My Comment in a BSA post titled Team Q Vs. Team Farrer was:
In my opinion, to make the case Luke used Matthew and there was no single Q MS, Matthew would have had to had Mark and Matthew as he must have liked Mark’s order but not Matthew’s. So, he wove Matthew into Mark in a different order from what Matthew had. Without Mark in front of him he would not have been so close to Mark’s order.
The significantly different birth and resurrection narratives are also hard to explain when he used so much of Mark with few changes.
I also think Tesla’s et al’s point about there being some degree of competition occurring is plausible.
I want to add a fourth possibility and that is none of the three were likely cast in stone with the first editions. Mark had been around for 20 +- years when Luke was written and likely was not edited— or if it was then Mark Ver 2 never was disseminated very far and so is lost. Whereas Matthew and Luke are more likely to have been tweaked per the competition hypothesis.
A fifth thought is if there were more than one Q then Matthew and Luke would likely have woven them in differently. I expect there was more than one collection and Matthew may have had a different set than Luke.
When I add up the issues, I support the Q hypothesis.
From Michael L Waddell, the OP of the post “What we talk about when we talk about Q” at BSA:
Or to use a different example, most Q-scholars imagine that all of the double-tradition material was present in one source, but that’s not a requirement. You could instead imagine that the John-the-Baptist material was one source that both Matthew and Luke used, and that there was a separate sayings source that both used. Which source would have been Q? Well, both, or maybe neither. Q is the hypothesis that the double-tradition material is due to a source or sources that Luke and Matthew had in common, not any one hypothetical document.
So anyway, I’m sure people will still continue to refer to Q as if it were a document, but I think we’ll all understand each other better if we keep this in mind: it only makes sense to talk about Q in the context of a theory that Luke and Matthew are independent. Even if Q-scholars are right, Q wouldn’t actually exist as a document. It would only exist as an explanation for the double-tradition material.
Another Waddell comment in the same post.
I wanted to point out two arguments for Q that I think are underappreciated.
First, as Hugo brought up, Luke’s version of Lord’s Prayer really does seem more primitive, as does his version of the beatitudes. You can maybe explain the beatitude differences with Luke’s obsession with the poor, but still, it’s a lot easier to imagine Matthew expanding a simpler “Blessed are the poor”, and Luke leaving it alone, than it is to imagine Luke truncating “poor in spirit” and “hunger and thirst for righteousness” in primitivizing ways that just happen to support his views. And the Lord’s Prayer! I think even Hugo has a difficult time imagining Luke reading Matthews version and truncating it down to his version. That’s why in our last lecture, when he was imagining what Luke might have thought when reading Matthew, he said “Okay, I like this bit, but his version of the Lord’s Prayer — that’s not how we say it in my church!” …
The other underappreciated strength of the Q hypothesis is just how coherent it is. What I mean is, it would be easy to imagine a situation in which the Matthew-Luke overlap was all over the place — a parable here, a miracle story there, and bit of Jesus on the cross in one place, etc. And that would not form any hypothetical source that would have any reason to exist. That’s honestly what I would expect to see if Luke were using Matthew as a source. But instead, if you take all the Matthew-Luke overlap and list it all out, it forms a very plausible work in a known genre! One can easily imagine why a pre-gospel group would preserve quotes attributed to Jesus, even if they weren’t able or interested in producing a biography. And the Gospel of Thomas shows us that there are gospels in this genre that really did exist. It would be a heck of a coincidence if the only parts Luke chose to copy out of Matthew happened to form a sayings gospel. It’s much easier to believe that it looks that way because it is that way.
The list below is in order the argument is made. Most of this is from ChatGPT unless otherwise noted.
This is accepting Markan Priority; i.e. Mark was the first Gospel written.
- The Gospels of Matthew and Luke rely heavily on Mark as a source, but they don’t copy it verbatim throughout. Scholars generally believe that around 90% of the verses in Mark are found in Matthew and over 50% in Luke. These percentages reflect a strong dependency on Mark, particularly for narrative structure, themes, and details, but Matthew and Luke also include material not found in Mark. Matthew, for instance, has the Sermon on the Mount and a genealogy of Jesus, while Luke includes unique parables (e.g., the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son) and an infancy narrative. (ChatGPT)
- Both Matthew and Luke generally follow Mark’s sequence of stories as explained below from ChatGPT.
- Matthew generally follows Mark’s order of stories, though he occasionally rearranges events or groups teachings differently. Matthew’s Gospel incorporates most of Mark’s content in a similar sequence, which suggests a dependence on Mark’s structure. However, Matthew often groups teachings into long discourses (such as the Sermon on the Mount) rather than spreading them throughout the narrative, as Mark does.
- There are a few minor exceptions where Matthew reorders events to fit his thematic emphasis or narrative flow. For instance, the story of Jesus calming the storm and the calling of the disciples appear in a slightly different sequence in Matthew than in Mark. But overall, Matthew largely retains Mark’s chronology, showing a clear reliance on Mark as a source.
- Luke mostly follows Mark’s order of stories, but he diverges more than Matthew does. While Luke includes much of Mark’s material and sequence, he frequently reorganizes events to fit his own theological and literary aims.
- Luke is especially known for interspersing unique stories and teachings not found in Mark, including well-known parables like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
- A notable structural difference is that Luke adds a large “travel narrative” (Luke 9:51–19:27) in which Jesus resolutely journeys toward Jerusalem. This section disrupts Mark’s sequence, creating a long central portion unique to Luke’s Gospel. Additionally, Luke reorders some other events, such as placing the rejection at Nazareth (Luke 4:16–30) at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, whereas Mark places it later (Mark 6:1–6).
- In summary, Luke follows Mark’s order to a certain extent but diverges significantly to incorporate additional material and to emphasize themes like Jesus’ mission to the marginalized and his purposeful journey to Jerusalem.
- Matthew generally follows Mark’s order of stories, though he occasionally rearranges events or groups teachings differently. Matthew’s Gospel incorporates most of Mark’s content in a similar sequence, which suggests a dependence on Mark’s structure. However, Matthew often groups teachings into long discourses (such as the Sermon on the Mount) rather than spreading them throughout the narrative, as Mark does.
- Luke and Mark have a lot of text, nearly verbatim, that is not in Mark. That text is called the Q Source. The inclusion of Q material in Matthew and Luke is often in a different order. Scholars believe that both Gospels used this shared “Q” source, but each writer incorporated and organized the material to suit their distinct narrative and theological purposes (see last paragraph below). For instance:
- Matthew often integrates Q material into five large blocks of Jesus’s teaching, each ending with a phrase like “when Jesus had finished…” (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7). This structure creates a framework that mirrors the five books of the Torah, emphasizing Jesus as a new lawgiver.
- Luke, on the other hand, spreads Q material more evenly throughout his Gospel, often placing teachings and parables within the flow of the narrative. For instance, much Q material appears in Luke’s unique “travel narrative” section (Luke 9:51–19:27), where Jesus is on a journey to Jerusalem. This arrangement helps Luke emphasize Jesus’s ministry to outsiders and his approach to Jerusalem.
- The argument is based on the observation of the different use of the material not in Mark is:
- as there is nearly verbatim material in Matt and Luke not in Mark and that material is mixed into the material from Mark differently when both generally followed Mark’s order.
- refutes the hypothesis that Luke copied Matthew as it is not plausible that Luke would have generally followed Mark’s order but then identified and rearranged random passages and stories.
Follow up question is why would the authors use a different order of the different material? A: While both Gospels use Q material, they organize it differently to highlight their distinct theological themes:
- Matthew as a teacher and fulfillment of the law, and
- Luke as a prophet concerned with social justice and inclusion.
