THE ‘Q’ DOCUMENT
Source
Criticism, came with the ideas of Anglican bishop Herbert Marsh (1757-1839),
who presented the hypothesis that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were made up
from Mark’s shorter narrative, plus another document that nobody has ever seen,
nicknamed ‘Q’. (1)
Until then, the
popular opinion held the traditional belief that Matthew and John were the
original documents, whom later guided Mark and Luke into making their own
narratives, as it was taught by the first Christians for centuries (2). This
ancient theory gave authority to the narrative of the four gospels, as genuine
apostolic records. This, however, was later challenged by Reformed Christianity
and adopted later also by Catholics and Orthodox as valid hypothesis, since tradition
lacked any real historical evidence in favor of the original hypothesis.
THE
HYPOTHESIS OF ‘Q’
The hypothesis
of source ‘Q’, says that the common parts from the anonymous documents
attributed to Matthew and Luke, gathered all their information from the shorter
version attributed to Mark, which would be the source of all the common
narrative between them; but other parts that are only common to Matthew and
Luke, and not Mark; must have been taken from a ‘disappeared’ document called
‘Q’ , the initial letter in German for the word meaning ‘sayings’, which is
assumed to be a primitive written collection of the famous sayings of Lord
Jesus.
This document
has never been seen, and only exists in the minds of the investigators who
attribute an ancient written source to the copies we have today, specially
since we can clearly see an increase in the narrative of Matthew and Luke, in
contrast to the record of Mark (being Mark the shortest).
The source is
said to be the first written collection of Jesus’s sayings and miracles, that
were written based on oral tradition, and that were later adapted and inserted
into the main texts, in a coherent manner.
But this
presents certain problems:
1 – If this was
the primary source available, why is it apparently ignored by the author of
John?
2 – Why is not mentioned
by any of the church Fathers?
3 – What was the
source of this ‘Q’ document?
If this document
really existed, and the gospel of John as it is assumed, it is the latest one,
it should also include it in its narrative as an immediate source. Furthermore,
if John is truly the work of an apostle, then why it would vary from the
apparent ancient legacy of this original document? Unless the author of John
considered it apocryphal or never existed.
Considering the
value tradition has given to the standing canonical documents, by consequence,
the existence and value of this ancient document should have been known by the
ancient Christians, but it is not mentioned by any of the Fathers, or by Jerome
the translator of the Latin version.
CONCLUSION
The hypothesis
of the ‘Q’ document is still an interesting idea, specially since it is a fact
that the four gospels are anonymous. Certainly, whoever wrote these documents
must have had access to common source considered authoritative, whether one or
many, and if many, they must have had the same contain in all, or complement
each other.
This idea does
not attempt against the inspiration of Scripture; because even when it may be
born from tradition, all genuine Christian traditions ultimately end up in a
historical apostolic origin.
One of the core
beliefs of Christianity is the apostolic origin of the gospels we have today.
Even though we
know the four gospel texts we have today, are only copies of copies, we believe
these reflect what originally was passed on first-hand from the apostles to
their immediate assistants. There is not other way to grant total reliance on
the New Testament, saved the conviction to be the true records of first-hand
witnesses (Jn 19:35; 21:24; 1Jn 1:1-2; Heb 2:3; 2Pe 1:16), whose original
message has survived many copyists.
If they were
just a collection of ancient traditions without apostolic approval, the
teachings of Christianity would be subjected to doubt due the lack of first
hand sources, which eventually would give way to sectarism, unbelief, and final undermining
of our faith.
The ‘Q’ source
is an idea that has ground, but it lacks archeological proof to be considered
real.
What most
probably happened, is that some early original apostolic documents were passed
on to the churches, who in later generations made successive copies the best
they could based not on tradition, but on these hard-copy sources, and from
them all, we have come to have the versions we have this day, which by faith we
believe it contains the original message unadulterated to this day, but
expressed in different manners.
Omar Flores.
(1)
James
D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, 2003.
(2)
Eusebius,
History of the Church, 3.39.15.
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