Q (from “Quelle”, meaning “source”) is a hypothetical source that most historians maintain the authors of both the gospels of Matthew and Luke used when writing their respective accounts (Kloppenborg 2008, 1519).

It is necessary to posit a second common source in order to account for the roughly 4,000 words shared by the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which they did not derive from Mark’s gospel, which constitutes their other major source. In much of the ‘Q’ material, Matthew and Luke both show high verbal agreement, and more than one-third of the units occur in the same relative order in their gospels (even though they usually connect Q with different Markan contexts). According to scholar John S. Kloppenborg, these two features make it very probable that Q was a written document rather than simply a body of oral tradition (1987, 72–80; 2000, 56–72). 

Most historians maintain that Q was composed in Greek, though probably on the basis of Greek and Aramaic oral traditions, and consisted largely of sayings collected into clusters or proto-speeches and chreiai, with a few introductory and transitional phrases but no continuous narrative framework (Kloppenborg 2008, 1520). Galilee is posited as the origin of Q based on various details,

“Q’s attention to basic issues of subsistence, local violence and conflict, and debt, and its negative representation of cities, judicial processes, rulers, and the priestly hierocracy suggest an origin in towns and villages of the lower Galilee, probably before the first revolt, but achieving its final form near the time of the revolt or even slightly after it” (Kloppenborg 2008, 1520).

Twentieth-century scholarship produced several reconstructions of Q in Greek by Adolf von Harnack, Athanasius Polag, Wolfgang Schenk, Frans Neirynck, and John S. Kloppenborg. The International Q Project (IQP) later published in 2000 a “critical edition” of Q, along with a multi-volume database of reconstructions from 1838 to the present (Robinson, Hoffmann, and Kloppenborg 2000). The IQP text of Q contains approximately 4,000 words in 268 verses. The unbracketed verses are assigned in whole or in part to Q with a high probability, and others ([[]]) less so:

3:2b–3, 7–9, 16b–17, [[21–22]]; 4:1–4, 9–12, 5–8, 13, 16; 6:20b–23, 27–28, 35cd, 29, [[Q/Matt 5:41]], 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37–38, 39–45, 46–49; 7:1b, 3, 6b–10, 18–19, 22–23, 24–28, [[29–30]], 31–35; 9:57–60; 10:2–16, 21–22, 23–24; 11:2–4, 9–13, 14–15, 17–20, [[21–22]], 23, 24–26, [[27–28]], 16, 29–32, 33–35, 39a, 42, 39b–41, 43–44, 46b, 52, 47–51; 12:2–12, 22–31, 33–34, 39–40, 42b–46, [[49]], 51, 53, [[54–56]], 58–59; 13:18–19, 20–21, 24–27, 29, 28, [[30]], 34–35; 14:[[11]], 14:16–21, 23, 26–27; 17:33; 14:34–35; 15:4–7, [[8–10]]; 16:13, 16, 17, 18; 17:1b–2, 3b–4, 6b, [[20–21]], 23–24, 37b, 26“–27, 28–29, 30, 34–35; 19:12–13, 14, 15b–24, 26; 22:28, 30. 

A few other units of special Lukan material have sometimes been proposed as belonging to Q: 6:24–26; 9:61–62; 11:5–8, 36; 12:13–14, 16–20. Less frequently, Matt 10:23 and 11:28–30 are ascribed to Q.

There is general scholarly agreement that Q is strongly influenced by deuteronomistic theology, in reference to Israel’s repetitive cycle of sinfulness, punishment by God, prophetic calls to repentance, and renewed calls to repentance with threats of judgment (Jacobson 1992; Kloppenborg 2008). In this material, prophets function as repentance preachers who are rejected, persecuted, and even killed. 

Q begins with an oracle of coming judgment (3:7–9, 16–17). Repentance is presented as a core theological category (3:8; 10:13; 11:32) and views the rejection of Jesus (and John the Baptist) through the lens of the deuteronomistic theology of the terrible fate of the prophets (7:33–34; 11:47–51; 13:34–35). The story of Lot appears on several occasions (3:2b–3, 7–9; 10:12; 17:28–29, 34–35), also serving to provide a shock announcement of an imminent fiery judgment.

Q has a Christology although it lacks the terms Messiah (Christos), Son of David, and King of Israel (Kloppenborg 2008, 1526). Q’s temptation narrative employs “Son of God” twice, although the primary reference to Jesus is “Son of Man” (6:22; 7:34; 9:58; 11:30). It refers to a coming advocate or judge (12:8, 10, 40; 17:24, 26, 30), but not in connection to Jesus as a suffering figure. Along with John the Baptist, the Son of Man is viewed as a child of the heavenly Sophia (7:33–35).

Q’s depiction of Sophia sending (11:49–51; cf. 13:34–35) and vindicating prophetic figures, including both John the Baptist and Jesus, has led some scholars to conclude that Q has a Sophia Christology or Sophiology (10:21–22).

References and Resources

Jacobson, Arland D. 1992. The First Gospel: An Introduction to Q, FF Reference Series. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge.

Kloppenborg, John S. 1987. The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections. SAC, Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press.

Kloppenborg, John S. 1988. Q Parallels: Synopsis, Critical Notes, and Concordance, FF, New Testament. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge.

Kloppenborg, John S. 1990. Q-Reader. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press.

Kloppenborg, John S. 1996. “The Sayings Gospel Q and the Quest of the Historical Jesus.” The Harvard Theological Review 89:307–344.

Kloppenborg, John S. 2000. Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

Kloppenborg, John S. 2008. “Q.” In The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus, edited by Craig A. Evans, 1519–1530. London and New York: Routledge. (Apple Books pagination).

Robinson, James M., Hoffmann, Paul., and Kloppenborg, John S. 2000. The Critical Edition of Q: A Synopsis, Including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas, with English, German and French Translations of Q and Thomas, Hermeneia Supplements. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress.