Q.

There are some textual scholars and theologians who think there was a gospel of just the sayings of Jesus in existence many years before the gospels we know were written. Not all theologians agree that it exists hidden in what we now have, or ever existed alone before. If it existed no copy survives.

Those who believe in the inerrancy of scripture do not believe in Q because of the profound implications it presents which undermine the foundational dogma of the church.

The lowest layer and apparently original text consists only of simple instructions.

After the finding of the Gospel of Thomas at Nag Hammadi, which consists only of sayings, a "sayings gospel" was more acceptable.

What is remarkable about Q1 is that the original Christians appeared to be centred totally on concerns about their relationships with God and with other people, and their preparation for the Kingdom of God on earth. Totally absent from their spiritual life are almost all of the factors that we associate with Christianity today. There is absolutely no mention of (in alphabetic order): adultery, angels, apostles, baptism, church, clergy, confirmation, crucifixion, demons, disciples, divorce, Eucharist, great commission to convert the world, healing, heaven, hell, incarnation, infancy stories, John the Baptist, Last Supper, life after death, Mary and Joseph and the rest of Jesus’ family, magi, miracles, Jewish laws concerning behaviour, marriage, Messiah, restrictions on sexual behaviour, resurrection, roles of men and women, Sabbath, salvation, Satan, second coming, signs of the end of the age, sin, speaking in tongues, temple, tomb, transfiguration, trial of Jesus, trinity, or the virgin birth.

Jesus is described as a believer in God, but there are no indications that he was considered more than a gifted human being. His role was not as a Messiah or Lord but philosopher-teacher. The Gospel contains strong statements which are anti-family and which oppose orthodox Jewish religious rules, but not necessarily Essene rules. Rewards and punishments are described as occurring in this life, not after death. The "Kingdom of God" is described as a type of utopian society on earth which his followers were creating, not some future location in heaven after death. God is presented as a loving father with an intimate concern for the welfare of believers. The Holy Spirit is mentioned, but as a gift given by God, not as a separate person of the Trinity. There is no reference to Jesus’ death having any redeeming function; in fact, there is no mention of the crucifixion at all. We have pointed this out elsewhere on this site in "Was Jesus the Messiah?" and "Questions around the Communion",

Q seems to have been written in Greek - at least the version of Q that was used by the authors of Luke and Matthew was in this language. Most references in Q to the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) were to the Greek Septuagint translation, not the Hebrew original. (It is suggested that Matthew and Luke drew on the gospel of Mark and Q texts.)

Further "detective" work has shown that Q can be subdivided into three subdivisions of sayings, called Q1, Q2 and Q3. The writing of Q apparently started about 50 CE, about 20 years after Jesus’ execution by the Roman authorities. Unlike other Gospels which were apparently written over a short period of time, Q was intermittently expanded over a period that has been estimated as great as 35 years. As in the case of the other Gospels, the names of the people who wrote Q are unknown.

What is remarkable about Q1 is that the original Christians appeared to be centred totally on concerns about their relationships with God and with other people, and their preparation for the Kingdom of God on earth. Totally absent from their spiritual life are almost all of the things we associate with Christianity.

The importance of Q is profound if it is true that it was a separate and very early document. The interval from the death of Christ to the writing of Q1 was only about 20 years. The next Gospel, Mark, was not written until more than 50 years after the crucifixion. Although Paul wrote his Epistles during the 50’s and early 60’s, they contained little material on Jesus’ sayings and activities. Thus, Q1 gives us a much better understanding of an early, non-Pauline Christian movement: their preoccupations, beliefs, and developing theology. Q tells us that essentially all of present-day Christian beliefs were unknown to the immediate followers of Jesus. The concept of Jesus as Lord or as a member of the Trinity was completely foreign to their thinking. God was very definitely a single entity. (So was the Christianity we know today a product of Paul? - see "Christian do you follow Christ or Paul?"

This makes Jesus a very Jewish preacher, despite it being said that the sayings in Q1 are in the style of the Greek Cynics, who made pointed comments on human behaviour and their logic involved recommending extravagant behaviour, such wandering from place to place carrying the minimum for survival similar to ancient Hebrew prophets they were known for begging, voluntary poverty, severance of family ties and criticising hypocrisy; deliberately engaging in confrontational debate in public to make their point.. Interestingly they were described as spies from another world coming to observe and judge human behaviour!

Why would the parables, which are a typical Rabbinical teaching style, be added later when the religion was becoming more like a Greek mythology probably because of Paul? (see "Christian do you follow Christ or Paul" on this site.)

Q2 - Describing Jesus as an Apocalyptic Prophet - his motives and reasons.

Many prophetic and apocalyptic pronouncements were added a couple of decades later according to this theory of Q, after Q1 had been firmly entrenched as the standard teaching text of the community. The new sayings were written in response to the serious civil unrest and upheavals in Palestine associated with the Roman-Jewish war. Another motivation was the rejection that they had experienced by their families and by the Jewish people generally. Q2 includes statements of judgement and doom which were directed against those who refused to listen to Jesus’ message. The new sayings (so the theory goes) were written circa 60 to 70 CE, and introduced John the Baptist and his disciples into the Q material. They were identified as the words of Jesus and John, even though the sayings were conceived by others many decades after Jesus’ death. This would be considered fraudulent by today’s standards. However, in the ancient world, sayings were usually added to the words of great teachers after their death and attributed to them. This gave the new sayings great credibility and authority within the movement (that is what he would have said!). The sayings were inter-woven within the Q1 material in order to generate the impression that the judgmental texts were part of his original message.

This suggests the original sayings texts were not considered sacred because sacred literature was to be kept unaltered by the Jews (certainly after the Masoretic text of 1000AD), but perhaps these writers were not Jews, but Greeks, who did add to texts in keeping with the "ethos", even to writing whole speeches in the manner and teaching of famous philosophers. In that case what Jesus really said in his own language (thought to be Aramaic) was only ever written down in Greek, or at best the Aramaic was translated after Q1.

But Q1 is said to be the style of a Greek philosopher by the supporters of Q, so what happened to Jesus the Jew and his real sayings as a rabbi?

Q3 - Retreat from the World. The results and consequences, and deification.

Additional sayings appear to have been added during the mid 70’s CE. This was at a time that the Roman-Jewish war had concluded, after the Jews had been driven from Palestine, and just before the book of Mark was written, As before, the sayings were falsely attributed to Jesus. They describe the followers of Jesus as retreating from the violence and civic unrest of society and patiently waiting for "their moment of glory in some future time at the end of human history" .Jesus was upgraded beyond his original Q1 status as teacher and his later Q2 status as prophet-teacher. Q3 describes him as a deity, who converses directly with God and Satan. It was at this time that the Gospel of Q started to be noticed by other Christian writers. Matthew and Luke built their Gospels in part around Q and Mark. The author of the Gospel of Thomas incorporated Q1 and Q2 into his writing, but was apparently not aware of the Q3 additions and so the deity of Jesus, or was not concerned about the circumstances only spirituality.

Many charismatic people were made into deities in those times. The Roman emperors for instance Vespasian, who was contemporary, was attributed with many miracles very similar to Jesus. They often had their name changed as gods but we know both names. Why do we not know the real name of Jesus? This is a Greek name - what was his Jewish name?

QUESTION; IS IT POSSIBLE TO DO THESE SUBDIVISIONS AND CATAGORISATIONS WITH ANY NARRATIVE WRITTEN AT ONE TIME BY ONE PERSON? If it is possible to do this break down into categories of what they said, what their motive was, and then the consequences resulting AND THE LATER GLORIFICATION then this shows Q does not exist and the inconsistencies and anomalies are due to editing and additions made in other ways as time went on for other agendas.

Our conclusion is that this is an interesting idea, and it does seem that the texts we now call the gospels have been added to over a period of time.

Yet it does not seem right that, if Jesus was Jewish, and his followers mostly so, that the first writings of his sayings by them would be in Greek and make him into a Greek philosopher. Why would they later start to add Jewish genealogies and details about him being born into a practising Jewish family and recommending that his followers continue to practise the Mosaic Law? (see Matt.5 v17-20 and 23 v 1 & 2) If Paul was right all that was obsolete.

It would be especially unsuitable after AD70. But teaching to enable Jews to live in a multicultural society without the temple, its rituals and priesthood was very relevant.

The change to Greek mythology seems to have been due to Paul and he wrote before the gospels we now have. Maybe they were written to counteract Paul?

A good book on this subject is "The Lost Gospel" by Burton L. Mack.

There is plenty online giving the for and against for the existence of Q.

next section : The Recorded Sayings of Jesus Compared