Q Explained - Bart Ehrman

Jesus vs Paul: The Origins of a Religious Schism in Early Christianity | Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

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This course addresses one of the most controversial issues of early Christianity: Did Paul and Jesus have the same religion? Should they be considered the “co-founders” of Christianity? Or were the teachings of Paul at odds with the proclamations of Jesus, making Paul himself the founder of the new faith? Few questions can be more significant for understanding the origin of the Christian faith, and the answers are by no means simple.
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[comment]

Derek's demeanor has improved -- toned down the wise-guy attitude -- considerably more professional. Full frame shots of Bart help a lot ... Bart is the start of the show and should be the main focus for the camera.

[Ken_Scaletta]

I agree that Q is still the best explanation and no one has really been able to get rid of it. The minor agreements I think can be explained as belonging to an earlier version of Mark. Farrer proponents will typically rule that out based on a lack of manuscript evidence. but we don't have really anything but fragments before the 4th Century so manuscript evidence is non-existent either way. It's also possible that Luke had both Matthew and Q. I don't know why Farrer proponents never seem to consider this. It would be no more implausible than Luke having both Mark and Matthew, which Farrer requires. Why not throw Matthew's Q source on top of it? that would explain why Matthew rearranges the material and Luke doesn't. Luke is thought to better preserve Q, leaving it in blocks of sayings, while Matthew disassembles them and works them into narrative stories. I do not find it the least bit plausible that Luke took apart narrative stories and arranged quotes into block sayings, and he only does that for Matthew, not Mark? Can any precedent be shown for any other author doing this in antiquity? I don't buy it at all. I notice that objections to Q ironically seem to come entirely from either fundies or mythicists. Fundies because they don't like anything that contradictions their tradition (no matter how critically hopeless or even impossible) and mythicists because the existence of a prior sayings source attributed to Jesus is evidence for a historical Jesus. Both groups want to get rid of Q because it contradicts their larger paradigm.

It seems like largely a moot debate anyway unless the contention is that Matthew made up the q sayings himself. If Matthew made up the Q sayings, then Matthew is the author of the core teachings of Jesus (stuff like the Sermon on the Mount important stuff). If Matthew did not make up the sayings himself then he had a source. If Matthew had a source then there was a Quelle by definition and if Luke had access to a copy of such a source, then Luke having both Matthew and Q would explain every single thing with no holes or gaps.

[Spud-ir]

5:21 Luke rearranged some of the material he used from Matthew because he had a different thematic plan. Evidence for this is found in Luke's geographical and chronological markers. When he follows Matthew's sequence, he copies Matthew's markers, but when not following Matthew's sequence he doesn't copy them but uses more vague ones, such as 'one Sabbath, ...'

[goldenlover]

I can’t see why you’d want to eliminate the hypothetical source just because no copies exist. As they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Fascinating topic.

[djfrank]

I'm not convinced of Q. There are other lost documents, that scholars know existed even though they don't have any copies. Other sources wrote about them. Doesn't it seem likely there would be some mention of the Q document if it had once been in circulation?

[mattharrington]

Prof. Bart is always so good!! Thank you

[Spud-ir]

4:15 Matthew's birth narrative could have been added to Mathew after Luke was written, explaining why Luke's is so different.

[jonathandutra]

This is the same approach the F.B.I uses when sometimes trying to find a serial killer or criminal with very little evidence. They will create a "Hypothetical" person (Suspect) based on crimes that the unknown criminal has commited. This hypothesis should not be overlooked. Ive seen instances where they can pin point a criminal and have their hair color, eye color, ethnicity, height, weight, age, behaviors, occupation even. Just because its a hypothetical source reconstucted from certain sayings does not mean it didnt exist even if we dont have the particular manuscript "Q". Ive heard people say they dont think it existed before but i think they are wrong.

[gbfxtrader]

I think what accounts for the difference is that a person cannot be in all place at the same time. Also the degree to which a person might have originally interacted with the source of the information could account for variations. For instance one person being at the sermon on the mount verse hearing about the particulars of the said sermon from the person who was actually there after a time lapse of a few hours to a day. Proximity, clarity, memory all could account for the need to look at the others writings . It's a case of eyewitnesses of the eyewitnesses. Not in all cases but a complex mix of vary interaction with the source material. So to try and reproduce time, intensity, quality and accountability comparing writing was probably the best method they could come up with so as to account for gaps in memory

[ΑΝΤΩΝΗΣΣΜΥΡΝΙΟΣ]

I need an answer. How we know that the Q is a unified source and not two separate texts sources? I mean maybe the John sayings are a different source from the rest sayings, or the story of centurion is an independent story that Luke and Mathew included to their texts (?)

[heatwave]

Studies of christanity are still stuck in past when it was assumed gospel writers were just copy-pasting older texts, without redacting or amending them, nor including their own theological agenda. Why Luke is different to Matthew? Because it is composed in response to it with its own counter-theology and ideas. Goodacre hypothesis has much better explanatory power than invisible Q. Can Ehrman elaborate what these "huge" without Q problems are?

[Spud-ir]

6:10 because Luke wasn't using Mark

[drlegendre]

"Ancient scribes appear not to have had desks."

Ok, full stop - this is going to require some real explaining. A desk seems like a fairly straightforward requirement for a professional scribe. How & why did they do without one? Did other trades, for example, carpentry, do without workbenches?

[eximusic]

What other hypothetical sources are used in other areas of history?

[PadraigOConaire]

Mathew’s gospel was obviously written first, and then it all makes sense without having to fabricate an imaginary source.
The early church fathers all considered Mathew’s gospel to have been written first and it is the one mostly referred to by them.

[sukorileakbatt]

The Q as a Z-Axis Hypothesis introduces a profound rethinking of the Synoptic Problem by reframing the entire debate about textual relationships as a byproduct of our assumption of linear time. In this model, Q is not a historical document or source but a transcendent condition—a signal that exists outside the conventional X-Y axes of chronological cause and effect. This approach suggests that the similarities and differences between the Synoptic Gospels are not anomalies to be resolved but manifestations of a deeper, timeless pattern.

[travis]

I tend to think that the truth is a bit different - that Mark, Matthew, and Luke were edited several times with respect to each other, and each editor had their own theology, and felt free to do what they wanted with the text (including adding whatever story would make their point) and didn't care that much about the order. As for copying two books at once, I think people back then were a bit better able to commit things to memory out of necessity. They wouldn't copy word by word, more like paragraph by paragraph. Maybe they just liked how the story flowed in some orders better than others.

[shauntaylor]

The Q document is the ancient version of MAD magazine.

[gmatsonjr]

Why does Luke move around Matthew's material? If he hadn't, he would simply have been re-writing the Gospel of Matthew. Why bother reading Matthew II when you have already read Matthew I??

[chriswilcocks]

Ehrman puts it well but so does Goodacre. I cant make my mind up. Its actually impossible to prove unless a q document turns up. But a fascinating question.