Nov 13
A quick Q addendum
The Quixotic Infidel contributes to the ongoing Q discussion. He offers a footnote on this post of mine, saying:
I would object to coming to a negative conclusion regarding Q simply based on how “irritating” the deconstruction and parsing of a merely theoretical source by its proponents can be.
Of course, I quite agree, although I would also note how much emotional judgement is (however disguised) very often caught up in intellectual judgement. But let me put it another way. When something gets magnified from a working hypothesis to a full-blown reconstruction, its faults become ever more obvious. The sheer preposterousness of claims about the early tradition history and stratification of a non-existent text is itself a reason to go back and question whether something that leads to such strange conclusions is at all well founded. Or again, the taller the house of cards is built, the stronger the temptation to pull one out and see what happens.
November 14th, 2007 at 11:27 am
When I first read they were attempting to stratify Q I thought they were crazy. But, something I read in Burton Mack seemed to make sense that it has some validity. The Gospel of Thomas has only sayings from the first two hypothetical levels of Q and not the third. Could that be chance or was it cunningly devised? Other options?
November 14th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I’m going to write a separate post on this one!
November 14th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
[...] a comment on my quick Q addendum, Steve Allison says something I felt needed more interaction than a further response in the [...]