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  1. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Nope. Never.
     
  2. SolaSaint

    SolaSaint Well-Known Member

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    Excellent post....
     
  3. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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    Thanks for your input and sharing your wisdom J of J.
     
  4. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
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    Excellent summation!

    This goes along with what I have found in my own studies, although you have obviously gone deeper than I have in your translation work.

    May God bless your translation!
     
  5. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    wasn't that "document" speculated to have existed based upon thecritical views regarding the scriptures that more liberal "experts" in the early transmission of the manuscripts held with?

    That theyhad to hold to this, as they refused to accept verbal plenary views of biblical inspiration?
     
  6. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Liberals cannot be experts??? This is an overly narrow view of synoptic studies. Your use of the quotation marks is pretty telling.

    Like I've indicated, even solid evangelicals believe in a Q document (many from DTS) of some kind.
     
  7. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    I refer to "liberals" in the sense of being into critical theology views regarding the composition of the scriptures, as would deny basically the position of verbal plenary inspiration was what happened in the original writings!
     
  8. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Yes, it is my understanding that the Q theory was invented out of whole cloth by liberals to explain the synoptic problem. To this day there is no mss evidence and no historical evidence. I think there is actually more evidence for the existence of UFOs than Q. :smilewinkgrin: So I'm always amazed at good evangelicals (as Greektim points out) who swallow it. There are better ways to deal with the synoptic problem.
     
  9. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    To those who appreciated my post about the Greek parallels involved, you're welcome. :wavey:
     
  10. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Or is it possible that you have an overly simplistic view of inspiration??? Either way, just because a hypothesis is adopted that goes against both your view and your understanding of a doctrine does not deem it liberal. The fact that good evangelicals do believe it should show that it is not incompatible with a conservative view of inspiration (though JoJ seems to be surprised at the "swallowing"). It is simply a view of history.

    Let me clarify... I don't hold to the existence of Q. I lean toward Matthaen priority. However, the scholarship that exists means that we would be fools to write it off so quickly, even if guilty by association. This is a major problem with fundamentalism that makes the fundies seem impossible to take serious. They write off views that are cherished and the prominent view amongst the academic community. Thus academia is scorned. Could it be that they are thinking critically about an historical issue and come to a conclusion that seems viable, even for evangelicals???

    I don't mean to accuse you of being a fundie, Yeshua1. But you are displaying the same kind of polarizing attitude.
     
  11. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Come on, Tim, you know that Q has the least evidence of any of the original higher critical theories (which is to say, none whatsoever). Even JEDP and Deutero-Isaiah are based on internal considerations, however mistaken, which don't exist in Q since it is not extant. And haven't those two theories been discredited? So I'll stick to my "swallowing" statement. :smilewinkgrin:

    To show how messed up the Q theory is, R. P. Martin in his article in the revised ISBE ssys, "J. Moffatt...listed no fewer than 16 attempts to reconstruct the scope of Q" (Vol. 4, p. 1). He also says, "One may conclude that many scholars now speak less confidently of Q as a document, preferring to call it a 'layer of tradition' or 'stratum,' or even simply a cipher for oral material found in Matthew and Luke" (ibid, p. 3). (Caveat: Martin does believe in the existence of some sort of Q.)

    And like I've said, I've found there to be much closer agreement between the Greek of Matthew and Mark than Luke and the other two. Check out the number of hapax legomena in Luke, for example. So if Matthew and Luke have a joint source, seems like they would agree more precisely.
    Please don't lump all fundamentalists together, since there are about 13,000 IFB churches with various movements within the movement. There are a number of fundamental seminaries and schools which value scholarship and are accredited. (About half of IFB schools are not even KJVO.) My own MA is from regionally accredited Maranatha BBC, with very high standards. (Example: I had to read Moo's 941 pages for a class on Romans.) Even BJU is aiming at TRACS accreditation (though they've always valued scholarship--don't know about now, but their basic Greek course used to be 5 credits per semester.)
     
  12. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    I've admitted that much. But I also said it is possible albeit not probable. Your next statement shows the possibility and how Q scholarship has evolved to a more likely position.

    Likely, this is what most of the evangelicals believe who adhere to some form of Q. Even I hold to a Jesus tradition before the gospel accounts were penned. The progressive publication of Matthew view has a very intriguing segue into this. I highly recommend you read Power's book on it. Very interesting.

    I know not all fundies are equal, but what they all share is the polarizing attitude. From my experience as a fundie and being in an academic fundie setting to the non-academic KJVO type, it was always the same. If it was not us, it was wrong (sometimes "heresy" is used). No matter what, strong language was always used like "swallow" or the quote unquote "experts" for liberals (i.e. anyone who seems to be too different from the fundie norm). I am critical of fundamentalism. That is my flaw. But that is because I detest much of what it produces. Probably the most common production is the polarizing effect of dogma. Separation and militation is a fundie priority. There is little levity or allowance in this school of thought.

    But I digress... this thread is not about fundamentalism (although I still maintain the oversimplistic view of inspiration that has been mentioned already).
     
  13. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    The whole Q conversation is such a fascinating one to watch from both the academic side and the congregational side. Having feet in both worlds makes it an intriguing case study in presuppositions of theological tradition that are handed from one generation to the next.

    For the academic side, too often these individuals are just regurgitating what they've heard from their Docktorvater/muter and adding a bit of distinction here and there. In fact, with a few exceptions, there haven't been any tremendous developments in relation to Q theory for the last fifteen years or so. What has been produced aligns closely with older (this is a subjective measurement) theology and rarely develops a new point. Though the proponents of Q, particularly at SBL or AAR, would protest, when pressed they haven't really developed anything new. Yet they are tremendously confident in their conclusions and have a tendency to mock or disavow anyone who disagrees with them.

    On the congregational side, your view of Q (which is really ancillary once you properly define inspiration) becomes a test for fellowship and teaching for those informed. Walk into any classroom environment with folks who can describe Q and what it actually means and you'll usually see (in evangelical churches) a rejection of the scholarship behind. Of course nuanced theological conversations are nearly impossible with some people...however, it seems that there is a corresponding rejection of anyone accepting Q theory and mocking the beliefs of those who have, and are, working through its postulations. Its an odd place to be, watching these two sides.

    Though there is a parallel with the JEDP and Deutero-Isaiah work in the OT, it is really interesting that folks are quick to judge to the theological positions of those who state something about Q.

    When I went from my time at Liberty in my undergraduate education to Southwestern for my graduate degree I saw opinions and perspectives change. Frankly, a lot of the presupposition about Q which were held by my teachers and peers at Liberty simply weren't good ones when given engagement with scholars who knew something about the topic.

    I wonder how much of this gets back to an uninformed and unreflectant view of inspiration. Part of my doctoral work had me survey the views of inspiration among the patristics. I also had to do some work in the creation, transmission, and construction of the NT documents. As a result I reject the dictation view of inspiration. It just doesn't work when we consider the NT documents. While I accept inerrancy (I sign my ETS statement every year) I am mindful that the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy doesn't require one to hold to verbal plenary inspiration in order to be in line with its conclusions. Yet it seems to me that I get the most push back on my view of Q, previously stated, from people who believe that dictation theory (or some nuanced approach) is the only view. They also misunderstand verbal plenary inspiration.

    Thus the conversation around Q is one that is important for understanding NT studies, and thus important for our local churches, but is often difficult to have because of presuppositions or misunderstandings.

    Well this has been a long and pretty useless post other than to say: particularly when we engage in nuanced theological discussions perhaps our best first step is to provide generosity to each other and seek to understand rather than presume.
     
  14. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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    PJ, I am in "no way" a NT scholar or academic. Are there "schools of thought" among scholars that hold that simple oral traditions passed down in worship gatherings may have been the source of commonality among the synoptics?
     
  15. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Though the question was not posed to me, I will throw out an answer. There is a very small view that sees the synoptics as independent works. Some with an extremely overly simplistic view of inspiration would just chop it up to the Spirit guiding these men to write their accounts so extraordinarily close as to make them synoptic (viewed together). However, I'm not sure I can think of a group that states the oral tradition accounts for all 3 synoptics being formed independent of one another. The closest I've heard is the progressive publication of matthew view which said Matthew made many (possibly Hebrew or Aramaic) short stories about Jesus that would account for the written Jesus tradition (and church fathers speaking of a Hebrew form of Matthew) which Luke got ahold of. Later, Matthew wrote the entire account which is similar to what others like Luke or Mark had access to from the smaller fragments. But even in this case, there is interdependence (in this case the Jesus tradition was passed down from Matthew's shorter accounts). This view is very fascinating to me.
     
  16. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Really? I felt I was fairly soft with the word "swallow." Non-fundamentalist scholars opposing Q have been far more harsh.

    Martin (op cit, p. 1) quotes B. C. Butler, Originality of Matthew, p. 170, as saying that Q is “unnecessary and vicious.”

    Zane Hodges (”The Centurion’s Faith in Matthew and Luke,” Bib Sac, Vol. 121 #484, Oct.-Dec. 1964, p. 323) wrote,

    "Since in this case the narrative is absent from Mark, the distinction of being the basic source for it is usually bestowed on the highly ephemeral Q—a document whose ‘discovery’ we owe not to ancient evidence but to the deductions of modern criticism! It would scarcely be worth-while in the present discussion to become mired in the ever shifting morass of theories which occupy present day source criticism. New Testament studies are not advanced by an infatuation with processes we did not witness and with documents we do not, and cannot, possess. They are only permanently assisted by careful and objective scrutiny of the documents we do possess."

    Yes, I'll not say anything more on this line either.
     
    #36 John of Japan, Dec 30, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 30, 2012
  17. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Concerning the origin of the Q theory, D. A. Carson (Matthew in "The Expositor's Bible Commentary," pp. 4-5) has the first version of the theory beginning in 1776 by A. E. Lessing, followed by Greisbach (1745-1812) and his approach to the synoptic problem, after which came the 19th century Tubingen school (liberals), H. J. Holtzmann 1834-1910 and his two source theory. In the early 20th century, liberal B. H. Streeter delineated the modern Q theory in his 1924 book The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins. (I have a copy--eat your heart out).

    Now here's the thing. We have the Q hypothesis going back arguably to 1776, 237 years ago. Certainly the modern hypothesis goes back to Streeter. And there is still no historical nor manuscript evidence 88 years after Streeter.

    If this were the secular science community, such a hypothesis would have been laughed out of the journals many years ago. One thinks of the Yeti theory or the Loch Ness monster. :type: So why isn't it laughed out of the Biblical scholarship community? New Evangelical leadership in the 1950's decided that evangelicals were not being taken seriously by liberal scholars, and tried to rectify that by hobnobbing with the liberals. That's my take. (I won't take time to document this here, but I think The Great Evangelical Disaster by Francis Schaeffer--who rejected fundamentalism by the way--would give sufficient information to anyone genuinely interested in this history.)

    The sad thing is, evangelical scholars can do just fine without the Q hypothesis. Take just one example. Supposedly the Sermon on the Mount would be part of Q since Matthew and Luke have it but Mark omits it. However, consider what Carson says about redaction criticism: "The fact that Jesus was an itinerant preacher...is passed over too lightly. To attempt a tradition history of somewhat similar sayings, which the evangelists place in quite different contexts, overlooks the repetitive nature of itinerant ministry" (op cit, p. 9).

    In Matthew it was clearly the Sermon on the Mount (5:1). However, Luke has it on a plain (6:17). Folks, it wasn't the same source, the ephemeral Q. Jesus just preached the same sermon at least twice, and Matthew recorded one instance and Luke another.

    Any of us who have had itinerant ministries have done exactly the same. In the furlough just ended, I preached the same message in dozens of churches, and it was different every time like Christ's Mountain Sermon and Plains Sermon were! The source was nothing mysterious, just my heart and brain!
     
  18. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    You don't think Luke was leaning on Matthew for his "stuff" on the sermon on the plain? There is where we would disagree.
     
  19. MB

    MB Well-Known Member

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    What good does it do to discuss something that most probably never existed?
    MB
     
  20. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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    Well, if you want some scripture. "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another". Proverbs 27:17
     
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