Subject: Re: Thomas and Q Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 16:29:07 -0400 From: "Stevan Davies" To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com > From: "Mark Goodacre" > The recent thread on the relationship between Q and Thomas prompts me to try to > clarify and summarise some of my own thoughts in order to add a FAQ to my Q web > site. I would be of course grateful for any comments. I look forward to the gratitude! > ------------------- > > The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas apparently helps the Q theorist to > dispense with one of Farrer's arguments against Q, that "there is no > independent evidence for anything like Q". Fitzmyer was one of the first to > see this. However, we cannot go beyond that to the notion that Thomas > somehow proves the exisTence of Q, particularly when we bear in mind the > following: "proves" is the wrong word, I think, for nobody says this. Rather "supports" or "evidences." > (1) The existence of Thomas does not help us with the key question of whether > or not Matthew and Luke are independent, the essential presupposition of the Q > theory. yes it does. If roughly 1/2 of Thomas //Mt or Lk are // to Lk and 1/2 // to Mt then the case of Mt and Lk's independence is "proven." This is the case and so since Thomas proves Mt and Lk's independence it "proves" Q. > (2) The degree of formal similarity between Q and Thomas should not be > exaggerated. One (alleged Q) is made up of discourses, sometimes lengthy, > often linked by theme, usually carefully structured. The other (Thomas) is > made up of disparate sayings, rarely lengthy, with no easily discernible order. This line of thought is dependent on the idea (shared, to be sure, by most Q theorists) that Lk preserves the Q order rather than that Lk has more constructively engaged his source and produced discourses etc.. but the latter is certainly a view that Q theorists could maintain. It is a view that you maintain vis a vis Lk in your own theory. > (3). There is overlap between the contents of Thomas and the contents of Q > (i.e. the double tradition material), but there is overlap also between Thomas > and Mark, Thomas and "M" and Thomas and "L". In other words, Q apparently has > no unique or special relationship with Thomas. This would require some analysis of the percentage of overlap vis a vis these various sources/texts. I don't know what those percentages are, but I wish I did. > (4) Unlike Thomas, Q apparently has a blatant narrative exordium in which > the progress of Jesus' ministry is carefully plotted. In outline this is John > the Baptist's appearance in the Jordan, his preaching, Jesus' baptism, > temptations in the wilderness, Nazara, a great Sermon, Capernaum where > the Centurion's Boy is healed, messengers from John the Baptist. This sequence > makes good sense when one sees that these are places where Luke parallels > the non-Markan elements in Matt. 3-11. On the other hand, if Q has these elements in it scattered around here and there, and Mt and Lk are following a Mk narrative that sequences them as follows: > John the Baptist's appearance in the Jordan, his preaching, Jesus' baptism, > temptations in the wilderness, then Q would be inserted appropriately and only SEEM to have had them in this sequence. If we assume NMM and that Mt isn't making this stuff up, and that NMM is not a written text, then Mt by your own theory has indeed sequenced this stuff in a Markan order. The observable FACT is that Mt and Lk sequenced the stuff in a Markan order. Question is whether or not it was in that order in Q... maybe not, e.g. there is no reason for JB preaching to be at the beginning of Q but there IS reason for it to be at the beginning of Mk and revisions of Mk. The fact that we supposedly had in Q > Nazara, a great Sermon, Capernaum where > the Centurion's Boy is healed, messengers from John the Baptist. does not constitute a narrative. These elements could be put ANYWHERE in Q at random. They are "events" rather than "narrative." Thomas too has events... Jesus dining with Salome, a man trying to get him to divvy up the inheritance, Jesus repudiating blessings upon the BVM. The Q "narrative" notion is dependent upon the Markan model vis a vis the JBapt stuff, but that would have been put into Markan order whether or not it was at the front in Q. Steve