Finished a book on the book Q a few weeks ago, and forgot to tell y'all. like y were waiting. But a book on Q was the next bit of my religious education, and it went down ok. I guess. Of all that I have been reading these past few ... many months, this book was the least impressive. learned a bit, though. It'll help me fite the good fite.
So - what's Q? Backdrop: scholars took a long time - well, it took them 1800 years -to actually look closely @ the New Testament and conduct literature studies on them to try to figure much stuff out. Until then, most thought that the Gospels were written by followers of Christ (we think only John was, now, and sorta...) But 1800 years later... Quickly, modern bible theory has it that earliest writings still with us were St. Paul's letters, written in the late 40's through the 50's. The earliest gospel is - surely- Mark , and it was written sometime in the 60's - 65 is thought of as a best date. So, Mark doesn't have stuff on the Destruction of the Temple (where God lived, according to the ancient Jews), but both Matthew and Luke do. Matthew and Luke also comment on things in Mark, but mark doesn't comment on them. We believe that Matthew and Luke were written about 15-20 years later, and John later than that.
And by written down - these Gospels were @ first Oral tradition- then written down. of course, there are many many many different versions of these books - there is not one UR copy of Mark or Matthew etc etc etc or of any of Paul's letters. In fact, there are many differences. Bart Erhman, a specialist in this area (such a favourite author of mine - his is a real interesting story of a strict biblical upbringing, until he actually read the stuff carefully..... I do not know about you, but I feel finding out that it wasn't God who snapped her fingers and took over some old Palestinian's writing arm but rather human work - sure, divinely inspired, but isn't everything human--and surely these would be - to me, it makes these books and the wisdon i then even more holy) , writes that computers have yet to count the differences in the versions of old New Testaments. Because the different and separated early christian communities had their separate congregations and separate needs, different oral and written traditions were both needed and then handed down (why there FOUR Gospels - trust me, there were many that didn't make it).
So- Q. Again, Mark - the shortest of the Gospels, was always thought of as the weakest. Now that Scholars believe it to be the first, it has a lot of cachet. When the scholars looked @ Matthew and Luke, they saw almost all of Mark's stories in the later two gospels. Lots of the same stories. Usually in the same order. Usually, even, with the same terms and words. So, it is obvious to scholars ( well, not all scholars, but...)that it was Mark first and the other two cribbed lots of stuff from Mark.
Big However = both Luke and Matthew have tonnes of shit that Mark doesn't have. In fact, A LOT OF THE SHIT that the latter two had Mark simply didn't have. And to make it far more interesting, both Matthew and Luke have a lot in common - again, same stories and parables, in the same order, same words, etc etc etc... that lead to the theory that another book was used along w/ Mark by the authors of Matthew and Luke to write their books.
What book and where was it? It has never been found. But the theory goes that the book -called "Q" because the original werke was done by Germans, and Q is short of Quelle, or source. What kind of a book was it? They think that is was a collection of sayings and parables. Not in mark, but in both of the others, are such things that even non Christians are very familiar with :
The Beatitudes (Blessed are the ....)
Love your enemies (my favourite, if only I could follow it)
The Golden Rule (see above)
The Birds of Heaven and The Lilies in the Field
Judge not, lest ye be judged ( a deep favourite of Der Fuhrer - it's all about the judging in his world)
The Parable of the Lost Sheep (one sheep lost? Go looking for that lost one)
The Birds of Heaven and The Lilies in the Field
The Parable of the blind leading the blind
The Lord's Prayer
(for full list look for it)
But there are problems. First off, how come no one has found a Q? Well, we really haven't, but we also know that lots of stuff was lost. For example, the Nag Hammidi library and the Dead sea scrolls are examples of stuff hidden for almost 2,000 years and found. We also know that many of Paul's letters were lost - he references them in some of his extant letters, but never found. And the fact that they think Q is a book of sayings is ok - @ Nag Hammadi and elsewhere, there have been 'Gospels' of sayings found (Gospel of Thomas) . There are other theories of how the gospels were written. But I do enjoy this theory. And w/ my fetish for biblical scholarship - it's fading now, 14-15 months in, but still strong - the Theory of a "Q" source is really kool.
Oh - so this book? Ok. Not much more. I needed to read it. It was interesting in parts, and also parts confusing. It presents Q as a book that came to-gether in three different periods. How they figgered this - I mean, they haven't been able to ever find a copy of the book, so the authors claim that it has three distinct periods of growth are somewhat strange. The author feels that Q - in a phrase - was "...an early list of Jesus's instructions to his followers which were eclisped for reasons of emerging church hierarchy..." (in the book, not the exact quote)
So - what's Q? Backdrop: scholars took a long time - well, it took them 1800 years -to actually look closely @ the New Testament and conduct literature studies on them to try to figure much stuff out. Until then, most thought that the Gospels were written by followers of Christ (we think only John was, now, and sorta...) But 1800 years later... Quickly, modern bible theory has it that earliest writings still with us were St. Paul's letters, written in the late 40's through the 50's. The earliest gospel is - surely- Mark , and it was written sometime in the 60's - 65 is thought of as a best date. So, Mark doesn't have stuff on the Destruction of the Temple (where God lived, according to the ancient Jews), but both Matthew and Luke do. Matthew and Luke also comment on things in Mark, but mark doesn't comment on them. We believe that Matthew and Luke were written about 15-20 years later, and John later than that.
And by written down - these Gospels were @ first Oral tradition- then written down. of course, there are many many many different versions of these books - there is not one UR copy of Mark or Matthew etc etc etc or of any of Paul's letters. In fact, there are many differences. Bart Erhman, a specialist in this area (such a favourite author of mine - his is a real interesting story of a strict biblical upbringing, until he actually read the stuff carefully..... I do not know about you, but I feel finding out that it wasn't God who snapped her fingers and took over some old Palestinian's writing arm but rather human work - sure, divinely inspired, but isn't everything human--and surely these would be - to me, it makes these books and the wisdon i then even more holy) , writes that computers have yet to count the differences in the versions of old New Testaments. Because the different and separated early christian communities had their separate congregations and separate needs, different oral and written traditions were both needed and then handed down (why there FOUR Gospels - trust me, there were many that didn't make it).
So- Q. Again, Mark - the shortest of the Gospels, was always thought of as the weakest. Now that Scholars believe it to be the first, it has a lot of cachet. When the scholars looked @ Matthew and Luke, they saw almost all of Mark's stories in the later two gospels. Lots of the same stories. Usually in the same order. Usually, even, with the same terms and words. So, it is obvious to scholars ( well, not all scholars, but...)that it was Mark first and the other two cribbed lots of stuff from Mark.
Big However = both Luke and Matthew have tonnes of shit that Mark doesn't have. In fact, A LOT OF THE SHIT that the latter two had Mark simply didn't have. And to make it far more interesting, both Matthew and Luke have a lot in common - again, same stories and parables, in the same order, same words, etc etc etc... that lead to the theory that another book was used along w/ Mark by the authors of Matthew and Luke to write their books.
What book and where was it? It has never been found. But the theory goes that the book -called "Q" because the original werke was done by Germans, and Q is short of Quelle, or source. What kind of a book was it? They think that is was a collection of sayings and parables. Not in mark, but in both of the others, are such things that even non Christians are very familiar with :
The Beatitudes (Blessed are the ....)
Love your enemies (my favourite, if only I could follow it)
The Golden Rule (see above)
The Birds of Heaven and The Lilies in the Field
Judge not, lest ye be judged ( a deep favourite of Der Fuhrer - it's all about the judging in his world)
The Parable of the Lost Sheep (one sheep lost? Go looking for that lost one)
The Birds of Heaven and The Lilies in the Field
The Parable of the blind leading the blind
The Lord's Prayer
(for full list look for it)
But there are problems. First off, how come no one has found a Q? Well, we really haven't, but we also know that lots of stuff was lost. For example, the Nag Hammidi library and the Dead sea scrolls are examples of stuff hidden for almost 2,000 years and found. We also know that many of Paul's letters were lost - he references them in some of his extant letters, but never found. And the fact that they think Q is a book of sayings is ok - @ Nag Hammadi and elsewhere, there have been 'Gospels' of sayings found (Gospel of Thomas) . There are other theories of how the gospels were written. But I do enjoy this theory. And w/ my fetish for biblical scholarship - it's fading now, 14-15 months in, but still strong - the Theory of a "Q" source is really kool.
Oh - so this book? Ok. Not much more. I needed to read it. It was interesting in parts, and also parts confusing. It presents Q as a book that came to-gether in three different periods. How they figgered this - I mean, they haven't been able to ever find a copy of the book, so the authors claim that it has three distinct periods of growth are somewhat strange. The author feels that Q - in a phrase - was "...an early list of Jesus's instructions to his followers which were eclisped for reasons of emerging church hierarchy..." (in the book, not the exact quote)
However, the author feels that the first phase of Q was deeply influenced by the Greek Cynic Tradition - and if you look @ a lot of the sayings and context, the author makes a good argument. Seems these ideas were in heavy vogue @ the time. The second phase of Q was to change into a book for a movement - or an emerging religion. The last phase treats the emerging movement into a religion - Jesus as Son Of God, etc etc etc... Again, i'm @ a loss as to how they actually figured out the three phases, but it made for interesting...well, as time went on, it became less and less interesting reading - but it was good. Well, good enough. I guess.
1 comment:
the scholars had it wrong. Look in the Palstinian desesrt near a rock fifteen aces from a well that mozbo drank from.....dig down 45 paces, and there you will find whatb I actually dicated to human scribes. And yes, it was in greek, although i can speak any language.
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