4 ms·

Q is a not a figure, but a document or a number of documents. It could have been written by a single figure, or compiled by many individuals. What is interesti

by NeoTar 3y ago

Q is a not a figure, but a document or a number of documents. It could have been written by a single figure, or compiled by many individuals. What is interesting is that is appears to be a book of quotations, rather than a narrative - so Matthew and Luke agree more than expected when directly quoting Jesus. At the time the theory was proposed we hadn't discovered any gospels like this, but now at least one such book of Jesus quotations has been found.

Jedd 3y ago
I had a look around for this recently discovered book, but can't find references -- can you point me towards some please, it'd be fascinating to read the contents / context.
- spacebacon 3y ago
  I can’t find anything either. Q is probably an aggregate of the best creative free form half truth conspiracy writings that one was able to gather from various internet sources mixed with a garden variety of new age mystical belief and a dash of pure fn magic.
  - djur 3y ago
    I think you're talking about a different Q. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
    - spacebacon 3y ago
      Yes, good to know that one isn’t the mainstream.
  - angiosperm 3y ago
    The best current scholarship is that there was no such thing as a "Q", and that what is in Luke and Matthew but not in Mark, the author of Luke just cribbed directly from Matthew. "Q", like "oral traditions", Docetism, and Gnosticism, turns out to be a fever dream of "biblical scholars" working before sound textual analysis had been invented.
- NeoTar 3y ago
  'Recent' needs to be interpreted in biblical terms - the book I was thinking of is the Gosple of Thomas - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas - discovered in 1945 (the 'Q' hypothesis having been made around 1900).
  - Jedd 3y ago
    Okay, Thomas - lots of dispute about when it was written, and the anthology style makes timing even harder to determine, while increasing the chance it was modified over the centuries. I recalled something about the intrigue over some parchments from this collection, and found this recent story [0] about the alleged illegal sale, recovery, translation efforts, and (this year) publication of some fragments. One of the researchers is quoted in that article with a 'This is not Q' statement. [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/scholars-publish-new-papyrus-with-early-sayings-of-jesus https://www.thedailybeast.com/scholars-publish-new-papyrus-w...
    - NeoTar 3y ago
      Yes - before I go on, please note this is not my area of expertise, but just something I am interested in. I haven't seen anywhere which suggests that Thomas is Q, but to me if a book of biblical quotations is hypothesised when none has previously been found, and forty-five years later a book of biblical quotations is discovered (which, despite uncertainty about its timing, certainly dates to at least a millennium before the hypothesis) that lends some weight to the hypothesis. Of course, given my general ignorance in this area, perhaps books of quotations from this time are common, and hypothesising the existence of one is like hypothesising the existing of a website for a popular TV show in 2023 (i.e. a meaningless proposition).
      - Jedd 3y ago
        No, that sounds fairly reasonable - not necessarily the 'hypothesised and then discovered, therefore credible' (that may be survivorship bias), but certainly the potential for that document to be 'Q'. Given 'Q source' (tautology, forgive me) was a conceptual construct to try to explain a part of the synoptic problem, there's no reason to believe it was necessarily a single document in the modern sense, or that earlier versions (that we don't have) may be subsets of things we actually subsequently got our hands on.

by NeoTar 3y ago

Jedd 3y ago

I had a look around for this recently discovered book, but can't find references -- can you point me towards some please, it'd be fascinating to read the contents / context.

spacebacon 3y ago
I can’t find anything either. Q is probably an aggregate of the best creative free form half truth conspiracy writings that one was able to gather from various internet sources mixed with a garden variety of new age mystical belief and a dash of pure fn magic.
- djur 3y ago
  I think you're talking about a different Q. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
  - spacebacon 3y ago
    Yes, good to know that one isn’t the mainstream.
- angiosperm 3y ago
  The best current scholarship is that there was no such thing as a "Q", and that what is in Luke and Matthew but not in Mark, the author of Luke just cribbed directly from Matthew. "Q", like "oral traditions", Docetism, and Gnosticism, turns out to be a fever dream of "biblical scholars" working before sound textual analysis had been invented.
NeoTar 3y ago
'Recent' needs to be interpreted in biblical terms - the book I was thinking of is the Gosple of Thomas - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas - discovered in 1945 (the 'Q' hypothesis having been made around 1900).
- Jedd 3y ago
  Okay, Thomas - lots of dispute about when it was written, and the anthology style makes timing even harder to determine, while increasing the chance it was modified over the centuries. I recalled something about the intrigue over some parchments from this collection, and found this recent story [0] about the alleged illegal sale, recovery, translation efforts, and (this year) publication of some fragments. One of the researchers is quoted in that article with a 'This is not Q' statement. [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/scholars-publish-new-papyrus-with-early-sayings-of-jesus https://www.thedailybeast.com/scholars-publish-new-papyrus-w...
  - NeoTar 3y ago
    Yes - before I go on, please note this is not my area of expertise, but just something I am interested in. I haven't seen anywhere which suggests that Thomas is Q, but to me if a book of biblical quotations is hypothesised when none has previously been found, and forty-five years later a book of biblical quotations is discovered (which, despite uncertainty about its timing, certainly dates to at least a millennium before the hypothesis) that lends some weight to the hypothesis. Of course, given my general ignorance in this area, perhaps books of quotations from this time are common, and hypothesising the existence of one is like hypothesising the existing of a website for a popular TV show in 2023 (i.e. a meaningless proposition).
    - Jedd 3y ago
      No, that sounds fairly reasonable - not necessarily the 'hypothesised and then discovered, therefore credible' (that may be survivorship bias), but certainly the potential for that document to be 'Q'. Given 'Q source' (tautology, forgive me) was a conceptual construct to try to explain a part of the synoptic problem, there's no reason to believe it was necessarily a single document in the modern sense, or that earlier versions (that we don't have) may be subsets of things we actually subsequently got our hands on.