Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§7.4 The Sources
d. Date and Place
Given the imponderable uncertainties about Q itself, the questions of the date,
place, and reasons for its composition may be too much a matter of obscurum per
obscurius. The only real clarity is that Matthew and Luke used the document Q;
so any date prior to their composition (80-95) is technically possible. Hoffmann
and Kloppenborg date the final redaction of Q to about the final stages of the first
Jewish revolt or just after. 91 Allison notes that allusions have been detected to
certain Jewish 'sign prophets' known from Josephus (Catchpole, referring particularly
to Q 17.23-24), 92 suggesting a date sometime after 45; or to Caligula's attempt
to have a statue or bust of himself erected in the Jerusalem Temple
(Theissen, referring to Q 4.5-7), 93 suggesting a date subsequent to 39/40. And
Allison himself thinks his Q 1 probably appeared in the 30s, with final Q in the
40s or 50s. 94
As to Q's Sitz im Leben, the strongest case has undoubtedly been made for
Galilee. 95 The influence of Theissen (§4.6) is evident on those who see an early
collection of Q material (Q 1 ?) as providing guidance for itinerant missionaries. 96
91. P. Hoffmann, 'The Redaction of Q and the Son of Man', in Piper, ed., The Gospel behind
the Gospels 159-98; Kloppenborg, Excavating Q 80-87.
92. D. R. Catchpole, 'The Question of Q', Sewanee Theological Review 36 (1992) 3-44.
93. Theissen, The Gospels in Context 206-21.
94. Allison, Jesus Tradition 49-54; possibly in Aramaic (47-49, 62-66).
95. See particularly Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q chs. 4-5, and the impressive argument
of J. L. Reed, 'The Sayings Source Q in Galilee', Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus
170-96. But challenged now by M. Frenschkowski, 'Galiläa oder Jerusalem? Die
topographischen und politischen Hintergründe der Logienquelle', in Lindemann, ed., Sayings
Source Q 535-59. We will have to return to the question in vol. 2; for the present volume see
further below, §9.6b. It is curious that the indications of Q material's Galilean context should be
counted as good evidence for Q communities in Galilee, of which we know next to nothing, but
not as good evidence for Jesus' mission, whose Galilean context is undisputed.
96. Zeller, Mahnsprüche 192, 196-97; U. Luz, Matthäus (EKK 3 vols. so far; Zürich:
Benziger/Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1985, 1990, 1997) 1.371; L. Schottroff and W. Stegemann,
Jesus and the Hope of the Poor (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1986) 38, 47-49; R. Uro, Sheep
among the Wolves (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987) 241; Vaage, Galilean Upstarts
38-39; Allison, Jesus Tradition 30-32; J. D. Crossan, 'Itinerants and Householders in the
Earliest Jesus Movement', in W. E. Arnal and M. Desjardins, eds., Whose Historical Jesus?
(SCJ 7; Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University, 1997) 7-24. S. J. Patterson, The Gospel of
Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1993) chs. 5-6 argues that the 'wandering radicalism'
(Theissen) was preserved in the Gospel of Thomas by 'a group of Thomas itinerants' who 'wandered'
into Syria from Palestine (156-57); 'if in synoptic texts one must read the tradition
largely through the lens of "local sympathizers", in the Gospel of Thomas one reads it through
the lens of the "wandering charismatics'" (170). See the review of the discussion by W. E.
Arnal, Jesus and the Village Scribes (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) ch. 2, who subjects the hy-
159