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51-705: Three fragments of the manuscript form part of the Egerton Collection in the British Library . A fourth fragment of the same manuscript was identified in the papyrus collection of the University of Cologne , and published in 1987. The provenance of the four fragments is a matter of some dispute. Throughout the 20th century the provenance of the Egerton fragments was kept anonymous, with the initial editors suggesting without proof that they came from

102-413: A manuscript is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This British Library -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Q Document The Q source (also called The Sayings Gospel , Q Gospel , Q document(s) , or Q ; from German : Quelle , meaning "source") is an alleged written collection of primarily Jesus ' sayings ( λόγια , logia ). Q

153-524: A Greek-language proto-Gospel. It may have been circulating in written form about the time the Synoptic Gospels were composed ( i.e. , between late 50s and mid-90s AD). The name Q was coined by the German theologian and biblical scholar Johannes Weiss . The relationship among the three synoptic gospels goes beyond mere similarity in viewpoint. The gospels often recount the same stories, usually in

204-614: A dozen reconstructions of Q were made, but differed so much from each other that not a single verse of Matthew was present in all of them. As a result, interest in Q subsided, and the topic was neglected for many decades. Following the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas in the Nag Hammadi library , the Jesus Seminar proposed that such apocryphal Gospel could be the Q source, but most scholars reject this thesis and place Thomas in

255-525: A further £3000 (the Farnborough Fund) was added in 1838 by Egerton's cousin, Charles Long, 1st Baron Farnborough . The income from the bequests is devoted to the purchase of further manuscripts, which are added to the original collection. This means that the Egerton series, unlike most other named series of manuscripts held by the Library, remains open to new accessions. This article about

306-594: A layer of judgmental sayings directed against "this generation". The final stage included the Temptation of Jesus narrative. Although Kloppenborg cautioned against assuming that Q's composition history is the same as the history of the Jesus tradition ( i.e. , that the oldest layer of Q is necessarily the oldest and pure-layer Jesus tradition), some recent seekers of the Historical Jesus , including members of

357-419: A reasonable explanation is found the two-source hypothesis is not viable. New Testament scholar James Edwards argues that the existence of a treasured sayings document in circulation going unmentioned by early Church Fathers remains one of the great conundrums of modern Biblical scholarship . Pier Franco Beatrice argues that until these issues are resolved, Q will remain in doubt. Some scholars argue that

408-467: A single use of a hooked apostrophe in between two consonants was observed, a practice that became standard in Greek punctuation at the beginning of the 3rd century; this sufficed to revise the date of the Egerton manuscript. This study placed the manuscript to around the time of Bodmer Papyri 𝔓 , c.  200 ; noting that Eric Turner had palaeographically dated 𝔓 as around 200 CE, citing use of

459-411: A small circle of scholars. The work cannot be dismissed as "apocrypha" or " heretical " without compromising the orthodoxy of the Gospel of John . Nor can it be classed as " gnostic " and dismissed as marginal. It seems to be almost independent of the synoptic gospels and to represent a tradition similar to the canonical John, but independent of it. Additionally, it tells of an otherwise unknown miracle in

510-678: A third hypothetical source, referred to as M , lies behind the material in Matthew that has no parallel in Mark or Luke, and that some material present only in Luke might have come from an also unknown L source . This hypothesis posits that underlying the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are at least four sources, namely the Gospel of Mark and three lost texts: Q, M , and L. Throughout the remainder of

561-460: Is part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark . According to this hypothesis, this material was drawn from the early Church's oral gospel traditions . Along with Marcan priority , Q was hypothesized by 1900, and is one of the foundations of most modern gospel scholarship. B. H. Streeter formulated a widely accepted view of Q: that it

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612-400: Is possible to deduce that Q was written in Greek. If the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were referring to a document that had been written in some other language (such as Aramaic ), it is highly unlikely that two independent translations would have exactly the same wording. The Q document must have been composed before Matthew and Luke; some scholars even suggest that Q predated Mark. A date for

663-469: The Gospel according to the Hebrews was the basis for the synoptic tradition. They point out that in the first section of De Viris Illustribus (Jerome), the Gospel of Mark is where it should be as it was the first gospel written and was used as a source for the later gospels. Following it should be Q; but not only is Q not where it should be at the top of Jerome's list, this treasured work recording

714-413: The Gospel of Luke , and is especially similar to Luke 5:12–14 and Luke 17:14, a conclusion also shared by scholar Tobias Nicklas. Helmut Koester and J. D. Crossan have argued that despite its apparent historical importance, the text is not well known. It is a mere fragment, and does not bear a clear relationship to any of the four canonical gospels. The Egerton Gospel has been largely ignored outside

765-587: The Jesus Seminar , have done just that. Basing their reconstructions primarily on the Gospel of Thomas and the oldest layer of Q, they propose that Jesus functioned as a wisdom sage , rather than a rabbi , though not all members affirm the two-source hypothesis. Kloppenborg is now a fellow of the Jesus Seminar himself. However, scholars supporting the three-stage Q development hypothesis, such as Burton L. Mack , argue that Q's unity comes not only from its being shared by Matthew and Luke, but also because, in

816-564: The Logia of Christ is mentioned nowhere by Jerome. Rather, the first seminal document is not Q, but the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Austin Farrer , Michael Goulder , and Mark Goodacre have also argued against Q, maintaining Marcan priority, claiming the use of Matthew by Luke. This view has come to be known as the Farrer hypothesis . Their arguments include: While supporters say that

867-583: The Oxyrhynchus Papyri . In 2019 it was established that they were purchased in 1934 from Maurice Nahman, an antiquities dealer in Cairo. Nahman purchased the manuscript sometime between the 1920s and 1934, without recording its origin. Nahman bragged that he had many origins for his manuscripts. The Oxyrhynchus identification is thus in question. The Cologne fragment was deposited without any provenance whatsoever. Circumstantial evidence suggests that this

918-414: The 20th century, there were various challenges and refinements of Streeter's hypothesis. For example, in his 1953 book The Gospel Before Mark , Pierson Parker posited an early version of Matthew (Aramaic M or proto-Matthew) as the primary source. Parker argued that it was not possible to separate Streeter's "M" material from the material in Matthew parallel to Mark. In the early 20th century, more than

969-450: The Gospel of Mark. However, Matthew and Luke also share large sections of text not found in Mark. They suggested that neither Gospel drew upon the other, but upon a second common source, termed Q. Herbert Marsh is seen by some as the first person to hypothesize the existence of a "narrative" source and a "sayings" source, although he included in the latter parables unique to Matthew and unique to Luke. In his 1801 work, A dissertation on

1020-527: The Johannine manner. Evangelical scholar Craig Evans supports a date for the Egerton Gospel later than the canonical gospels in a variety of ways. He finds many parallels between the Egerton Gospel and the canonical gospels that include editorial language particular to Matthew and Luke. While Koester argues that these show a tradition before the other gospels, Craig Evans sees these as drawing from

1071-529: The Marcan text in both Matthew and Luke; these are called the "minor agreements" against Mark. Some 198 instances involve one word, 82 involve two words, 35 three, 16 four, and 16 instances involve five or more words in the extant texts of Matthew and Luke as compared to Marcan passages. John Wenham (1913–1996) adhered to the Augustinian hypothesis that Matthew was the first Gospel, Mark the second, and Luke

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1122-643: The Origin and Composition of our Three First Canonical Gospels , he used the Hebrew letter aleph ( א ) to denote the narrative source and the letter beth ( ב ) to denote the sayings source. The next person to advance the "sayings" hypothesis was the German Friedrich Schleiermacher in 1832. Schleiermacher interpreted an enigmatic statement by the early Christian writer Papias of Hierapolis , c.  95–109 AD ("Matthew compiled

1173-498: The bank of the Jordan river; he reached out his right hand, and filled it   [...] And he sowed it on the   [...] And then   [...] water   [...] and   [...] before their eyes; and it brought forth fruit   [...] many   [...] for joy   [...] The date of the manuscript is established through palaeography (the comparison of writing styles) alone. When the Egerton fragments were first published, its date

1224-435: The canonical gospels. Hence, it may have been preferable to copy instead from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, "where the sayings of Jesus from Q were rephrased to avoid misunderstandings, and to fit their own situations and their understanding of what Jesus had really meant". For centuries, biblical scholars followed the Augustinian hypothesis : that the Gospel of Matthew was the first to be written, Mark used Matthew in

1275-505: The church service. Hence they preferred to make copies of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, where the sayings of Jesus from Q were rephrased to avoid misunderstandings, and to fit their own situations and their understanding of what Jesus had really meant." The existence of the "minor agreements" within the two-source hypothesis has raised serious concerns. These minor agreements are those points where Matthew and Luke agree against or beyond Mark precisely within their Marcan verses (for example,

1326-640: The connection of Papias to the collection of sayings. This two-source hypothesis speculates that Matthew borrowed from both Mark and Q. For most scholars, Q accounts for what Matthew and Luke share—sometimes in exactly the same words—but that are absent in Mark. Examples are the Devil's three temptations of Jesus , the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, and many individual sayings. In The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (1924), Burnett Hillman Streeter argued that

1377-593: The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas supports the concept of a "sayings gospel", Mark Goodacre points out that Q has a narrative structure as reconstructed and is not simply a list of sayings. Other scholars have brought other arguments against Q: Two documents, both correcting Mark's language, adding birth narratives and a resurrection epilogue, and adding a large amount of "sayings material", are likely to resemble each other, rather than to have such similar scope by coincidence. Specifically, there are 347 instances (by Neirynck's count) where one or more words are added to

1428-556: The early part of it". Jon B. Daniels writes the following in his introduction in The Complete Gospels: On the one hand, some scholars have maintained that Egerton's unknown author composed by borrowing from the canonical gospels. This solution has not proved satisfactory for several reasons: The Egerton Gospel's parallels to the synoptic gospels lack editorial language peculiar to the synoptic authors, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They also lack features that are common to

1479-515: The events of Jesus' life: Q does not mention Jesus' birth, his selection of the 12 disciples, his crucifixion, or the resurrection. Instead, it appears to be a collection of Jesus' sayings and quotations. The case for Q's existence follows from the argument that neither Matthew nor Luke is directly dependent on the other in the double tradition (defined by New Testament scholars as material that Matthew and Luke share that does not appear in Mark). However,

1530-442: The final Q document is often placed in the 40s or 50s of the 1st century, with some arguing its so-called sapiential layer (1Q, containing six wisdom speeches) was written as early as the 30s. If Q existed, physical copies of it have since been lost. Some scholars, however, believe it can be partially reconstructed by examining elements common to Matthew and Luke (but absent from Mark). Versions of this reconstructed Q do not describe

1581-414: The first half of the 2nd century CE. Redactional speculation, notably in the work of John S. Kloppenborg analyzing certain literary and thematic phenomena, argued that Q was composed in three stages. In the view of Kloppenborg, the earliest stage of its redaction was a collection of wisdom sayings involving issues such as poverty and discipleship. Then, he posits, this collection was expanded by including

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1632-502: The hooked apostrophe in that papyrus in support of this date. The revised dating for the Egerton Papyrus continues to carry wide support. However, Stanley Porter has reviewed the dating of the Egerton Papyrus alongside that of 𝔓 ; noting that the scholarly consensus dating the former to the turn of the third century and the latter to the first half of the second century was contra-indicated by close palaeographic similarities of

1683-434: The later second century, and one (BGU III 715.5) is dated to 101 CE. Porter proposes that, notwithstanding the discovery of the hooked apostrophe in P. Köln 255, the original editors' proposal of a mid second century date for the Egerton Papyrus accords better with the palaeographic evidence of dated comparator documentary and literary hands for both 𝔓 and this papyrus "the middle of the second century, perhaps tending towards

1734-422: The layers of Q as reconstructed, the later layers build upon and presuppose the earlier ones, whereas the reverse is not the case. In this argument, evidence that Q has been revised is not evidence for disunity in Q, since the hypothesised revisions depend upon asymmetric logical connections between what are posited to be the later and earlier layers. Some biblical scholars believe that an unknown redactor composed

1785-438: The mocking question at the beating of Jesus, "Who is it that struck you?", found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark, although this "minor agreement" falls outside the usually accepted range of Q). The "minor agreements" call into question the proposition that Matthew and Luke knew Mark but not each other, e.g. Luke might have indeed been following Matthew, or at least a Matthew-like source. Peabody and McNicol argue that until

1836-504: The oracles (logia) of the Lord in a Hebrew manner of speech, and everyone translated them as well he could") as evidence of a separate source. Rather than the traditional interpretation—that Papias was referring to the writing of Matthew in Hebrew—Schleiermacher proposed that Papias was actually referring to a sayings collection of the apostle Matthew that was later used, together with narrative elements, by another "Matthew" and by

1887-497: The other Evangelists . In 1838, another German, Christian Hermann Weisse , took Schleiermacher's suggestion of a sayings source and combined it with the idea of Marcan priority to formulate what is now called the Two-Source Hypothesis, in which both Matthew and Luke used Mark and the sayings source. Heinrich Julius Holtzmann endorsed this approach in an influential treatment of the synoptic problem in 1863, and

1938-517: The other gospel writers. Such traditional sayings are posited for the hypothetical Q Document . Ronald Cameron states: Since Papyrus Egerton 2 displays no dependence upon the gospels of the New Testament, its earliest possible date of composition would be sometime in the middle of the first century, when the sayings and stories which underlie the New Testament first began to be produced in written form. The latest possible date would be early in

1989-652: The other gospels just as Justin Martyr did. He also finds words such as the plural "priests" that show lack of knowledge of Jewish customs. Egerton Collection The Egerton Collection is a collection of historical manuscripts held in the British Library . The core of the collection comprises 67 manuscripts bequeathed to the British Museum in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater , along with £12,000 (the Bridgewater fund). To this sum

2040-431: The same order, sometimes using the same words. Scholars note that the similarities among Mark, Matthew, and Luke are too great to be coincidental. If the two-source hypothesis is correct, then Q would probably have been a written document. If Q was a shared oral tradition, it is unlikely that it could account for the nearly identical word-for-word similarities between Matthew and Luke when quoting Q material. Similarly, it

2091-482: The second century, shortly before the copy of the extant papyrus fragment was made. Because this papyrus presents traditions in a less developed form than John does, it was probably composed in the second half of the first century, in Syria, shortly before the Gospel of John was written. Scholar François Bovon observes that the Egerton fragments "sound very Johannine " but also includes a number of terms characteristic of

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2142-404: The stages in which Q was composed. Despite the two-source hypothesis enjoying wide support, Q's existence has been questioned. Omitting what should have been a highly treasured dominical document from all early Church catalogs, its lack of mention by Jerome is a conundrum of modern Biblical scholarship . However, copying Q might have been seen as unnecessary, as its contents were preserved in

2193-452: The synoptic gospels, a difficult fact to explain if those gospels were Egerton's source. On the other hand, suggestions that the Egerton Gospel served as a source for the authors of Mark and/or John also lack conclusive evidence. The most likely explanation for the Egerton Gospel's similarities and differences from the canonical gospels is that Egerton's author made independent use of traditional sayings and stories of Jesus that also were used by

2244-414: The two manuscripts. The 1987 redating of the Egerton Papyrus had rested on a comment made by Eric Turner in 1971: [I]n the first decade of III AD, this practice (of using an apostrophe between two consonants, such as double mutes or double liquids) suddenly becomes extremely common, and then persists. Porter notes that Turner had then nevertheless advanced several earlier dated examples of the practice from

2295-555: The two-source hypothesis has dominated ever since. At this time, the second source was usually called the Logia , or Logienquelle (' logia -source'), because of Papias's statement, and Holtzmann gave it the symbol Lambda (Λ). However, toward the end of the 19th century, doubts began to grow about the propriety of anchoring its existence to Papias's account, with the symbol Q (which was devised by Johannes Weiss to denote Quelle , meaning 'source') adopted instead to remain neutral about

2346-609: The verbal agreement between Matthew and Luke is so close in some parts of the double tradition that the most reasonable explanation for this agreement is common dependence on a written source or sources. Even if Matthew and Luke are independent (see Marcan priority ), the Q hypothesis states that they used a common document. Arguments for Q being a written document include: The fact that no Q manuscripts exist today does not necessarily argue against its existence. Many early Christian texts no longer exist, and are only known of through citation or mention of them in surviving texts. Once Q's text

2397-485: The writing of his, and Luke followed both Matthew and Mark in his (the Gospel of John is quite different from the other three, which because of their similarity are called the Synoptic Gospels ). Nineteenth-century New Testament scholars who rejected Matthew's priority in favor of Marcan priority speculated that Matthew's and Luke's authors drew the material they have in common with the Gospel of Mark from

2448-587: Was estimated at around 150 CE; implying that, of early Christian papyri it would be rivalled in age only by 𝔓 , the John Rylands Library fragment of the Gospel of John . Later, when an additional papyrus fragment of the Egerton Gospel text was identified in the University of Cologne collection (Papyrus Köln 255) and published in 1987, it was found to fit on the bottom of one of the British Library papyrus pages. In this additional fragment

2499-535: Was incorporated into the body of Matthew and Luke, it may have been no longer necessary to preserve it, just as interest in copying Mark seems to have waned substantially once it was incorporated into Matthew. The editorial board of the International Q Project writes: "During the second century, when the canonizing process was taking place, scribes did not make new copies of Q, since the canonizing process involved choosing what should and what should not be used in

2550-774: Was purchased from Nahman's estate at the time of his death in 1954. Colin Henderson Roberts reported seeing an account of the Passion of Jesus in Nahman's collection. Other Biblical scholars urgently pursued this missing fragment, but Nahman's collection was sold off indiscriminately to many different European universities and private collectors. The names of buyers were not recorded and the final whereabouts of this fragment, if it exists, are unknown. The surviving fragments include four stories: The latter story has no equivalent in canonical Gospels: Jesus walked and stood on

2601-566: Was written in Koine Greek ; that most of its contents appear in Matthew, in Luke, or in both; and that Luke more often preserves the text's original order than Matthew. In the two-source hypothesis , the three-source hypothesis and the Q+/Papias hypothesis , Matthew and Luke both used Mark and Q as sources. Some scholars have postulated that Q is actually a plurality of sources, some written and some oral. Others have attempted to determine

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