Thoughts about the "Q" Hypothesis

One of the many questions people ask about the New Testament books is, who wrote them, and when? Scholars have worked on these questions for centuries, and in so doing many of them came to conclude that both Matthew and Luke seem to have derived some of their material from an outside source that has since been lost. Evidence for this theoretical document, called "Q", is based primarily on the existence of passages in both Luke and Matthew that are essentially identical, that clearly did not come from Mark. Both Matthew and Luke seem to have used Mark as a source since both have cited or quoted Mark in their texts. Thus, the notion exists that there were two primary sources, Mark and Q, for the two gospels Matthew and Luke, and it's quite possible that neither Matthew nor Luke knew of each other's writings.

Q has taken on a life of its own in scholarly circles, with some scholars, usually those more apt to favor the traditional belief that the authors wrote as eyewitnesses, disagreeing with the notion that a "Q" text existed, and those less favorable to the traditional position thinking "Q" makes a lot of sense in explaining the existence of passages in Luke and Matthew that are nearly identical to one another.

But then you will often hear the detractors of "Q" saying that it takes a lot of faith to believe in a text like "Q" for which there is no evidence.

In answer to that, I think it's fair to say you need to be open to speculation, but not necessarily faith. "Faith" means you accept that "Q" exists because scholars say so. You have "faith" in the scholars, so you accept without question. "Speculation", on the other hand, means you consider what the scholars say in their own speculations, consider what they say as plausible, and say "gee, maybe there's a 'Q' document. It would be cool if they ever find a copy." And you leave it at that.

Scholars, and most lay people (I think), 'speculate' that there might be a document that we know of as "Q". Sure, some people accept it on "faith" and insist that 'Q' exists, but really, most scholars consider it a matter of speculation for now, until further verification comes forth.

"Q" could be defined as -- those portions of Matthew and Luke that are nearly identical that are not found in Mark. In the same way "Mark" could be defined as those portions in Matthew and Mark that are nearly identical, and those portions in Luke and Mark that are nearly identical, and a couple of instances where all three share nearly identical passages. Markan primacy is more or less established by this pattern. Both Matt and Luke have passages that seem derived from Mark, and each author chose different items to use as sources.

So "Q" and "Mark" are essentially treated as the same sort of thing in this theory--sources to the later works, Matthew and Luke. "Q" is, like I said, those passages that are identical in Matthew and Luke that are nearly identical, suggesting they probably came from a source that both knew of, but [I]not [/I]Mark, since the passages don't appear in Mark.

Now, why not simply decide that one of the two is a source to the other? This would eliminate the "need" for "Q" as an explanation for the similarities in Matthew and Luke. If Luke had access to Matthew it would make sense that some passages in Luke would be nearly identical to Matthew. Some scholars have argued for "Matthean" primacy for this reason--it seems to sharpen Occam's razor a bit if we can simply eliminate a document whose only reason for existence seems to be to explain the existence of these nearly identical passages in Matthew and Luke. As far as we know there is absolutely no reference to a document that resembles "Q" in any ancient source, which is, after all, quite a difficulty to overcome.

The difficulty is this--Matthew and Luke appear to have been written by two authors who did not know of one another's efforts, probably because they were written at around the same time (Scholars usually set their date of writing within 10 years of the year 80 ce), but probably in different locations, far apart enough that each writer was unaware that another writer was holed away somewhere putting down a relatively similar work. One reason to think they weren't aware of one another's efforts is that some passages are vastly different, especially the nativity accounts and the resurrection accounts. This suggests that each writer relied on quite different sources for much of their material.

Yet, both writers have these identical passages, suggesting that they used a common written source. And here's where the difficulty arises. If they were so far apart, and if their other sources seem to be so different, then how did they each come to rely so much on a written source that seems to have also been widely dispersed geographically? In other words, for both of them to have "Q" suggests that "Q" was widely travelled and widely respected by divergent Christian groups with divergent oral traditions--"Q" would have been equal to Mark in the eyes of its contemporaries.

If that's the case, then where did "Q" go? One book, Mark, gets copied and maintained, and survives into the second century. Another work, equally respected, with equal reverence for Christ, gets pushed aside and forgotten other than its use by two different authors whose derivative works also become revered and respected and survive into the 2nd century. The loss of "Q" doesn't really make sense here.

One possible explanation for the loss of "Q" could be that the portions that the gospel writers did not use were heretical in some way. Other early scriptures seem to have lost out for similar reasons--they were fine in some parts, but a heretical passage caused them to be rejected over time. Perhaps that is why "Q" got lost in the shuffle.

There's a precedent for this in the Gospel of Peter, a work that many scholars believe was written in the 1st century. The fragments that survive contain the passion account of Christ, and it just so happens that the writer stated that Jesus appeared to feel no pain during the crucifixion. This wording was sympathetic to Docetism, an early heresy that taught that Jesus did not have a physical body, that he was a divine being who only appeared to be human, but was actually a spirit being only. So, this gospel was cast aside. Could "Q" have also contained some problematic parts? We may never know, but it's one possible explanation for its disappearance.

Needless to say, all this is pure speculation, and conservative scholars do us all a favor by reminding us of that fact, that "Q" is only a construct, a possibility with no substance other than the existence of nearly identical passages in Matthew and Luke that are difficult to explain any other way. One can refer to and define "Q" in this way without necessarily agreeing that an actual writing of this kind existed, and in many ways this is certainly a useful shorthand for those who study the gospels, as long as everyone acknowledges that until either a manuscript of "Q" is found, or at the very least another ancient patristic writing turns up that clearly speaks of such a text, that "Q" is nothing but a theoretical construct.