As he announced on his blog yesterday, Kevin gave a little lecture on Q today in Bartchy’s undergrad class on the historical Jesus: “I suppose I should have posted this last week for the many out of towners who will surely want to fly in for this lecture.” So, it is for posterity’s sake that I would like to relay some of the topics he covered for the undergrads.

Actually, so that Kevin  gets mauled neither by the Q fanatics nor by members of the Q Liberation Front, I would like to emphasize that this was merely a wee taste of Q-studies goodness for the undergrads. I thought his lecture was an excellent (and energetic) introduction to what would otherwise be a boring topic for non-specialists.

First off, what is Q? Q is argued to be the second source used by Matthew and Luke in addition to Mark. It is a theoretical source, but based upon intriguing similarities between Matthew and Luke. Kevin introduced the discussion on Q by suggesting three categories of text parallels:

1. High Agreement: Here we have texts (shared by Matthew and Luke, but not Mark) that have a high degree of shared vocabulary and exact word order parallels.  Here he cited Luke 11:9-13 // Matthew 7:7-11.
2. Medium Agreement: In passages with less precise agreement between Matthew and Luke (minor vocabulary and word order differences), we may have evidence of Q, but it has been redacted (fancy word for edited) to meet the literary needs of the author (e.g., make the story more sophisticated, highlight overall themes from that Gospel, etc.).  His example was Luke 16:16 // Matthew 11:12-13.
3. Low Agreement: This is where things get sticky. This category would include shared stories with quite dissimilar wording. Here he cited Dunn’s work in Jesus Remembered, suggesting that these sorts of passages which are currently attributed to Q might be better attributed to oral tradition. So, a very high level of redaction is possible, but oral tradition could be a better option. Kevin shared two passages from Dunn: Luke 17:3-4 // Matthew 18:15, 21-22 and Luke 14:15-24 // Matthew 22:1-14.

Kevin mentions on his post, “As a teaser, in my lecture I will present the basics of Q and then discuss the possibility that Q as currently agreed upon may be both too short and too long.  How is that for an unusual statement.” In the lecture, Kevin pointed out the logic that if some of the passages currently attributed to Q may be better understood as oral tradition, then Q is too long. That is, putatively complete  “Q” documents constructed by teams of Q scholars (not that they all agree, mind you) may include too many sayings.

On the other hand, there may have been sayings in Q that did not make it into either Matthew or Luke. Luke only uses 55-60% of Mark, so even if he uses 80% of Q, then we’re still missing a big chunk. Therefore, Q is too short. That is, these scholarly reconstructions of Q are unable to include everything that Q originally contained.

It seemed like many of the undergrads were actually engaged in this mundane topic, which is a credit to Kevin’s excellent presentation style. My favorite question afterwards was a student who asked something to this effect: “So, is this process ongoing… like, if they found another Gospel, would they adjust what Q looks like?” It seemed he meant another first-century Gospel. My eyes shot wide open. “If they found another Gospel”? As Bartchy has said about other scholarly discoveries, this is the sort of thing that gives scholars orgasms. If we found another first-century Gospel, half the scholarly world would probably drop dead from excitement. Kevin simply noted for the student that if we found another Gospel, that document would not only have an effect on studies of Q, but would be worked on from every conceivable scholarly angle.

Great job, Kevin! Thanks for the excellent lecture.