The Q Gospel (c. AD 50) or Q document is where Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, “the weeping and gnashing of teeth” and about a fourth of the gospels of Matthew and Luke come from. It was written in Greek, probably about 20 years after Jesus died on the cross. That makes it one of the earliest things written about Jesus.
No copies of Q have been found, but scholars can piece together at least part of it. By carefully comparing the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, most scholars believe that Luke and Matthew took 40% or so of their verses from Mark and about 25% from an unknown source, called Quelle, German for “source”, Q for short.
The wording and order of the Q verses in Luke and Matthew are so alike that Q was most likely a single written work, not an oral tradition, one that was written in Greek, the same language that Luke and Matthew use.
Papias of Hierapolis, in the year 125 or so, said:
“Matthew compiled the Sayings [of Jesus] in the Aramaic language and everyone translated them as well as he could.”
Aramaic was the old language of Babylon, the language Jesus mainly spoke.
Q is mostly made up of sayings, but it is probably not the Sayings that Papias had in mind: Q does not appear to be a translation. The writing style is too Greek. Some of its sayings do, though, rhyme when put into Aramaic.
Q may have been an ordinary gospel, not a sayings gospel: because Luke took his plot from Mark, he only needed Q for its sayings. Matthew may have more of Q, but the only verses we can be sure of are those that closely match Luke.
Jesus according to Q:
- Baptized by John the Baptist.
- Teaches in parables and sayings, mainly to poor country people near the Sea of Galilee.
- Talks about the Kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit, calls himself the Son of Man and all but says he is the Son of God.
- Has disciples but none are named.
- Condemns the Pharisees (but not the scribes).
- Casts out demons.
- Works miracles, but only one particular miracle is recorded (the centurion’s son in Luke 7:1-9).
- Will come back on Judgement Day.
There is no Virgin Birth, no Crucifixion, no Resurrection. But then again, even in the gospels we do have, very little of that content makes it into the sayings themselves.
Q was probably written in the 40s or 50s: earlier than Luke and Matthew, probably earlier than Mark, but not all that much earlier than the letters of Paul. Paul, unlike what we have of Q, talks about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and rising from the dead.
Some scholars, like Burton L. Mack, say that Q was written in stages and try to work out which parts were written first, wanting to discover the Jesus of history, not the Jesus of religious myth. But they cannot agree on which parts, if any, came first.
– Abagond, 2014.
See also:
- The text of Q – or what we know of it
- Jesus Christ
- Saint Luke
- Bible
- New Testament canon
- Signs Gospel – another reconstructed gospel
- languages
- Reading Burton L. Mack
- Jesus Seminar
Most likely, the Q Gospel was notes of Jesus’ sermons written down verbatim by the apostle Matthew during his travels together with Jesus and the rest of apostles. As former tax collector, Mathew was well familiar with the art of stenography. Soon after Jesus’ death (some 33-36 AD), he apparently wrote his notes in readable form and published among apostles and believers.
The next of NT books to be composed was the Gospel of Mark(43-45), during one of his travel the apostle Peter hired Marcus, a believing youth from one of Asia Minor cities. From the words of Peter, Marcus composed the first account of Jesus deeds.
In the beginning of 50ies, when the Gospel of Mark and Q(Matthew’s notes) were already well known in Christian communities, some people in one of Jedeo-Christian community came upon idea to conflate Mark with Q and so produce a new narrative source on Jesus. It was called “Gospel of Matthew” because it was largely based on Mathhew’s notes, even if Matthew was not its author.
About 58, Lucas, a companion of st. Paul in some of his travels, was asled by Theophilus, a high Roman official, who recently converted to Christianity, asked Lucas to send him an account of Jesus words and deeds. Lucas knew the Gospels of Mark and Mathhew, yet the former was deemed by him too short, while the latter had some Jewish overtones, not suitable for strangthening the faith of a former pagan. So Lucas decided to write his own Gospel. Before doing that he spoke with available witnesses, including apostles and Jesus’ mother Mary. Later(60-63) Lukas also wrote the Acts of Apostles as the second part of his book.
And lastly John. In 68, when he was the only living apostle left, seeing that Mk, Mt, Lk had some imperfections – they had not described some historical facts which had taken place in Christ’s being in Judea, had got wrong some important details, John decided to write his own Gospel. He did not repeat the most of material that alrady were in 3 preceding Gospels, but he included many passages what Jesus had spoken in the narrow circle of disciples(while Mk, Mt and Lk retold mostly only what Jesus spoke publicly “in parables”). He also created a new theological concept of the personality of Jesus – as a true metaphysical Being, as the Holy Word “who in the beginning was already with God, and through whom Gos has created all things”.
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Since Q was notes of the apostle Matthew where he recorded speeches and sermons of Jesus, it is not surprising that it says nothing or very little about about the nativity of Jesus or about his crucifixion or about his miracles.
Concerning Luke the guess one of the clues when he wrote his Gospel would be the fact that he interviewed witnesses and especially that he interviewed Mary the Mother of Jesus – in Lk 1 and 2 there are so many details that could be know only to Mary, and very unlikely to be know by anyone else. Now id we assume that Mary was about 14-15 when she became fiancee to Joseph, that he bore Jesus being 15, and that Jesus was born 5 BCE, before the death of Herodes, then we get that in 58-60 AD mary had 78 years 15+5+58. It is quite possible that a woman in her late 70-ies could have good memory, but it is impossible that she lived still longer to warrant the date of LK writin after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70.
Another interesting issue – why Luke mentions nothing about the visit of Magi, it seems that this visit make quite an uproar in Jerusalem. The answer is simple – the Magi were Zoroastrian priests who came prom Parthia(Iran), then the archenemy of Rome. And do not forget that Luke wrote for a high Roman official! To write him that Jesus at birth was visited by enemies of Rome and anointed for reign would have been a political provation – instead of reinforcing the faith of Theophilus, such message would have destroyed it. However, omitting the visit of Magi, Luke had to omit many other things – the flight to Egypt, the fact that Mary and Joseph had a property in Bethlehem and lived there for a longer time etc.
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Abagond: How are ya doin, brotha? ^_^
I have a request. I am not sure if you have written a article about this subject but i will suggested it just in case you haven’t.
A post about Jesus being depicted as a white man with blue eyes and straight hair, despite him being born in a region, where the people that he was related too and lived among, were not white.
The closest thing to this subject that you have wrote was about that Fox news hostess, “kelly” something, saying that Santa Claus and Jesus was white.
Thanks in advance. ^_^
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I didn’t know you were into religious topics, Abagond.
Now i know.
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It is 99.9 percent(or even 100.1 percent) certain that Jesus looked more or less like any ordinary Jew or other Mediteranian person would look out – a darkish, with black hair, perhaps not too tall. Of course there were some Greek or Macedonian colonists in the region but obviously Jesus was not one of them. Even these Greeks and Macedonians(who anyway had intermarried with local women) would not look like Jesus is depicted in the Western iconography.
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gatobranco1:
“would not look like Jesus is depicted in the Western iconography.”
Thanks for the comment, friend.
I would like for abagond to expound on the reasoning behind the white washing of the Christ and its continued influence, via white supremacy.
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@ sondis
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Thanks abagond…
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Discussion of the Q Gospel is to the Bible as pulling on a loose thread is to a sweater. Once you start pulling the whole thing unwinds.
If you’re interested in the historical Jesus, the development of Christianity as a religion and a discussion about who wrote the Bible (not the apostles), when and how much is based on historical facts versus creating a narrative that elevates Jesus to deity status – I recommend the recently released: Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. You can find it at your local library, and its free.
It’s a fantastic book that includes discussion of the Q Gospel. It is not a book for anyone not up to a challenge to their faith, but it is respectful while critical. Also, it’s an easy read, not written for a college course but for the average casual history reader. I read it in a few sittings and was never bored.
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Mark Gospel was written by Mark(not an apostle) but from the words of the apostle Peter. Matthew Gospel was writen probably not by an apostle(its author or composer is anonymous), yet this person used the notes of the apostle Matthew. The Luke Gospel was written by Luke(not apostle), a companion of Paul in some of his travels(not really an apostle since he did not know Jesus while the latter living). However Luke interviewed apostles and other witnesses before writing a Gospel. Only the Gospel of John was written by an apostle himself.
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Why is the historical/human Jesus important? I am not a Christian…but from what little I understand about Christianity, Jesus is God and God’s existence is an a priori presumption for those of that faith….?…..
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Christians think that the metaphysical nature of Jesus could not be seen otherwise than through his human form, through his human words and deeds, that’s why they find historical/human Jesus so important. Secondly, Christianity sees itself as a historical religion, as the successor of Judaism the history of which started with Moses on Sinai Mountain and was carried on through ages by Jewish prophets whose series culminated in Jesus. The New Testament is seen as the fulfillement of the Old Testament.
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@biggiefriez
I heard about the Aslan book. Thanks for the recommendation.
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@ gatobranco1
1. As far as I know, there is nothing in Luke’s text that shows he had a copy of Matthew.
2. The Didache quotes from Matthew but never any of the Mark verses. That seems to suggest that either Q was much bigger than what we can reconstruct or that Mark was added to Matthew at a late stage.
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@ abagond
1. Obviously Luke does not show his sources at footnotes as modern authors do:) If he taken something from Matthew he had all reasons to disguise this fact rather than publicize it, since anyway Matthew was a text with strong Judaic overtones, written by the people who believed that new believers in Jesus shall become a part of the Israeli people, be circumcised and fulfill all Mosaic comandmends. Luke, on the contrary, wanted to write a text appealing to pagans. I would suppose Luke had the Gospel of Matthew(written by an anonymous Judeo-Christian before his eyes as well as he has the notes of Matthew(Q), but I do not think that he quoted verbatim from Mt albeit he may have paraphrase some places of Mt. Their goals were just too different. Mt wanted to show Jesus as a new Moses speaking from the Mountain, Lk wanted to show Jesus as an universal Savior sent both for Jews and for Pagans.
2. The fact that Didache quoted from Matthew and not Mark is immaterial in deciding which text, Mk or Mt was the first to appear. The simplest reason can be the the authors of Didache had only the Matthew text, that they belonged to a Christian sect/group which used Matthew Gospel but not Mark, or simply that they found more useful the Mt as more comprehensive etc.
Early Christian communities did not yet have the idea that four and only four Gospels are canonical. Most probably they did not even consider Gospels and other Christian writings as scripture, only as pious literature. They continued to rearg the OT as the only scripture. The first to formulate the idea of the NT canon was Markion( edited version of LK + Pauline letters) in about 130-140 AD. He also rejected the OT. Markion pushed the Pauline antijudaism to its extreme. If for Paul, the Mosaic law was only imperfect and unable to bring salvation but only made the sin to “appear more sinful”, for Markion the author of OT was the “evil God” of Jews, the opposite of the ‘good Father” of the Jesus Christ. The protoorthodox reafirmed the Old Testament and they took the decision to elaborate a more comprehensive NT canon. the idea about 4 Gospels as canonical was formulated by Ireneus(2nd half of 2nd century AD). Ireneus is known as a fierce criticist of the sect of Valentinians which also was made up from radically understood Pauline doctrines. The proto-orthodox group fully incorporated the Pauline teachings but gave them a much less radical twist
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@abagond
[Q is mostly made up of sayings, but it is probably not the Sayings that Papias had in mind: Q does not appear to be a translation. The writing style is too Greek. Some of its sayings do, though, rhyme when put into Aramaic.]
A little bit too far-fatched guesswork. If we not even have the extant text of a source, but only another texts which apparently quote from that missing source, all the conjectures whether this missing source was a translation or not, seem somewhat ridiculous:)
Even if we had the of Q at hand, determining whether it was writen in Greek or translated from Aramaic would be next to impossible. A Greek text writen originally in Greek can contain numerous Aramaisms, because his author was an Aramaic first-language speaker with only a weak knowledge of Greek, and vice versa, a text translated from Aramaic may look as an excellent original Greek text because its translator was an excellent Greek language stylist.
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@ abagond
[Q is mostly made up of sayings, but it is probably not the Sayings that Papias had in mind: Q does not appear to be a translation. The writing style is too Greek.]
One more comment about this. The Biblicist whom you quote probably did not understand the full implication of his own words. In any case, Q contained mostly the sayings of Jesus(with other materials or without). To claim that it was written in Greek originally would mean that the anonymous authors of Q did nothing less or more but concocted and falsified Jesus’ sayings. Jesus as it is universally admitted did not preach in Greek. Therefore Jesus’ sayings which were “originally” writen in Greek would be not his sayings could be nothing as a fake, or at the best a loose recounting of what Jesus said. I think apostles and Gospel authors had more serious attitude to Jesus’ words as this would suggest.
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