The Documentary Hypothesis and the Gospel of Q

[That'sWhatItSays]

It is fine to speculate about the various writings and oral traditions circulating through first century Christianity, but now we have the four gospels to examine. What can we find spiritually about the gospels that would lend credence to the Christian that they are a little bit more than the results of human endeavors? That is to say, what makes them seem "inspired" to us?

M.R. DeHaan had an excellent message about the four different gospels that really put them in perspective. They are four different approaches to Jesus. Matthew presents the Abrahamic and Davidic lineage of Jesus, and presents him as the son of David, the promised one according to the scriptures. This corresponds to the face of the cherubim in Ezekiel 1:10 and beast in Revelation 4:7 as having the face of a lion (the lion of the tribe of Judah).

Mark presents no lineage of Jesus, and immediately sets up the work of him as God's laborer. It is not so much interested in who Jesus is, or what Jesus says as it is interested in what Jesus did on the earth. This corresponds to the image of the laboring ox, a beast of burden, in Ezekiel 1:10 (calf in Revelation 4:7).

Luke presents Jesus as descending from Adam, and thus is a portrayal of Jesus not merely as the son of David, but also as the son of man. Jesus ultimately came for the whole world to redeem us from the original curse of Adam. This is Jesus as exemplified by the face of a man in Ezekiel 1:10 and Revelation 4:7.

The last face is the eagle, which speaks of soaring in the heavens and of majesty. The lineage of John is that of being from the beginning, predating Adam. Jesus Christ is not just the son of David and the son of Adam, he is the Son of God. All things were created by him according to John. He is the light that came into the world. Jesus represents a new beginning for humanity, and the "In the beginning...." of Genesis is practically replaced by the "In the beginning..." of John, so significant is this man.

I don't claim to understand how we got our Bible or how, exactly, it was written, but the internal testimony of it is more important than the Q gospel, I think. I submit that the Bible is most likely a product of divine inspiration more than it is a product of human effort, while not diminishing the fact that it is the work of men.

[Ricardo]

(06-21-2012 05:33 PM)myotch Wrote:  almost completely ignores more simple and natural explanations.

The "more simple and natural explanation" depends on your pre-judgments.

For some of us, the fact that the stories are clearly embellished with each retelling, starting with the simplest and oldest Mark, make it pretty simple and natural explanation.

If you start from the assumption that all four gospels are inerrant and that they do not contradict each other, then the "simplest and natural explanation will be completely different.

[myotch]

To borrow an adage from Scott Pilgrim: Double assumptions. Tricky.

So you assume that I assume a presupposition. That's not true. I don't follow the convention, for instance, that the four Gospels were named for their writers. I don't assume that the Gospels don't contradict each other or the rest of it. I don't buy that Scripture is true because Scripture says it is true. That is a logical fallacy.

But I don't buy that the Gospels represent an evolutionary model with a single common written or oral tradition as a source, either. It's a neat theory. It's even tidy, and coincides with modern thought regarding a lot of things where "common ancestry" is presumed.

But your presupposition does ignore, for instance, the human element and the natural element. If Jesus had 12 disciples, of the 11 remaining, each of them likely had "disciples" of their own, there might be oral tradition from some of these "lines", 4 of which were eventually written and remain and have been historically considered authoritative.

Whether or not the 4 Gospels come from the same source, Mark, as you say, being the oldest and simplest, why the need for 4 separate Gospels? Three more would seem redundant. Unless, of course, they were somewhat based on at least 4 different witnesses, views..."things" that needed to be addressed.

If Mark is the oldest and most reliable as well as being the simplest, Luke and Acts go together in the same package; John has a transcendent quality of incredible depth...So, why Matthew?

Neat and tidy is the realm of the scientific, the need of humans to put something in a nice, pretty box.

A natural, even more human and organic explanation is probably messier and necessarily so, but I think it's a lot more likely and simpler explanation.

From there, we could get into how involved God was in the inspiration of these accounts. But strictly speaking, the literature of the Gospels was the result of a veritable explosion of the Christian faith over a relatively short amount of time. If each Gospel was written as a simple embellishment of a Mark-like account, I think the challenge of the early church would have been to rein in the hyperbole of the trusted accounts while weeding out the more gnostic-influenced accounts.

[Ricardo]

Overall, we agree!

Our old Fundy self tries to put everything into a neat, clean package, an ironclad theory that can then be blessed with the mantle of inerrancy. We like to have everything figured out, nailed down, so we can claim authority.

So much of these conversations are a power trip.

It is so much easier to discuss manuscripts, physical evidence than it is to share an experience that that surpasses all understanding!

[oneflewoutofthecuckcoosnest]

The documentary hypothesis is still the best explanation we have for the composition of the torah. I think it makes a lot of sense and stands up pretty well. Robert Alter's "The Art of Biblical Narrative" is a nice correction to a source-heavy reading of the text however. It is one thing to speculate how the text came to be. It is another to read it as it stands. In the end, even when the sources do sometimes stand out like a sore thumb, a redactor(s) put them together to tell a story. We don't want miss the forest for the trees.

I think the assumption of a source (Q) that Matthew and Luke used to supplement Mark is also the best theory we have right now for the composition of the gospels. When Matthew and Luke have an identical reading that is absent from Mark it makes sense to posit a common source. It's not provable, but I think it is the best explanation. Again, this is not the stuff that feeds the soul, but it is helpful in identifying the unique theologies of the gospel writers.