4 ms·

I interned for a year with a public speaker who had five or six autobiographical stories he told regularly. I found it interesting that his stories ended up lik

I interned for a year with a public speaker who had five or six autobiographical stories he told regularly. I found it interesting that his stories ended up like how the gospels tell Jesus stories. His messages had a main point, but he spoke extemporaneously, so depending on what he had been saying before he got to the story, he would included different elements into the story. One of the last messages I heard, he incorporated a few pieces of context at the beginning that I had never heard him tell before, and although I had heard him tell that story multiple times by that point, it completely changed the meaning of the story. Not that it invalidated the previous tellings, but that bit of context made a big difference to the meaning of the story. The gospel stories read a lot like that. Jesus may have told the stories differently depending on the context, and/ or the writer may have told the story different depending on the points he was making with the story. Which is to say, I think it less likely that Q was written. Mark is generally said (by people who follow Christ, at least) to be summarized from Peter's messages. It seems likely that Matthew and Luke took from Mark as well as a shared source of apostolic teaching, especially since Luke claims to have researched these things, and at least several of the original disciples are traditionally said to have been preaching in the Greek-speaking areas of the Mediterranean.

jbaber 2y ago
This is a new-to-me and reasonable idea: that Q is the union of a collection of things.
- OkayPhysicist 2y ago
  In my theology courses (attended a Jesuit university, so had a couple mandatory semesters), this was presented as the common assumption in the field. The different books of the Gospels are different because they were pulling from different sources. Mark is assumed to be the oldest, since Luke, Matthew, and John all clearly had access to it. Luke and Matthew seem to be contemporaneous, several decades later than Mark, and thus had access to, on top of Mark, the evolving, partly oral, canon of information that formed within the first century and a half or so of Christianity. That's labeled "Q".
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    Crazy how the conclusion that is most convenient to conservative Christians is the one being relentlessly pushed in all christian associated universities. I can't imagine why this would be the case.
    - dormento 2y ago
      Well, its a Jesuit university. Jesuits are commonly thought to be liberal, controversial and fairly accommodating of other religious doctrine. I like this joke and think it exemplifies this a lot. A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit are doing archaeological research in the Holy Land and discover an unopened tomb from the early first century. After excavating it, they go inside and find a cross with a skeleton nailed to it and a sign above that reads "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews". Immediately the Franciscan says, "The Resurrection never happened! My whole life has been for nothing!" and runs out distraught. The Dominican says, "The Gospels are full of lies! My whole life has been for nothing!" and runs out distraught. The Jesuit looks at the skeleton and says, "Well what do you know, I guess He really did exist!"
rodric 2y ago
If Q is not a written source, the Q hypothesis falls apart. The point is to explain what Matthew and Luke (but not Mark) have in common, much of which is word-for-word the same. Whole sentences between them that are verbatim in the Greek point to literary dependence, not oral tradition.

jbaber 2y ago

This is a new-to-me and reasonable idea: that Q is the union of a collection of things.

OkayPhysicist 2y ago
In my theology courses (attended a Jesuit university, so had a couple mandatory semesters), this was presented as the common assumption in the field. The different books of the Gospels are different because they were pulling from different sources. Mark is assumed to be the oldest, since Luke, Matthew, and John all clearly had access to it. Luke and Matthew seem to be contemporaneous, several decades later than Mark, and thus had access to, on top of Mark, the evolving, partly oral, canon of information that formed within the first century and a half or so of Christianity. That's labeled "Q".
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Crazy how the conclusion that is most convenient to conservative Christians is the one being relentlessly pushed in all christian associated universities. I can't imagine why this would be the case.
  - dormento 2y ago
    Well, its a Jesuit university. Jesuits are commonly thought to be liberal, controversial and fairly accommodating of other religious doctrine. I like this joke and think it exemplifies this a lot. A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit are doing archaeological research in the Holy Land and discover an unopened tomb from the early first century. After excavating it, they go inside and find a cross with a skeleton nailed to it and a sign above that reads "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews". Immediately the Franciscan says, "The Resurrection never happened! My whole life has been for nothing!" and runs out distraught. The Dominican says, "The Gospels are full of lies! My whole life has been for nothing!" and runs out distraught. The Jesuit looks at the skeleton and says, "Well what do you know, I guess He really did exist!"

rodric 2y ago

If Q is not a written source, the Q hypothesis falls apart. The point is to explain what Matthew and Luke (but not Mark) have in common, much of which is word-for-word the same. Whole sentences between them that are verbatim in the Greek point to literary dependence, not oral tradition.