Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaea
Scholars agree that Mark was the first Gospel written. If you had participated in our reading group, you'd known that. Jab.
What German scholars have long postulated is that Matthew and Luke referred to Mark and to Quelle, or Q, German for source, to write gospels which both followed and differed from Mark.
So the question devolves around whether Matthew or Luke are sufficiently different to merit consideration of a separate source, or whether the differences weren't simply the idiosyncracies of the Gospelists. As I have just begun this work, I'm not certain as to more important details.
You'd also understand the arguments better if you read Ehrman's Misquoting, Orthodox Corruption and Lost Christianities.
|
I understood all this including that Mark is recognized as the oldest of the Gospels. My point was that whether you're talking about Q or L/M you're talking about a source outside the Gospels relied upon by these anonymous authors for their material. Whether it's a single Q source or a bifurcated L/M source seems to me speculation, and, after all, not an earth shattering distinction.
The crux of the analysis is that "Mark," "Luke" and "Matthew" were writing some 40+ years--at least--after Jesus' death, they weren't the "apostles" described in the Gospels, and they were relying on secondary sources. Whether you call those sources Q or L/M strikes me as largely speculation and somewhat beside the point.
But now Pelagius has enlightened me that Q is a device developed by Christian scholars to try to take the accounts of Jesus' life and works back closer to first hand accounts of Jesus' life and death.
By the way, if you give Q any credence you need to qualify that Mark it the first canonized Gospel.
In any event, knowing human nature and the way things work, it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were prior versions of the Gospels that are no longer extant, whether you want to call them Q or A or B or C or XYZ or whatever.