4 ms·

I have been getting quite into this topic recently and this whole 'Q' theory more and more sounds like field hanging on to its older theories despite it not rea

I have been getting quite into this topic recently and this whole 'Q' theory more and more sounds like field hanging on to its older theories despite it not really making sense. I find it really hard to defend this view in my opinion. The idea that these text are just written in 1 go and depend on each other doesn't really make sense. There are different styles of writting and so on in these text. Its much more likely that there are multiple layers and that there are interdependent on each other between each of these. As the typical standard attack on Q, I suggest people look at 'The case against Q' by Mark Goodacre. And he makes the case that if you simply have Markan Priority you don't need Q. This made more sense to me then Q. However he still accept a traditional view of gospel creation and to some extent dating. A more 'radical' approach is being put forward currently by people who study Marcion and in general, the 'Apostolic Fathers'. One of the big problems with biblical scholarship is that 'Gospel' period and 'Apostolic Fathers' period were treated as two different things. So by how the field was split, it was clear that Gospels came before the time of the Apostolic Fathers (this was the standard view in Christian tradition). The problem however is that in terms of external evidence, there is no evidence for the gospel that goes back that far back. The first we have a clear external indication of these text existing with these names, is in the 170s. Lots of people we have text for, seem to either not know the texts, or not think its important. Both are quite strange if you assume they were in their final form before 100. You would assume that after that people constantly use them as references, but they don't. So once you overthrow out that 'traditional' view, and you just assume the gospels are just like many other writing in the second century and treat them no different, all of a sudden lots of things make a whole lot more sense. This reevaluates not just Marcion but also other early church figures like Ignatius. Markus Vinzent and his PhD student Jack Bull have nice youtube channel that you can check out: https://www.youtube.com/@Patristica https://www.youtube.com/@Patristica They work with Mark Bilby sometiems on using methods better then simple word counts and other traditional methods to try to understand the different layers in the text. He uses computational methods. See his work: > The First Gospel, the Gospel of the Poor: A New Reconstruction of Q and Resolution of the Synoptic Problem based on Marcion's Early Luke (Hard to read, but you can find videos of him explaining a lot it). His 'Q' is quite different from the traditional one. For those interested, the 'History Valley' youtube channel interviews a whole lot of different scholars with different points of view in the field on these topics. So if you want to get an overview on the different positions on Q, you can find all the different position on that channel.

Suppafly 2y ago
>The idea that these text are just written in 1 go and depend on each other doesn't really make sense. That seems an intentionally bad definition of what the theory actually is and markan priority makes little sense without another source since matthew and luke both contained shared content that doesn't come from mark. Q source theory basically incorporates markan priority, but markan priority doesn't stand on its own.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Read 'The case against Q' book. You don't need to invent a 'Q' if you simply assume Matthew copied from Mark/Luke or Luke from Mark/Matthew. That is actually a much simpler explanation and in the real world if you were a professor with students handing in their paper, you would assume a A>B>C relationship, rather then assume there was some unknown Q that you have no evidence for. To assume there is some Q that B and C shared, you would need a lot of evidence. But my large point that you quoted is that these didn't come about as a perfectly finished product to then be used by somebody else, rather there was continual rewriting before the text reached a final form.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >You don't need to invent a 'Q' if you simply assume Matthew copied from Mark/Luke or Luke from Mark/Matthew. I'm not a biblical scholar at all, but IIRC, the timelines of when those works were created doesn't support this idea, which is why the general consensus among actual biblical scholars is that there is some other work or works that the older two borrowed from. If the simpler explanation that you prefer actually made sense, they'd have never come up with the other theory. >But my large point that you quoted is that these didn't come about as a perfectly finished product to then be used by somebody else, rather there was continual rewriting before the text reached a final form. That seems mostly unrelated to the concept of whether or not the earlier books borrowed from a previous shared source or sources. Being handwavy about dates seems to be a common issue with people trying to work backwards to prove a point vs those that look at the available data to come up with a conclusion.

Suppafly 2y ago

>The idea that these text are just written in 1 go and depend on each other doesn't really make sense. That seems an intentionally bad definition of what the theory actually is and markan priority makes little sense without another source since matthew and luke both contained shared content that doesn't come from mark. Q source theory basically incorporates markan priority, but markan priority doesn't stand on its own.

panick21_ 2y ago
Read 'The case against Q' book. You don't need to invent a 'Q' if you simply assume Matthew copied from Mark/Luke or Luke from Mark/Matthew. That is actually a much simpler explanation and in the real world if you were a professor with students handing in their paper, you would assume a A>B>C relationship, rather then assume there was some unknown Q that you have no evidence for. To assume there is some Q that B and C shared, you would need a lot of evidence. But my large point that you quoted is that these didn't come about as a perfectly finished product to then be used by somebody else, rather there was continual rewriting before the text reached a final form.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >You don't need to invent a 'Q' if you simply assume Matthew copied from Mark/Luke or Luke from Mark/Matthew. I'm not a biblical scholar at all, but IIRC, the timelines of when those works were created doesn't support this idea, which is why the general consensus among actual biblical scholars is that there is some other work or works that the older two borrowed from. If the simpler explanation that you prefer actually made sense, they'd have never come up with the other theory. >But my large point that you quoted is that these didn't come about as a perfectly finished product to then be used by somebody else, rather there was continual rewriting before the text reached a final form. That seems mostly unrelated to the concept of whether or not the earlier books borrowed from a previous shared source or sources. Being handwavy about dates seems to be a common issue with people trying to work backwards to prove a point vs those that look at the available data to come up with a conclusion.