rootseeker.org - -- Weekly Notes

Notes for Lecture FIVE

Galilee - it's society and economy - Galilee was under Roman domination - Q needs to be considered in that setting - Changes in daily life as a result of Jesus' teaching in that setting found expression in the Q document - Some details : taxes etc. , production, village-living, transportation, trade.

Effects on Galilean village life - Two social worlds in collision: social world of Judaism and the one of Hellenistic culture and Roman power - Impact of the tax-system on Jewish living - Importance of literate administrators - role of synagogue.

Q in this setting - Internal evidence shows a setting in Galilee - Not narrowing it to certain places (like the gospels) - There is some linking across the northern border (S. Syria) with Mt and Gosp of Thom - Importance of Jonah as a Galilean prophet - References to urban life are few - Larger cities are not mentioned - Chilton sees an involvement in 2 steps - First one: Jesus' repeated teaching (mishna) arranged by the disciples - Final stage: quasi-biographical in accordance with the order of Peter's teaching (as later found in Mt) - Mack's observation: Q warns us against the traditional view that Christianity emerged as a reformation of Judaism ... 'The attraction of the new community was not rooted in a plan to 'reform' a religious tradition that had 'missed its calling', or in a clarion call to start a 'new world religion' based on a recent revelation, but rather in the 'enhancement of human values' experienced in the process of social formation itself'.

The Q-people - a community of Jesus-followers devoted to his teachings - How Mack sees the Q-people - a) they were not Christians - b) didn't think of Jesus as the Messiah (Christ) - c) didn't see Jesus' teaching as indictment of Judaism - d) did not see Jesus' death as 'saving' - e) didn't consider 'resurrection' - A few other items that are typical - Q-people didn't see their mission as 'evangelizing' - How did this vision of Jesus' teaching develop into the Christ-cult? - The answer to be found in the historical facts of that development - Q forces us to 'rethink Christian origins' - Q-text had as purpose to serve the Q-people in their adaptation to the change of social setting.

The Jesus people in the Q strata -

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Notes for Lecture FOUR

Who composed Q - Arnal (Jesus and the Village Scribes) gives insights into the composition of Q - Who the 'composers' were comes from the document itself, 'the world of experience behind it' - Composers were 'literate' - Document not just a translation of orally circulated material, but a carefully constructed work - Pipers gives details how this shows: 1) pattern of progress from general to specifics -2) an interpretive key at the end 3) rhetorical questions in the center 4) change of imagery in the progress 5) strong appeal to 'experience and reason' - Arnal sees Q not only as 'literate', but rather as 'literary'= well versed - Importance of use or lack of OT texts in the strata - Writing was not simply a vehicle for recording oral messages, it was a medium of promoting fundamental principles and agenda - Kloppenborg gives details how scribel activities found expression in Q - Horsley's different opinion: Scribes are not required for the composition of Q, even when its complexity and organization are recognized'... he leaves open the probability (of Arnal) that the scribes were involved in preparing the proclamation of the 'sayings' in the community context. 'Q must (therefore) be understood first of all as orally composed, and only written down by means of scribal technology'.

The Q-people -

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Notes for Lecture THREE

Written or oral tradition? - Kelber helps us to focus on oral tradition - His theory of 'orality' vs 'literacy' as different modes of communication - The survival of the orally transmitted 'sayings' depended on the 'social context'.

Social context - Horsley: the Jewish 'great tradition' about the Torah was passed on in Israel in 'oral form' because of the limited literacy of the people - Q should be treated as an 'orally' transmitted text, though it is difficult for us not to judge things from out 'print culture' - Some important points that can help: 1) texts came from 'public performances' - 2) 'sayings delivered' were centered on community concerns - They became so a community memory - 3) the 'performance' involved a life situation in the community that involved 'conflict' - The performed discourses became 'interactive' by repetition to others - 4) keeping oral tradition in mind helps to establish the meaning of words and sayings in the discourses.

Oral communication environment - How 'performance' effected the 'hearers' - Performance should be an 'enabling event' - Misunderstanding by early Christian interpretation.

Q and Jewish tradition - Horsley and the 'great' and 'little' Israelite tradition - The 'little' was oral, though based on the written 'great' tradition - Performance made the reference to the 'great' tradition resonate with the 'hearers' - Kloppenborg on the 'written nature' of Q², his reasons.

Reflection - Performance is the way the words of Jesus were used after his death in the small communities of followers - Words were used in talks, sermons, and admonitions according to the particuler need at that time.

Galilee - it's society and economy -

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Notes for Lecture TWO

Order and setting of Q - The better 'order' of the Q document is from Lk, though Mt's might be the more original - Galilee is presumed to be the immediate setting of the Q collection - Some info about the Galilean towns - Arnal links Q to gospel of Mt and gospel of Thomas, who came from across the Syrian border, and as reinforcing the Galilean setting - Some details of that 'setting' - Towns mentioned - Also the person of Jonah mentioned, who was a 'northern' prophet and from Galilee, and what this means for Q' setting - Arnal argues that since Q as a document failed to survive (apart fromn its final form in Mt + Lk), indicates that even the final text (in 3 strata) was not widely distributed - Lack of interest in Q for larger cities as Tiberias and Sepphoris.

Date of Q and strata - At all started in early 20's (founding of Tiberias) according to Arnal - Origin of the text seems to be from a 'Q community' in Galilee - Details about village life - Reasons given for the Galilean assumption - General dating of Q from the 30's or 40's (preferably the earlier, Arnal) - Q² from the 40-50's - The mentioning of the Temple (and the lack ot it) as a factor in the 'dating' - Connection between Q and Paul's Thess. I, and the impact on Q's dating.

Original language of Q - It seems safe to support the idea that Q for the most part came to Mt and Lk in Greek writing - Does not exclude the possibility that it was originally transmitted orally in Aramaic (Q is strongly Semitic).

Oral communication environment - How 'performance' effected the 'hearers' - Performance should be an 'enabling event' - Misunderstanding by early Christian interpretation.

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Notes for Lecture ONE

Introduction - historical background of my Q-study - Note on the Bibliography

Why a course about 'Q' - In my lectures on 'Exploring Christian Roots' Q was mentioned quite often as a valuable source for getting to know Jesus - This prodded my interest to make a deeper study about Q - How I planned the course: collecting all books available, - making a 'lay-out' for the lesson plan for the course.

Q's historical background - Mk, Mt and Lk have a lot in common - reason why they are called synoptic gospels (sun together, optein seen) - Mt and Lk have a lot in common - Reason: they used the gospel of Mk almost completely as a Greek source, not a translated Aramaic one - How this sharing between the two worked and were they differed

Two Source Theory - Mt and Lk show indications they also used another source (later called Q=Quelle=source) - This led to the 'two source theory' - Some historical details - From this second source Q, Mt and Lk have about 200 verses in common - Q was not known as a 'document' - Besides the material from the 2 sources, Mt and Lk have some material of their own, now indicated by M and L. - Basics of the 'Two Source Theory':

a) Mt & Lk hold independently written versions of Mk

b) They used a second source - known as 'Q'

c) They have their own material called: M & L

d) There might have been a different version of Mk being used

Q was found 'in', and 'recovered from' the gospels of Mt and Lk - It never had a name from its origin and did not survive time as a 'independent' document, reason why it's called sometimes 'the Lost Gospel' (Mack) - Q was basically an 'oral' tradition.

How did we get Q? - Robinson - with the help of graduate students - lifted the material from Q out of the Mt and Lk gospels and put it in order [Handout 'Q text'] - The material was also divided in 3 sections/strata designated as Q¹, Q² , Q³ - This was done based on the study by Kloppenborg - Q is a 'sayings' gospel without narratives (stories) - Helps very much in re-imagining the character of Jesus' original message and gives a clearer insight into the beginning of Christianity.

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NOTES Q-LECTURES - SUMMER '08

TWO

Lecture FOUR

Gospel of Thomas note - Discovered in 1945 - was a big help in understanding and accepting the findings of Q - GoT has 35% of its saying parallel with Q - Proves a certain writing style and makes comparative study possible - Both are a collection of 'wisdom sayings' of Jesus understood as instructions of a wise teacher.

Gospel of Jesus - Harnack: 'Q expresses most clearly the message of Jesus, and indeed ... the essence of Christianity - With a certain degree of completeness it is a representation of the major features of Jesus' relationship with his environment. Q can be seen as a basis of faith and theology, and it provides a historical source of unparalleled value, and, - as a relatively complete account of the 'gospel of Jesus', - it serves as the foundation of theology' - Q was a record of the preaching of Jesus - Robinson sees in the sayings of Q "what Jesus was up to" - It is the core of Jesus' own gospel - For the followers of Jesus it was their 'experience of Jesus after the resurrection', and it was still calling them 'to continue his message and lifestyle'; in other words Q was the substance of their 'resurrection experience'.

Jesus view of himself in Q - Jesus in Q did not use 'titles' - Jesus made himself known by what he said and did - A word about titles - Messiah, the anointed one - Son of God - Mk started it (1:11) , but what was its meaning?

Jesus' view of his own death - Q has no passion narrative - There was awareness of the 'killing of the prophets' - Q saw Jesus' death in line of that vision - But Mk gives us Jesus' predictions about his death - They are now seen as Mk's recollections of what had happened to Jesus - Jesus, by what he said and did, was, no doubt, taking his life into own his hands, and he must have been aware of that reality. He must have known that he could become 'the victim of his own vision' - Q people saw any reference to the cross as an example of the integrity required of any of his followers, an integrity that was still being measured by commitment to the-way-of-life as it was lived within the movement' - In Q² there is a change of focus from the 'teachings of Jesus the 'teacher' Jesus.

Re-conception of Christian origins - Hinges on the understanding of 'which sayings of Jesus are really his' - A study of the subject can affect the traditional reading of the history of Christian origins - Mack's explanation: Q has documented a 'Jesus movement' that produced a 'myth/story of origin', simply by adding new sayings to a 'collection of the instructions of the teacher'. That kind of myth-making has been difficult for modern scholars to accept - We need to learn understand the process by which 'sayings continued to be ascribed to Jesus long after he lived' - The important matter become therefore: what is in-authentic.

Sayings - what came from Jesus? - Not all 'sayings' ascribed to Jesus came from him - From a collection of 530 sayings about 10% is considered authentic - Some examples of what could not have come from Jesus.

Sayings in the gospels - Sayings in John are considered coming from the author of the gospel - For the 'synoptics' this rule is kept: judging the authenticity have generally been based on the opinion, that since Jesus was a 'unique individual', his teachings must have been 'novel' - This became a 'criterion' - Also sayings that had to do with the 'theological or ethical concerns of a particular community' were seen as inauthentic - Studies involved with these criteria have become quite valuable, since they have situated many of the teachings of Jesus in their appropriate settings, eliminating in that way a majority of sayings as inauthentic, even though they were 'ascribed to Jesus' - For 'people in the pew' all this can be disturbing "How can they say that Jesus did not say what Mark, Matthew and Luke claimed he had said?" - Problem is caused by the lack of basic knowledge among average Christians about the way the gospels came to be.

Helpful modes of contemporary literature - In general a given 'saying' was ascribed to a known figure in discourses - The culture of that time used proverbs and pithy sayings as a 'convenient way for remembering' - Any 'sayings collection' was an important way to conserve the wisdom of the past - It was also used as containing the 'individual's distinctive life-style', his character - The sayings of a sage or teacher were understood as an expression of their character - Besides 'speech' the profile of the 'individual in action' was of interest - Oral tradition was the means by which 'the life' of an eminent person was preserved - All this is reflected in the Q document - No summary of Jesus' doctrine/philosophy, but the format of 'memorable sayings' was used - Numerous pictures of the person in this or that occasion became 'snapshots' of his character, a profile of the person.

Anecdote -

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Lecture THREE

Q-people - Mack's The Lost Gospel observations: -Q-people not Christians, -for them Jesus was not Messiah/Christ, -his teachings no indictment of Judaism, -his death not a saving event, -they had no resurrection idea - For them, Jesus was a teacher, whose teachings made it possible to live 'with energy and enthusiasm in troubled times' - Q-people did not worship/honor Jesus as 'a god' - There was no 'cult of Christ' as in the Paul-communities - Q-people were 'Jesus-people', not Christians - Some more remarkable differences - Q-people had no purpose of evangelizing Jews or gentiles - Jesus sayings were handed over to help their own to understand Jesus' message and live accordingly - 'Q challenges the popular concept of Christian origins' - How did then later the stories of the Gospels and the 'Christ cult' develop? - The answer can be found in studying the history of the following decades and centuries - Q forces us to re-think Christian origins.

Form of speech - Q sayings are 'wisdom instructions' -but of a specific kind - Cynic influence - Some examples that point in that direction: less tight connections with one's family, voluntary homelessness, evading normal standards of cleanliness, simple attire, and unashamed begging - Though there was cynic social critique, the early Jesus-movement wan not a 'reform movement' - From this point of view a closer look at the development in the different strata - Where Mack sees the pattern of Christian beginnings in the Gospels - Therefore he says: the 'picture painted by the narrative gospels', seems to continue to function in a incorrect way as 'the pattern for Christian beginnings' - Studies have shown there is a theme common to Q and the Gospels that takes different meanings in each literary context - Q's themes are better understood if 'their gospel connotations' are avoided - This process can be painful, but rewards are rich: Q and the Jesus-movement can now be seen as a lively Jesus movement, and the Jesus movement can now be placed in its own Galilean environment.

Q: its sayings vs discourses - Harnack: Jesus did not found communities suggesting they should organize a 'church' - A look at how the communities in the Jesus-movement emerged - Mack sees it in 'the nature of a discourse', the discourses caused the formation of small communities - Mistake must be avoided to 'categorize' and 'characterize' individual sayings - Social context should come first - Individual sayings are intelligible 'only' in larger groupings or discourses as 'units of communication' in Q - Q vs Gosp of Thom - List of different discourses keeping in mind the 'community background'

10:2-16 instruction regarding mission, the sending of envoys to preach and heal and generally spread the movement village by village

11:2-4 instruction and encouragement about prayer

6:20-49 Jesus' inaugural sermon (Beatitudes) - end in 17:23-37

6:27-38 instruction on social-economic relations 'within the community', - not merely a religious teaching for individuals.

11:39-52 condemnation of some of the principal opponents of the movement

22:28-30 Jesus' declaration about the restoration or liberation of Israel

12:22-31 which addresses the Q-people's anxieties about necessities of life

12:49-59 proclaims the disruptive, conflicting effect the Jesus movement might have to endure, and the challenge if one does not respond to the crisis

13:18-21 two parables about the amazing expansion of the Kingdom as manifest in the Q/Jesus movement

Q and the Gospels - Four gospels are a 'reflection and thinking of a particular community of Jesus followers in different areas about the person and teaching of Jesus - Basis in final analysis is 'oral tradition', 'embellished and dramatized by way of myths/stories and animated by miracles' to fit the thinking and theological system of the particular group - Mk based on Peter's account, Mt and Lk independent, Mt more following Peter's tradition, Lk influenced some by Paul's thinking - Jn made miracles into 'signs' as indications that the Jesus movement had replaced the Jewish religion - From Q to Jn is a long, long way of development of the Jesus movement - The privilege granted the narrative gospels was cause that the message of Q was forgotten and neglected - Q's challenge: it offers a more plausible account of the first 40 years of the Jesus-movement - As an 'independent' document it might have been dismissed like f.ex., the Gospel of Thomas - But since it forms the basis of the actual composition of 2 narrative gospels it cannot be dismissed or ignored - 2 Details: Jesus' death and the Last Supper.

Gospel f Jesus - Harnack: 'Q expresses most clearly the message of Jesus, and indeed ... the essence of Christianity - With a certain degree of completeness it is a representation of the major features of Jesus' relationship with his environment. Q can be seen as a basis of faith and theology, and it provides a historical source of unparalleled value, and, - as a relatively complete account of the 'gospel of Jesus', - it serves as the foundation of theology' - Q was a record of the preaching of Jesus - Robinson sees in the sayings of Q "what Jesus was up to" - It is the core of Jesus' own gospel - For the followers of Jesus it was their 'experience of Jesus after the resurrection', and it was still calling them 'to continue his message and lifestyle'; in other words Q was the substance of their 'resurrection experience'.

Jesus view of himself in Q

Lecture TWO

Written or Oral - We are hang up on 'written text', we are print-oriented - Oral communication was a reality in the 1^st c. - Kelber's impact in this matter - Comparison of the 'oral' Q text with Mk's 'written' text - Orally transmitting a message can be done according to one's own ability/imagination - Written transmission is depending on text put together with literate ability

Social context - Oral mentality calls for social context - The Jewish 'great tradition' was passed on in 'oral form' because of the limit literacy of the people in general - Social context included: 1) public performance, 2) in short speeches that concerned the needs of the listening community, 3) involved in a life situation, 4) the meaning of the words and sayings came from the discourses.

Oral communication environment - Effect of the 'performance of the discourse' on the 'hearers' - Performance an 'enabling event' that included Jewish culture

Q and the Jewish tradition - Horsley makes distinction between the 'great' Israelite tradition (scribes) and the 'little' popular tradition, which was 'oral' though based on the 'great' tradition - And it was the way in which a 'performed text' was making reference to the 'great' tradition, that did make such 'performance' resonate with the hearers - A Kloppenborg note - Further word about 'performance'.

Who composed Q - strata ? - End 80's acceptance of the strata indicated by Kloppenborg - Arnal gives further insight (JVS) - 'The only evidence we possess, who these individuals might have been, comes from the document itself; two items, namely: the 'world of experience' behind it, and its own 'essential make-up' - Composers were literate - Q was a written document, not just as a 'transcript of orally circulated material', but as 'carefully constructed arguments and discourses' - Pipers offers further details - Arnal: Q not merely a 'literate document', but also 'literary' = well versed - Interesting observations about the different strata - Q¹ has no OT texts - Q² appeals to deutoronomistic understanding of the tradition with references and proof texts etc. - Q³ is basis for authoritative revelation - Summary: 'one can conclude that the document produced at the Q¹-level, evidently came to serve as a kind of 'basic or official document' for the group that produced it; and this can be derived not only from its preservation within that group, but also by its continual improvements in the following strata in order to suit the group's changing situations' - Arnal: Writing not simply a passive vehicle for recording, but a major and comfortable vehicle for promoting values and agenda - Village scribes seen as the responsible persons - Reasons why - Horsley's narrower view: 'Q must be understood as first of all orally composed and only written down by means of scribal technology'.

Galilee - society and economy - Arnal ch. 4 - Galilee was under Roman domination and imperial policy - Q composed against this background by the early 'Jesus-movement', a Jewish sect - Q reflects society and culture of the area (few details) - Impact of Roman occupation on Galilee - Villages - crops - fish - Village life was self-regulated - Trade limited - Taxation - Society levels.

Q in this setting - Time is 'before the war' - Setting mostly around the northern rim of the lake - Jonah and his Galilean importance - Scribes - Basis of Q: Jesus' mishnah - his 'repeated' teaching - Order in Q and purpose of mission to Israel - Influence of Peter's teaching in Q³.

Q-people -

Lecture ONE

Why a course about 'Q' - In my lectures on 'Exploring Christian Roots' Q was mentioned quite often as a valuable source for getting to know Jesus - This prodded my interest to make a deeper study about Q - Result was a plan to share my many renewed findings with my students ('the plan' will be available in the 'Content of the Fall course', given as a 'handout' at the final summer lecture)

Historical Background - Mk, Mt and Lk have a lot in common - reason why they are called synoptic gospels - First cause of this commonality is that Mt and Lk used the gospel of Mk almost completely as a source - We will see how this sharing worked and were the two differed.

Two Source Theory - Besides Mk, Mt and Lk also used another source - This led to the 'two source theory' - From this second source Mt and Lk have about 200 verses in common - The second source - (called Q probably after 'Quelle', German for 'source') - was not known as a 'document' - Besides the material from the 2 sources, Mt and Lk have some material of their own, now indicated by M and L.

How did we get Q? - Robinson - with the help of graduate students - lifted the material coming from Q out of the Mt and Lk gospels and put it in order [Handout 'Q text'] - The material was also divided in 3 sections/strata designated as Q¹, Q² , Q³ - This was done based on the study by Kloppenborg.

Order and setting of Q - The better order is from Lk, though Mt's might be the more original - Galilee is presumed to be the immediate setting of the Q collection - Some info about the Galilean towns - Arnal sees links to Mt and GospThom, from across the Syrian border, as reinforcing the Galilean setting

Date of Q and strata - At all started in early 20's (founding of Tiberias) according to Arnal - Origin of the text seems to be from a 'Q community' in Galilee - Reasons given for the assumption - General dating of Q from the 30's or 40's (preferably the earlier, Arnal) - Q² from the 40-50's

Composers - A look at the question of who put Q together - The 'village scribes' are the most probable composers - More details about his matter and time of composition -

Language - What was the original language? - Some hold the origin was in Greek - Backed up by quotes from the LLX (Septuagint) - Not valid for Q¹ that has no quotes - Since Q is strongly Semitic an Aramaic basis seems preferable, especially for Q¹ - Kloppenborg's opinion