Q

[_1 Iron]

In another thread, Aristotle Smith said -

"..."Q" ...(is) a hypothetically reconstructed document, not an actual document."

Before I get into this more, some background on my thoughts: I've known many fellow Christians who are not LDS who have widely different views of the New Testament. Their views have ranged from the Bible being inerrant as the word of God to some, mostly younger, who view it as "inspired", yet also place works like Emerson's and the Dali Lama on equal footing. I've had a hard time figuring out what it means to be non-LDS Christian and see the Bible as something that may not be "true" to the point that Jesus wouldn't even have to be divine, just a good guy inspired by a universal God. While I respect this view, I have a hard time understanding it.

Yet, for all that, there is plenty of evidence that what we call the New Testament is not always reliable, even on matters that are pretty significant.

I spent many hours discussing the potential "Q" source with an online minister who accepted it who pointed me to the works of Bruce Metzger. Through this, I found myself convinced of the evidence. It is very probable that there is a work or works that existed that informed the writers of atleast two of the Gospels. Yet, A. Smith, in your response above I feel you reject this possibility. Is this true? And to open this up to all, what are your views of the "Q" source? And what is your religious belief currently if you don't mind sharing?

For myself, I see many teachings in the LDS church that are not only comparable with this possibility, but that almost rely on it. We are, as a generation, under condemnation for not living the scripture we currently have. LDS are all but familiar with the notion of lost or sealed scripture. If there is a more pure "Q" document that contains the fullness of the Gospel from which subsequent writers took the most palatable parts (meaning it could contain much more than what is reflected in Matthew or Luke) for their intended audiences, I don't think anything in LDS teachings is troubled by this claim. Certainly, church leadership cites these works all the time. And while the inspired translation gave us the rich truths of Moses yet hardly expounds on the New Testament, I think this is very similar to the people of the new world having and teaching from the brass plates while having a firm belief and faith in Christ.

My belief, from an LDS perspective, is that we have the scripture we can endure for now. And we as a people have yet to really tap into it to be worthy of any other promised scripture. A potential "Q" source could fall in that category.

So, what say you?

[_lostindc]

I think you will find that 120% of the board will agree with you.

[_Gadianton]

Hi there 1 Iron, welcome to the forum!

I really enjoyed this post. I think that Chapel Mormons are very anxious to trash the Bible and may be open to "Q" if it is explained properly. They have a vested interest in a more pure gospel.

The Internet Mormons may also agree, as their apologetics have matured into an outright hatred of the Bible. However, the apologists, have learned of a plot twist straight from David Cronenberg's "Existence" or Nolan's "Inception" where those who have escaped one virtual world now discover they are living in another. And the Book of Mormon is found out to be a "Textual layer" of the real text, with those believing the Book of Mormon to really talk about horses or wars spanning a continent.to be rubes, fundamentalists with no taste developed for nuance or shades of gray.

[_1 Iron]

Thank you Gadianton. Interesting post, and I have to admit some of it is opaque to me. The latter paragraph in particular.

I hope that nothing I said indicated I am willing to "trash the Bible". I love reading the Bible, and try to be open to variation in people's readings of it as well. For my part, I think that we are all seeing through a glass, darkly. And at our best I think we all who believe in it and it's message to any extent share a hope in that time when it will be made clear.

After reading A. Smith's response, I was curious how posters here viewed the Q source because its not something talked about on LDS forums very often. Whether strongly faithful boards or critical boards, it seems dialog on this and similar topics gets lost too easy in the quest to score points.

I thought I'd try it out here just to see what was "biting", to use a fishing phrase.

[_zeezrom]

"Q is not talked about very often" ??

Try "it is NEVER talked about."

The first time I heard of it was last year, after I left the correlated path.

Christian history has no official place in Mormonism. I doubt it will ever take hold in the correlated path.

Christian history to a Mormon is chapter 2 of Talmage's Jesus the Christ: Christ in the premortal world.

[_Aristotle Smith]

In another thread, Aristotle Smith said -

"..."Q" ...(is) a hypothetically reconstructed document, not an actual document."

I spent many hours discussing the potential "Q" source with an online minister who accepted it who pointed me to the works of Bruce Metzger. Through this, I found myself convinced of the evidence. It is very probable that there is a work or works that existed that informed the writers of atleast two of the Gospels. Yet, A. Smith, in your response above I feel you reject this possibility. Is this true? And to open this up to all, what are your views of the "Q" source? And what is your religious belief currently if you don't mind sharing?

No, I don't reject the document Q at all, I think there was a Q document that both Matthew and Luke used as a source in their gospels. However, because there is no actual Q document, one must treat it differently and never pretend that it does actually exist. This mainly puts restrictions on how it can be used, but I think the basic deduction that it was used is correct. My main point in the previous thread was that I saw you using the existence of Q in a way that is incompatible with the information that we have about it.

For myself, I see many teachings in the LDS church that are not only comparable with this possibility, but that almost rely on it. We are, as a generation, under condemnation for not living the scripture we currently have. LDS are all but familiar with the notion of lost or sealed scripture. If there is a more pure "Q" document that contains the fullness of the Gospel from which subsequent writers took the most palatable parts (meaning it could contain much more than what is reflected in Matthew or Luke) for their intended audiences, I don't think anything in LDS teachings is troubled by this claim. Certainly, church leadership cites these works all the time. And while the inspired translation gave us the rich truths of Moses yet hardly expounds on the New Testament, I think this is very similar to the people of the new world having and teaching from the brass plates while having a firm belief and faith in Christ.

My belief, from an LDS perspective, is that we have the scripture we can endure for now. And we as a people have yet to really tap into it to be worthy of any other promised scripture. A potential "Q" source could fall in that category.

So, what say you?

In a generic sense, sure LDS might be more open to finding extra documents. However, in this case I think you are again using Q incorrectly. Q actually tends to restrict and lessen the amount of information we have on Jesus. Thus it's not so much lost scripture that adds to scripture, because scholars have realized that we have less than we thought. Mainly because whenever Matthew and Luke agree with each other (but not with Mark) one must conclude they were copying from a Q source, meaning we don't have two independent witnesses to a teaching or event, but one (Q).

Further, I think the existence of Q is actually a really big strike against the church, once you understand the nature of Q. Almost all scholars who posit Q will say that the Lukan version of Q is much closer to the original Q. So, the Sermon on the Plain is more likely to be Jesus' actual teaching than is the Sermon on the Mount. But what do we find in 3 Nephi? We find the Sermon on the Mount almost verbatim. Why is Jesus teaching the Nephites the version that is more likely to be later and less like the one he taught?

But it gets even worse. No one was sitting around with a tape recorder when Jesus taught. Thus all gospels, Q included, are the attempts to put the oral tradition into a historical account for verisimilitude. So when Luke writes the Sermon on the Plain, or Matthew the Sermon on the Mount, they are creating a speech to get the information across in a more memorable and literary fashion. This was common practice in the ancient world, the most famous is of course Thucydides funeral oration in his history of the Peloponnesian war.

So here's the big question. Why does the person who wrote 3 Nephi happen to reconstruct the sermon in 3 Nephi 12-14 in the exact same way as Matthew 5-7? That's a hell of a coincidence. Furthermore, why does he construct the later Matthean redaction and not the original, or at least the Lukan version? Even worse, why does he reconstruct the speech that mirrors the later (and more defective) Byzantine texts, and not the earlier texts that scholars have been able to piece together using textual criticism? You would think someone just opened up their KJV and copied the stuff! That's because that is what happened.

[_lostindc]

Has any LDS apologist attempted to tackle Q and specifically 3 Nephi? I would love to hear their reasoning.

Further, I think the existence of Q is actually a really big strike against the church, once you understand the nature of Q. Almost all scholars who posit Q will say that the Lukan version of Q is much closer to the original Q. So, the Sermon on the Plain is more likely to be Jesus' actual teaching than is the Sermon on the Mount. But what do we find in 3 Nephi? We find the Sermon on the Mount almost verbatim. Why is Jesus teaching the Nephites the version that is more likely to be later and less like the one he taught?

But it gets even worse. No one was sitting around with a tape recorder when Jesus taught. Thus all gospels, Q included, are the attempts to put the oral tradition into a historical account for verisimilitude. So when Luke writes the Sermon on the Plain, or Matthew the Sermon on the Mount, they are creating a speech to get the information across in a more memorable and literary fashion. This was common practice in the ancient world, the most famous is of course Thucydides funeral oration in his history of the Peloponnesian war.

So here's the big question. Why does the person who wrote 3 Nephi happen to reconstruct the sermon in 3 Nephi 12-14 in the exact same way as Matthew 5-7? That's a hell of a coincidence. Furthermore, why does he construct the later Matthean redaction and not the original, or at least the Lukan version? Even worse, why does he reconstruct the speech that mirrors the later (and more defective) Byzantine texts, and not the earlier texts that scholars have been able to piece together using textual criticism? You would think someone just opened up their KJV and copied the stuff! That's because that is what happened.

[_MCB]

The analogy is so good. Any LDS academic who would accept the Q hypothesis would be three sneezes from apostasy. It would be rip-roaringly funny.
S/R

[_Aristotle Smith]

Has any LDS apologist attempted to tackle Q and specifically 3 Nephi? I would love to hear their reasoning.

I have never seen an LDS apologist tackle Q specifically.

However, I have seem them deal with some of the issues surrounding 3 Nephi 12-14 and Matthew 5-7. In the book New Approaches to the Book of Mormon, chapter 5 deals with some of the problems (mostly text critical) surrounding 3 Nephi 12-14. The chapter is a little technical, but it's worth the effort. It's online in its entirety here:

http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=10171

FARMS did do a rebuttal to that article in one of their Review of Books issues. Here's the link to the rebuttal:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publica ... m=1&id=137

I read them both a few years ago. If I remember correctly, the rebuttal is totally inadequate. At one point Skousen basically ends up saying we can never know that text criticism is reliable. This is just a variation on the old, "Well, the evidence against Joseph Smith is pretty bad, but was can never know FOR SURE, so we can safely ignore it." Keep in mind, this is the guy who used text criticism to make the critical edition of the Book of Mormon, but suddenly finds it inadequate when it gives strong evidence that 3 Nephi 12-14 is copied directly from the KJV.

[_1 Iron]

No, I don't reject the document Q at all, I think there was a Q document that both Matthew and Luke used as a source in their gospels. However, because there is no actual Q document, one must treat it differently and never pretend that it does actually exist. This mainly puts restrictions on how it can be used, but I think the basic deduction that it was used is correct. My main point in the previous thread was that I saw you using the existence of Q in a way that is incompatible with the information that we have about it.

I appreciate the clarification A. Smith. I have to admit that I chuckled when I then read this by you -

Almost all scholars who posit Q will say that the Lukan version of Q is much closer to the original Q. So, the Sermon on the Plain is more likely to be Jesus' actual teaching than is the Sermon on the Mount. But what do we find in 3 Nephi? We find the Sermon on the Mount almost verbatim. Why is Jesus teaching the Nephites the version that is more likely to be later and less like the one he taught?

The reason I found this humorous was, as you recall, the manner in which you had rejected it's consideration in the other thread. In that other thread you had rejected the comparison of “Q” to the discovery of the earlier account of Joseph Smith's first vision because of it's hypothetical nature. Since we did not actually have a physical document to compare with the known text, as you noted again above, you urged caution in how far a person could go using it to compare content as I read your response.

And yet, we now find you comparing the hypothetical content of this source to the Book of Mormon when it appears to suit your needs.

“Jolly good!” as a John Cleese character would say.

I think this serves as a good example to your point why caution is required in how “Q” is used. At this point, I can simply suggest that the true “Q” if we had it would support the Matthew text most closely since we don’t actually have it to compare with anything, that Joseph Smith relied on a loose translation method for quoting this portion of the Bible, and we can then go on to disagree for any number of posts, rather spectacularly I would hope to everyone’s amusement, if we choose to force the issue. Yet that’s hardly valid or supportable from either position if we were to set emotion to the side for the moment and just consider what “Q” means overall to the Christian community. I am willing to play it either way, but I have to admit I hope that we could step back from this direction and pursue one more profitable. I’ve made my case as to why it’s not a real issue for the LDS faith. I don’t see your point being a challenge either. I believe that we, as a generation, are under condemnation for not living or accepting the scripture we have, therefore I see no reason to take issue with God giving Joseph Smith the existing words of the Sermon on the Mount in place of more pure language for this same generation in the Book of Mormon.

So, if we may, perhaps we can return to the “Q” source and what it means to your belief in scripture? As a former Mormon turned Christian, do you feel you are more willing to accept Luke over Matthew because of your knowledge of “Q”? Or do you read both with an equal eye?