Originally posted by rwingettRwingo : ".... but I have no intention of engaging in lengthy debates defending Q against its detractors."
I did not actually intend for it to be a debate at all. I merely presented the material for people to consider. I had never seen the topic brought up here before and thought it might interest some. I am prepared to answer some questions about Q, but I have no intention of engaging in lengthy debates defending Q against its detractors.
Aren't you one of the detractors then ?
Originally posted by rwingettVery weak reply, Rwingo ..... and totally out of proportion. LH's remarks are very to the point and very relevant. You simply don't have an answer to his comments. Hence your irritated and insulting reaction.
Blah, blah, blah...go waste somebody else's time. You lazy, intellectually stunted bum.
Rwingo: "Without going into any details on its purported contents, the hypothetical Q document reveals the teachings of Jesus in a very different light.
I would like you to also go into detail here, or elaborate on it, as this seems to be the crux of this thread. If you do not wish to do so, then your point becomes mute.
After all the meddling by Paul and others, Christianity looked virtually nothing like what Jesus had envisioned.
And there you have it.
".... virtually nothing like what Jesus had envisioned". I'm very curious to hear from you about this.
Originally posted by rwingettI'm curious rwingett; after your study of the Q document, what is your perception of Jesus?
I've been studying early Christian history off and on for a while now. One thing that has interested me is how the bible came to be written. Two items in particular - the "two source hypothesis" and the "Q document", have been of great interest. Since so many of the recent threads here have been absolute garbage, I've decided to write a post about the ...[text shortened]... Christianity looked virtually nothing like what Jesus had envisioned.
And there you have it.
Originally posted by ivanhoeFor someone who doesn't take a position on the formation of the Gospels,
".... virtually nothing like what Jesus had envisioned". I'm very curious to hear from you about this.
I don't know how you could take an opinion on how it was or was not like
anything Jesus envisioned.
Nemesio
Originally posted by NemesioI'm not approaching the problem theologically here. My point: Just because something is not in Q (and AFAIK, we've never discovered a copy of Q) does not mean Jesus did not say it.
Just to be clear, I don't think that LH was disagreeing with the hypothesis;
he was just saying that, just because the Synoptics evolved this way does
not exclude the notion that the text was inspired by God.
In fact, the RCC doesn't take the position that the Gospels were 'written
by God' like many fundamentalists would have us believe. The intro ...[text shortened]... , the text remains
'God breathed' or inspired, or infallible for matters of faith.
Nemesio
I'm no scholar on the subject so I probably should keep my mouth shut, but it doesn't seem entirely impossible that what Jesus actually said has been distorted over time. Why, in some threads right in this forum you people don't even seem to know what the other one's been saying. And the posts are rarely even days apart.
Originally posted by stockenIn addition, unless I cut and paste, I might not say the same thing the same way twice. There seem to be three theories about oral transmission of stories: (1) that stories are committed to memory so as to be transmitted verbatim, unchanged, and that this is a special skill required of the transmitters; (2) storytellers (even the same storyteller) seldom tell the same story exactly the same way twice, and so there can be considerable embellishment and variation; (3) storytellers have some license to adjust the story, but only within a very limited range (small changes).
I'm no scholar on the subject so I probably should keep my mouth shut, but it doesn't seem entirely impossible that what Jesus actually said has been distorted over time. Why, in some threads right in this forum you people don't even seem to know what the other one's been saying. And the posts are rarely even days apart.
For example: the first one seems to be how talmudic scholars assert that the arguments of the early sages were kept until written down in the Talmuds; the second is sometimes argued with reference to different tellings of Jesus parables (the mustard seed, for example), with the idea that Jesus himself may have varied the details with repeated tellings (what storyteller/teacher does not re-use a good story? What storyteller/teacher does not get bored telling it the same way over and over?); the third, I have heard applied to Norse bards.
I am no scholar on this either, but it seems that all three theories could be true at different times, under different circumstances, in different oral cultures.
Originally posted by lucifershammerNo, of course not!
I'm not approaching the problem theologically here. My point: Just because something is not in Q (and AFAIK, we've never discovered a copy of Q) does not mean Jesus did not say it.
And just because it is in Q doesn't mean He did say it.
They can be interpolations or elaborations made by later authors,
such as the Gospel writers.
Nemesio
Originally posted by vistesdThis is a very important point. The ability to write things down leads to 'lazy memories.'
I am no scholar on this either, but it seems that all three theories could be true at different times, under different circumstances, in different oral cultures.
Before literacy was wide-spread -- such as in only oral cultures -- people really pay
attention to things and tend to remember them with a greater degree of accuracy than
those people, like us, who can simply scroll up, or pull a dictionary/encyclopedia off the
shelf.
The ability to recite poems like the Iliad, while not verbatim, but at great length or the
ability to transcribe speeches, like Plato's recounting of Socrates's address to the courts,
was an element of these cultures that is lacking today.
Oral tradition should not be discounted as unreliable simply because we, today, don't
recall things with great accuracy. Our circumstances do not demand it; their's did.
Nemesio
I'm quite familiar with the idea of Q, but I must say I struggle very hard to come to terms with some of the notions about it.
I mean, I can understand how Matthew and Luke can be compared with each other and with Mark, and from that it can be worked out what material came from Q (accepting the two source hypothesis of course, otherwise the exercise is redundant).
But what I can't understand (and feel free to explain it to me) is how anyone can know that Q said something DIFFERENT from the Gospels. If we only know what was in Q because it ended up in the Gospels, then anything we can say is in Q must also be in a Gospel (in fact it's probably in two of them). I must be missing something here.