Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §8.5
Luke from another) smacks of desperation, since the suggestion undermines the
arguments for the existence of a Q document in the first place. Similarly with the
suggestion that Matthew was free in his editing of Q (= Luke) or vice-versa. 254
Here once again the literary paradigm will simply not serve. These are all teachings
remembered as teachings of Jesus in the way that oral tradition preserves
such teaching: the character and emphasis of the saying is retained through stable
words and phrases, while the point is elaborated in ways the reteller judged appropriate
to the occasion.
e. Other Q/q Tradition
The picture is little different for traditions shared by Matthew and Luke elsewhere
in the record of Jesus' teaching. Once again there are passages where the
wording is so close that a literary dependence is the most obvious explanation. 255
But once again, too, there are parallel passages which simply cry out to be explained
in terms of the flexibility of oral tradition.
Matt. 10.34-38
34 Do not think that I came to bring
peace to the earth; I came not to bring peace, but a
sword.
35 For I came to set a
man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother.
and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man's
foes will be members of his own household.
37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
38 and he who does not
take up his cross and follow after me is not
worthy of me.
Luke 12.51-53; 14.26-27
12.51 Do you consider that I am here to give
peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather
division! 52 From now on five in one household
will be divided; three against two and two against
three 53 they will be divided, father against son
and son against father, mother against daughter
and daughter against mother, mother-in-law
against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law
against mother-in-law.
14.26 Whoever comes to me and does not hate
his father and mother, and wife and children, and
brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life,
cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not
carry his own cross and come after me cannot be
my disciple.
254. E.g., the reconstructions of Q by Polag, Fragmenta Q, seem to assume that sometimes
Luke, sometimes Matthew, has preserved Q; as a result he both masks the disparity between
the two versions and still leaves it a puzzle why either or both diverged from the written
text of Q. E.g., in the first case, on the usual literary redactional principles, it is more likely that
Luke 14.34a echoes Mark 9.50a than that Luke = Q.
255. Matt. 8.19b-22/Luke 9.57b-60a; Matt. 11.7-11, 16-19/Luke 7.24-28, 31-35; Matt.
11.25-27/Luke 10.21-22; Matt. 12.43-45/Luke 11.24-26; Matt. 23.37-39/Luke 13.34-35; Matt.
24.45-5 I/Luke 12.42-46.
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