus' earliest followers was unlikely to be
dependent solely on the written traditions it possessed, let alone a single document.
49 Thus, the absence of various themes from Q (e.g., purity issues, Torah)
50 should not be taken necessarily as evidence of the Q community's limited
concerns, but may rather indicate that Q does not represent the whole concerns
of the Q people.
Second, allied to the one document per community fallacy is a particularly
important argument from silence. The absence of indications that Q was influenced
by the Passion kerygma or narratives is taken by some to imply that the Q
community did not know either Passion kerygma or Passion stories and maintained
a Christology at odds with the Christology of the canonical Gospels. 51 Of
course it is incredible that there were groups in Galilee who cherished the memory
of Jesus' teaching but who either did not know or were unconcerned that Jesus had
been executed. In fact, Q does show awareness of Jesus' death. 52 So the argument
reduces to points in Q's collection where Q might have borrowed some element
from the Passion kerygma but consistently failed to do so 53 — an argumentum ex
silentio indeed. But there are different ways of presenting and understanding Jesus'
death in the NT writings; they are not mutually exclusive, nor do they testify
to ignorance of others. 54 It is well known, for example, that the evangelistic sermons
in Acts do not attribute a soteriological function to Jesus' death; 55 their pat-
48. Lindemann observes that Q belongs to a different Gattung from Mark, that is a
Gattung other than 'Gospel' ('Logienquelle Q' 13-17).
49. See further H. W. Attridge, 'Reflections on Research into Q\ Semeia 55 (1992) 223-
34 (here 228-29); D. C. Allison, The Jesus Tradition in Q (Harrisburg: Trinity, 1997) 43-46:
'The truth is that while Q may omit some things, it does not include anything really at odds
with what Matthew or Luke held dear' (45); 'We know for a fact that Q's authors believed in
much that Q does not tell us about' (46).
50. Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q 199.
51. Particularly Mack, Lost Gospel 4.
52. Kloppenborg Verbin cites Q 6.22-23; 13.34-35; 11.49-51; and 14.27 (Excavating Q
369-71). Cf. the fact that Q alludes to many more miracles (Q 7.22; 10.13; 11.20) than it actually
records (did Matt. 8.13/Luke 7.10 and Matt. 9.33/Luke 11.14 appear in Q?). Kloppenborg
suggests 'that the appeal to wonder-working would be largely irrelevant to the formative stratum
[of Q], since it is not concerned to defend a particular portrait of Jesus, but to promote an
ethic based on the providential care and loving surveillance of God' ('Sayings Gospel Q' 330).
One might simply observe that the limited purpose of a particular collection of Jesus' sayings
should not be taken as indication that this purpose encompassed the full extent of the concerns
and knowledge of Jesus tradition on the part of those who compiled or used the collection.
53. Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q 374.
54. Paul uses several metaphors, by no means all entirely consistent with each other (see
my Theology of Paul, chapter 9).
55. See, e.g., my Unity and Diversity 17-18.
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