#C. M. Tuckett

[lostanddeadmedia]

The Q Gospel Part II

So since I hit the character limit in the last part, this is Part II of whatever. All trigger/content warnings that may apply still apply, this is Dead Dove, Do Not Eat territory. Picks up from where I left off under the cut (it's there as a courtesy, I don't want to trigger anyone).

"The common material in Q and Mark (cf. Mark 1:2; 1:7-8; 1:12-13; 3:22-26, 27-29; 4:21, 22, 24, 25: 4:30-32; 6:7-13; 8:11, 12; 8:34-35; 8:38; 9:37, 40, 42, 50; 10:10-11; 10:31; 11:22-23; 12:37b-40; 13:9, 11, 33-37) has repeatedlyled to the hypothesis of a literary dependence of Mark on Q. But if Mark had known Q, his criteria for selecting the material he used, and especially the sayings he omitted, cannot be explained. The reasons given remain hypothetical (Mark as a supplement to the sayings source, Q as a supplement to Mark, a critical debate by Mark with the Christology of the sayings source), and fail to make plausible the considerable differences in the literary configuration and theological orientation between Q and Mark. A direct literary connection between Mark and Q must be regarded as improbable. The text complexes they share point rather to independent access of each to old Jesus traditions, but contacts between the two streams of tradition at the pre-redactional level are not to be excluded." -Udo Schenelle commenting on the relationship between Q and Mark (op. cit. p. 195)

"A much discussed feature of Q arises out of Q's version of the mission charge. Here the Q missionaries are told to take absolutely nothing for their journey, not even the basic necessities of life such as food or clothing. Elsewhere, too, Q sayings seem to presuppose an extremely radical break with past personal ties. The Q Christians are told that they must 'hate' their own families (Luke 12:46); they are told that they must take up their cross (Luke 14:27). They are not to worry about their daily needs (Luke 12:22-34) since God will provide for them. They are to be followers of the Son of Man, who has nowhere to lay his head; and they are to break with their past in such a radical way that they are not even to go home to bury a member of their own family (Luke 9:57-60). These saying have led to the plausible theory that behind Q lies a group of Christians who obeyed these instructions to the letter. Hence Q presupposes the existence of wandering prophets or charismatics who made a radical break with their own homes and went about preaching the message of the kingdom (Hoffman 1972; Theissen 1979). However, the presence of sayings like 10:2 may suggest that the final stage of Q also presupposes a group of settled Christians providing backup support for the wandering preachers (Zeller 1982, 1984)." -C. M. Tuckett's observations (op. cit., pp. 570-571)

"J. S. Kloppenborg proposes to explain the origins of Q in terms of a three-stratum model. In his view the oldest layer of Q was composed of 'wisdom speeches', including the nuclear elements of the Sermon on the Plain/Mount and the Missions Discourse, as well as Luke 11:2-4, 9-13 Q; Luke 12:2-12, 22-34 Q; Luke 13:24-14:35 Q; and others. At a later stage this complex was combined with, and partially reshaped by, materials that treat the proclamation of judgement against Israel (preaching of the Baptist, the nobleman of Capernaum, the Baptist's question, the Beelzebul controversy, the demand for signs, the Q apocalypse). The third and final stratum was provided by the temptation story, which presents Jesus as a model for one's relationship to God." _Udo Schnelle summarising the stratification proposed by Kloppenborg (op. cit., pp. 188-189)

"The original version of Q must have included wisdom sayings as well as eschatological sayings. It cannot be argued that Q orignally presented Jesus as a teacher of wisdom without an eschatological message. The close relationships of the Gospel of Thomas to Q cannot be accidental. Since the typical Son of Man sayings and announcements of judgements which are characteristic of the redaction of Q are never paralleled in the Gospel of Thomas, it is evident that its author had no knowledge fo the final version of Q, nor of the secondary apocalyptic interpretation that the redactor of Q superimposed upon earlier eschatological sayings. The Gospel of Thomas is either dependent upon Q's earlier version or upon clusters of sayings employed in its composition." -Helmut Koester (op. cit., p. 150)

"For the followers of Jesus whose tradition is represented in the original composition of Q, the turning point of the ages is the proclamation of Jesus. In the sayings of Jesus, his followers find the continuation of this announcement. These sayings are not only reassurance of the eschatological moment, they are also the rule of life for the community of the new age insofar as Jesus continues to speak in sayings of wisdom and in rules for the community. Jesus may indeed have been viewed as the heavenly wisdom. This is especially evident in Q 10:21-22 which defines the relationship of Jesus to the Father in terms of the established sapiental concept of Wisdom and God. If Q 13:34-35, the lament over Jerusalem, should belong to the original composition of Q, Jesus is also the one who sends Wisdom's envoys.

Just as the departure of Wisdom or of her envoy does not constitute a change in the urgency of the message, so too Jesus' death would not be seen as a crisis of his proclamation. The disciples are already called to follow in the steps of Jesus, in their discipleship (Q 9:57-62) as well as in their task to carry on his proclamation (Q 10:2-12). Jesus' departure would make this call even more urgent. The ages have already begun to turn through Jesus' announcement. Any emphasis on Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection would be meaningless in this context. Thus Q can not be seen as a teaching supplement for a community whose theology is represented by the Pauline kerygma. Q's theology and soteriology are fundamentally different." - Helmut Koester (op. cit., p. 159)

"On the other hand, the Synoptic Sayings Source is an important piece of evidence for the continuation of a theology of followers of Jesus that had no relationship to the kerygma of the cross and resurrection. It is evident now that this was not an isolated phenomenon. The opponents of Paul in 1 Corinthians 1-4, the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the opponents of the Gospel of John in the Johannine community all shared this understanding of the significance of Jesus' coming." -Helmut Koester (op. cit., p. 165)

"Recent studies have shown how fruitful a redaction-critical approach to Q can be. At first sight such work may appear to be extremely hypothetical, being based on what some would argue is a very questionable presupposition (the very existence of Q as a single document). However, the very distinctiveness of the Q material as shown by the recent redaction-critical studies of Q is in itself an indication that this material did exist as a separate entity at some stage in development of the synoptic tradition. Theories about the theology of Q, if successful, may therefore provide support for the hypothesis of the existence of Q. Q may also alert us to the great variety within primitive Christianity. It shows us a version of the Christian faith which perhaps less cross centered than, say, Paul or Mark; but is nonetheless real for that." -C. M. Tuckett (op. cit., p. 571)

Mark and Q

Explanation 1: Q was a book of sayings and teachings attributed to Jesus.

Counteracts the reliance on actual events that Mark had.

Explains why Matthew and Luke's writings are so similar (like students copying from a primary source.

Example:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." - Matthew 7:1-2

"Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive and ye shall be forgiven." -Luke 6:37

The explanation is seen as problematic due to surviving proto-Gospel works sharing little with Matthew and Luke.

Matthew and Luke

Explanation 2: Matthew and Luke copied from each-other, much like students cheating on a test.

This theory is seemingly supported by the fact that the book of Mark was used as a source for the books of Matthew and Luke.

Scholars agreee that the books of Matthew and Luke do not depend on each other like they depend on Mark.

Q is Non-Canon

Explanation 3: Q is the non-canonical 'Gospel of the Hebrews'.

The Gospel of the Hebrews would be a short gospel consisting of the sayings attributed to Jesus.

The Gospel of the Hebrews is second among Jerome's chronology of Christian Writings (listed after Mark).

The Gospel of the Hebrews shares very little in common with either Matthew or Luke.

Q + Mark + Matthew = Luke

The Three-Source Hypothesis: Suggests Q is a proto-Gospel quoted in the works of Papias.

Papias' writings are often mistaken as an abridged version of Matthew.

Further states that the book of Luke was written later than accepted and took from Matthew, Mark, and Q.

Four Source

Four Source Hypothesis: Suggests the Q Gospel alone is not enough to explain the discrepancies between Matthew and Luke.

States that the books of Matthew and Luke not only drew material from Mark and Q, but also a Proto-Matthew and Proto-Luke (supposedly evidenced by the writings of Papias).

Alternate Theory: These three gospels draw common elements from either the Ur-Gospel or oral traditions.

Probability of Recovery

Highly unlikely for any unaltered written version to be unearthed.

A List of Stories Attributed to the Q Gospel

The Beatitudes (describes the blessedness of those who have certain qualities/experiences peculiar to those belonging to the Kingdom of Heaven)

Love Thy Enemies

The Golden Rule

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged

The Test of a Good Person

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

The Parable of the Wedding Feast

The Parable of the Talnts

The Parable of the Leaven

The Parable of the Blind Leading the Blond

The Lord's Prayer

Expounding the Law

The Birds of Heaven and The Lillies In the Field

Sources

Lost Media Wiki

Early Christian Writings

[traumacatholic]

Cambridge University’s Introductory Reading list for Theology degrees students

So for those that don’t know, Cambridge University do have some suggestions for what students can read in order to prepare themselves for the application and interviewing stage. But I figured that this list might also be enjoyed by those who are interested in studying theology / are studying theology / want to know where to begin. 

Paper 1: Languages

Hebrew 

Lambdin, Thomas. Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1973)

Greek 

Duff, J. Elements of New Testament Greek (3rd edn; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Sanskrit 

Coulson, M., Sanskrit: an introduction to the Classical Language (2nd edn; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992)

Arabic 

Haywood, J. A. & Nahmad, H. M. A., A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language (London: Lund Humphries, 1990)

General Books on the Bible and its Interpretation

Grant, R. M. & Tracy, D. A., Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (London: SCM, 1984)

Hayes, J. H. & Holladay, C. R., Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner's Handbook (3rd edn; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010)

Alter, R. & Kermode, F., The Literary Guide to the Bible (London: Collins, 1987)

Soskice, J.M., The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden Gospels (London: Chatto & Windus, 2009).

Old Testament: David 

McKenzie, S.L., King David: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)*

Alter, R., The Art of Biblical Narrative (London: Basic Books, 2011)

Dietrich, W., The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E. (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007)

Rogerson, J. W. & Davies, P., The Old Testament World (2nd edn; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006)

Rogerson, J. W. (ed.), Beginning Old Testament Study (London: SPCK, 1983)

New Testament: Jesus and the Origins of the Gospels

Johnson, L. T., The Writings of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1999)

Court, J. & K., The New Testament World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)

Tuckett, C., Reading the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1987)

Barrett, C. K., The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (London: SPCK, 1956)

Moule, C. F. D., The Birth of the New Testament (London: A & C Black, 3rd ed., 1981)

E. P. Sanders,  The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Allen Lane, 1993)

M Bockmuehl (ed.),  The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)

History: Christianity and the Transformation of Culture 

Brown, P., Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison,WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992)

Markus, R., The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)

Clark, G., Christianity and Roman Society (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004)

The Question of God 

Davis, Stephen T. (ed.), Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004)

Fergusson, David. Creation (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2014)

Ford, David F., Theology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004).

Solle, Dorothee. Thinking about God: An Introduction to Theology (London: SCM, 1990)

Understanding Contemporary Religion

Aldridge, A., Religion in the Contemporary World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000)

Barker, E., The Making of a Moonie: Brainwashing or Choice (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984)

Bruce, S., Religion in the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

Davie, G., Religion in Britain since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994)

Davie, G., Europe: The Exceptional Case (London: DLT, 2002)

Hamilton, M. B., The Sociology of Religion (2nd edn; London: Routledge, 2001)

World Religions 

Neusner, J. & Sonn, T., Comparing Religions Through Law: Judaism and Islam (London: Routledge, 1999)

McCutcheon, R. T., The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Cassell, 1999)

de Lange, N.R.M., An Introduction to Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Waines, D., An Introduction to Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Lipner, J. J., Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge, 1994)

Philosophy of Religion 

Brian Davies, Introduction to Philosophy of Religion (Oxford, 3rd edition, 2004)

Edward Feser, Five Proofs of the Existence of God (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017)

John Haldane and J.J.C. Smart, Atheism and Theism (London: Blackwell, 1996)

David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss (New Haven: Yale, 2014)

Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (Oxford, revised edition, 2010)

Charles Taliaferro, Evidence and Faith: Philosophy and Religion Since the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 2005)

Burrell, D., Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides and Aquinas (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986)

Ethics 

John Hare, God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, and Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001)

Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), ch. 7

Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 2nd ed., 1998)

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth, 1981), ch. 1, ch. 2, ch. 9, ch. 18

Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (London: Routledge, 1970), ch. 2

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), esp. Part I, Part II, and Part IV

William Wainwright, Religion and Morality (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), esp. Part I and Part II

Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), ch. 1 and ch. 10

General

Dixon, T.M., How to Get a First (London: Routledge, 2004). This book gives advice on teaching and learning styles and how to manage time and lectures in the Arts & Humanities. It has a helpful section on making the transition from school to university

Miscellaneous (this is compiled from another list they give to those who aren’t at the application stage and want to see what theology is all about)

Confessions by St Augustine,

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Silence by Shusaku Endo

On Being a Muslim by Farid Esack

Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Millar

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Bell by Iris Murdoch

Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

The Chosen by Chaim Potok

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley  

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Phaedrus, The Symposium and Phaedo by Plato provide good background and enrichment reading

Religion: If There Is No God...On God, the Devil, Sin and Other Worries of the So-called Philosophy of Religion by Leszek Kolakowski

Protestants : The Radicals Who Made the Modern World by Alex Ryrie

Authority and the Sacred: aspects of the Christianisation of the ancient world by Peter Brown

In Search of Churchill: A Historian's Journey by Martin Gilbert

Disenchanting the English Reformation by Faculty of Divinity member Richard Rex. The site where it is found, Marginalia, is itself a great forum for thoughtful essays on a whole range of subjects, religious, cultural, and other

Faculty member, Dr Katharine Dell's theological response to coronavirus

Study Theology even if you don't believe in God by Tara Isabella Burton

[esotericawakenings]

Clairvoyance, Jainism & Parapsychology

“Clairvoyance (/klɛərˈvɔɪəns/; from French clair meaning "clear" and voyance meaning "vision") is the alleged ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said accordingly to be a clairvoyant (/klɛərˈvɔɪənt/) ("one who sees clearly").

Claims for the existence of paranormal and psychic abilities such as clairvoyance have not been supported by scientific evidence published in high impact factor peer reviewed journals. Parapsychology explores this possibility, but the existence of the paranormal is not accepted by the scientific community. Parapsychology, including the study of clairvoyance, is an example of pseudoscience.”-wikipedia

Jainism

“Jainism made its own unique contribution to this mainstream development of philosophy by occupying itself with the basic epistemological issues. According to Jains, knowledge is the essence of the soul. This knowledge is masked by the karmic particles. As the soul obtains knowledge through various means, it does not generate anything new. It only shreds off the knowledge-obscuring karmic particles. According to Jainism, consciousness is a primary attribute of Jīva (soul) and this consciousness manifests itself as darsana (perception) and jnana (knowledge).”

Parapsychology

“Early research

The earliest record of somnambulistic clairvoyance is credited to the Marquis de Puységur, a follower of Franz Mesmer, who in 1784 was treating a local dull-witted peasant named Victor Race. During treatment, Race reportedly would go into trance and undergo a personality change, becoming fluent and articulate, and giving diagnosis and prescription for his own disease as well as those of others. Clairvoyance was a reported ability of some mediums during the spiritualist period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and psychics of many descriptions have claimed clairvoyant ability up to the present day.

Character reader and clairvoyant in a British travelling show of the 1940s, collected by Arthur James Fenwick (1878–1957)

Early researchers of clairvoyance included William Gregory, Gustav Pagenstecher, and Rudolf Tischner. Clairvoyance experiments were reported in 1884 by Charles Richet. Playing cards were enclosed in envelopes and a subject put under hypnosis attempted to identify them. The subject was reported to have been successful in a series of 133 trials but the results dropped to chance level when performed before a group of scientists in Cambridge. J. M. Peirce and E. C. Pickering reported a similar experiment in which they tested 36 subjects over 23,384 trials which did not obtain above chance scores.

Ivor Lloyd Tuckett (1911) and Joseph McCabe (1920) analyzed early cases of clairvoyance and came to the conclusion they were best explained by coincidence or fraud. In 1919, the magician P. T. Selbit staged a séance at his own flat in Bloomsbury. The spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle attended the séance and declared the clairvoyance manifestations to be genuine.

A significant development in clairvoyance research came when J. B. Rhine, a parapsychologist at Duke University, introduced a standard methodology, with a standard statistical approach to analyzing data, as part of his research into extrasensory perception. A number of psychological departments attempted to repeat Rhine's experiments with failure. W. S. Cox (1936) from Princeton University with 132 subjects produced 25,064 trials in a playing card ESP experiment. Cox concluded "There is no evidence of extrasensory perception either in the 'average man' or of the group investigated or in any particular individual of that group. The discrepancy between these results and those obtained by Rhine is due either to uncontrollable factors in experimental procedure or to the difference in the subjects." Four other psychological departments failed to replicate Rhine's results. It was revealed that Rhine's experiments contained methodological flaws and procedural errors.

Eileen Garrett was tested by Rhine at Duke University in 1933 with Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and she was asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order. The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May, 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote "In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place."-wikipedia 

[lostanddeadmedia]

The Q Gospel Part I

Yes, I know this is a lost media blog focusing on film and television, but this particular subject really caught my interest last night when I should have been asleep. As related to the Bible, all applicable trigger/content warnings apply.

What is the Q Gospel?

"The Q Gospel is a potential source document for various texts of The New Testament containing a collection of unmitigated sayings and teachings of Jesus Christ." - LMW

These writings are classified as hypothetical and thus their existence is unconfirmed.

AKA: Q Source, Q Document(s), or Q. The name is taken from the German word Quelle (source).

Existence

The existence of these writings are commented on by several early Christian scholars such as B.H. Streeter.

"It is doubtful if more than a very few cases of variation between Matthew and Luke can be explained in this way. The Semitic nature of Q's Greek does not demand an Aramaic Vorlage; influence from LXX is quite conceivable in a Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian milieu. Many of the alleged translation variants turn out to be simply cases of synonyms, and the differences between Matthew and Luke can often be explained just as well due to the redactional activity of the evangelists (Kloppenborg 1987). For example, in Luke 11:41, Luke's "give alms" may well be LkR (Lukan redaction), reflecting Luke's concern for almsgiving. In other parts of the Q material, the verbal agreement between Matthew and Luke amounts to virtual verbal identitiy in Greek (Luke 3:7-9; 11:9-10 and pars.). In these instances the measure of verbal agreement seems to demand a common Greek source. Further, some features of Q's Greek can be shown to be characteristic of a source originally written in Greek and uncharacteristic of translation Greek (Turner 1969). This suggests that much of the Q material was available to Matthew and Luke in Greek form." -C. M. Tuckett (op. cit., pp. 567 - 568)

"The Sayings Source presumably originated in (north) Palestine, since its theological perspective is directed primarily to Israel. The proclamations of judgement at the beginning and end of the document are directed against Israel (cf. Luke 3:7-9Q; Luke 22:28-30Q), numerous logia are centered on Palestine by their geographical references and the cultural world they assume (cf. only Luke 7:1Q; 10:13-15Q), the bearers of Q tradition understand themselves to be faithful to the Law (cf. Luke 16:17Q; Luke 11:42Q), and Q polemic is directed against the Pharisees (cf. e.g. Luke 11:39b-44Q)." -Udo Schenelle (The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings, p. 186)

"Q10:13-15 announces the coming judgement explicitly with the view to two Galilean towns, Chorazin and Bethsaida: even Tyre and Didon will be better off in the coming judgement. And the same saying threatens that Capernaum will be condemned to Hades. Except for the lament over Jerusalem (Q 13:34-35) and the localization of John the Baptist's activity in the area of Jordan (Q 3:3), these are the only names of places which occur in Q. It is, therefore, tempting to assume that the redaction of Q took place somewhere in Galilee and that the document as a whole reflects the experience of a Galilean community of followers of Jesus. But some caution with respect to such conclusion seems advisable for several reasons. One single saying provides a very narrow base. Polemic against the Pharisees cannot confirm Galilean provenence - Greek-speaking Pharisees could be found elsewhere in the diaspora, viz., Paul who persecuted the church in Greek-speaking synagogues, probably in Syria or Cilicia. Even the sayings used for the original composition of Q were known and used elsewhere at an early date: they were known to Paul, were used in Corinth by his opponents, employed perhaps in easter Syria for the composition of the Gospel of Thomas, and quoted by I Clement in Rome at the ned of the first century. The document itself in its final redacted form, was used for the composition of two gospel writings, Matthew and Luke, which both originated in the Greek-speaking church outside of Palestine." - Helmut Koester (Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 164)

"The Sayings Source was composed before the destruction of the temple, since the sayings against Jerusalem and the temple in Luke 13:34-35Q do not presuppose any military events. A more percise determination of the time of composition must remain hypothetical, but a few indications point to the period betweeen 40 and 50CE: (1) Bearers of the sayings tradition, which possibly extends all the way back to pre-Easter times, included both wandering preachers of the Jesus movement as well as local congregations. Thus the conditions in which the Sayiings Source originated included both continuity with the beginnings and with the developing congregational structures across the region. (2) The Sayings Source presupposes persecution of the young congregations by Palestinian Jews (cf. Luke 6:22-23 Q; Luke 11:49-51 Q; Luke 12:4-5 Q; 12:11-12 Q). About 50 CE Paul mentions in 1 Thess. 2:14-16 a persecution of Christians in Judea that had already taken place. The execution of James the son of Zebedee by Agrippa I (cf. Acts 12:2) occurred around 44CE. (3) The positive references to Gentiles in Q (cf. Luke 10:13 - 15 Q; Luke 11:29-31 Q; Matthew 8:5-13 Q; Matthew 5:47Q; Matthew 22:1-10Q) indicate that the Gentile mission had begun, which is probably to be located in the period between 40 and 50CE." - Udo Schenelle, the dating of Q (op. cit., p. 186)

"Mark wrote his story of Jesus some time after the war and shortly after Q had been revised with the Q3 additions. If we date Q3 around 75C.E. to give some time for the additions obviously prompted by the ewar, Mark can be dated between 75 and 80 C.E.... For Mark, Q was extremely useful, for it had already positioned Jesus at the hinge of an epic-apocalyptic history, and it contained themes and narrative material that could be easily turned into a more eventful depiction of Jesus' public appearance. Q provided Mark with a large number of themes essential to his narrative. He was taken with the epic-apocalyptic mythology, the theme of prophetic prediction, and the announcement of judgement upon the scribes, Pharisees, and "this generation". The figure of the son of man intrigued him, as did the notion that the kingdome of God would be fully revealed only at the eschaton when the son of man (or Jesus, according to Mark) (re)appeared. Q also provided material that could easily be turned to advantage as building blocks in a coherent narrative account. The John-Jesus material was a great opener. The figure of the holy spirit was ready-made to connect the Q material on John and Jesus with the miracle stories Mark would use. Q's characterization of Jesus as the all-knowing one could be used to entity could be used to enhance his authority as a self-referential speaker in the pronouncement of stories Mark already had from his own community. The notion of Jesus as the son of God could be used to create mystique, divide the house on the question of Jesus' true identity, and develop narrative anticipation, the device scholars call Mark's 'messianic secret'. The instruction for the workers in the harvest could be turned into a mission charge, and the theme of discipleship could be combined and given narrative profile by introducing a few disciples into the story. The apocalyptic predictions at the end of Q could then become insturctions to the disciples at that point in the story where Jesus turns to go to Jerusalem. And, as scholars know, there are a myriad of interesting points at which the so-called overlaps between Mark and Q show Mark's use of Q material for his own narrative designs." - Burton Mack (The Lost Gospel, pp. 177-179)