(Conclusion of my Easter Posts collection !) It’s a Secular Easter: Reading the New Testament From A Non-Superstitious Point of View!
The “Q” source, a hypothetical document in historical Jesus studies, is thought to contain sayings of Jesus shared by Matthew and Luke but not Mark. Since Q is reconstructed from these shared texts, it primarily focuses on Jesus’ teachings, such as parables and ethical instructions, rather than narrative events.
Scholars generally agree that Q does not explicitly mention Jesus’ death, crucifixion, or resurrection. It lacks clear references to these events or any theological emphasis on them being necessary for salvation. Instead, Q portrays Jesus as a wisdom teacher or prophetic figure, emphasizing his sayings and ethical demands over a passion narrative or soteriological framework.
For example, passages attributed to Q (e.g., Luke 11:2-4, Matthew 6:9-13 for the Lord’s Prayer) focus on teachings about prayer, the kingdom of God, and moral behavior, with no direct allusion to crucifixion or resurrection. Some scholars argue Q might imply an expectation of vindication (e.g., in sayings about the Son of Man), but this is vague and not explicitly tied to resurrection or salvation through death.
However, the absence of these themes in Q is debated, as it depends on how one reconstructs Q and interprets its scope. The consensus leans toward Q being a sayings collection, not a narrative of Jesus’ death or resurrection, unlike the canonical Gospels.
This is not generally considered to be thought provoking for conventional “cross-resurrection salvation” reading of the New Testament because our other generally considered oldest source, the letters of Paul, is replete with the cross and Jesus’ death (“I resolved to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified”). On the other hand, Pauline specialist Nina Livesey’s recent book invites us to consider the possibility of a date of the Pauline letters into the second century post 2nd Jewish revolt: The Bar Kokhba Revolt took place from 132 to 136 CE. Mark seems to use Paul, Matthew seems to use Q and Mark, and Luke seems to use Q, Mark, and Matt.
Dr. Markus Vinzent notes the 10 letter collection of letters perhaps pseudonymously attributed to Paul that Marcion had seem to be redacted to produce the 14 canonical letters attributed to Paul. Irenaeus was the first to show knowledge of the pastorals and Hebrews. Our first evidence is Marcion’s 10 letter collection because we don’t have the canonical collection by that time. There seems to be evidence of two collections Marcion was working with as earlier, the Deutero-Paulines and seven Paulines. The order of the 7 Pauline texts seems to be the same in the canonical ones.
The canonical redactors put a Pauline letter between each of the Deutero-Paulines to make them seem like they fit as part of the larger collection. Marcion’s collection has one section where women are to be subjugated to men: Ephesians. This contradicts his seven Pauline epistles, and so should be earlier than Marcion. The canonical redactors added the idea that women should be subjugated to men into Colossians – it’s not there in Marcion. For the Marcionite Paul, Paul says the law says women are subjugated to and should be taught by men, but the Law is no longer valid. The canonical redactors introduce the subjugation of women into the canonical letters, and thus they invented the idea of Paul we have today. The authenticity of the seven Pauline letters of Marcion are disputed by Livesey following the critique of such readers as the Dutch Radical School and Hermann Detering, and she shows certain Pauline attack points like the critique of circumcision more naturally fit post Bar Kokhba revolt than mid first century. The seven-letter group of Marcion’s letter collection may pre-date Marcion, but it may not do so by very much time. All that is really established is regarding Marcion’s ten letter collection seven form a distinct group attributable to one author, which in no way establishes by how much time this precedes Marcion or if this goes back to an historical Paul. Marcion’s three letter collection is pseudonymous, so the 7-letter collection could be as well. If the Pauline letters are pseudonymous Paul might just be an idealized figure representing the Old Testament prediction that at the end of days/age a prophet would bring the message of God to the pagans. This could have been triggered by apocalypticism surrounding The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE). We should attend carefully to Livesey’s analogy of the pseudonymous letters of Plato and Hugo Mendez’s analysis of the forged epistles of John. The canonical gospels fit the canonical Paul because they were redacted that way, just as Marcion’s gospel fits Marcion’s collection of Pauline letters.
We thought previously in this blog series how Mark, Matthew and Luke’s reference to the Olivet discourse (In Mark 13) seems to reference the Bar Kokhba Revolt, and so among other reasons would date the gospels into a hundred years after the supposed death of Jesus (if placing his death in the age of Pilate is right). Some scholars speculate that Q might indirectly reference Roman authorities in sayings about persecution or judgment (e.g., Luke 12:11-12, Matthew 10:17-18), but these are general and do not name Pilate specifically. The consensus is that Q does not mention him.
As I noted previously, Hermann Detering and others argue for a significantly later date for the composition of the Gospel of Mark than the mainstream scholarly consensus, which typically places it around 65–75 CE. Detering proposed that Mark was written no earlier than 136 CE, after the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE). His argument is primarily based on his analysis of Mark 13 (the “Synoptic Apocalypse” or “Olivet Discourse”), which he considered an independent literary unit reflecting the historical context of the Bar Kokhba Revolt rather than the First Jewish-Roman War (66–74 CE). He suggested that this chapter, and by extension the Gospel, was composed in response to the events of the early 2nd century, particularly the revolt’s aftermath. Detering contended that there is no explicit evidence of Mark’s existence until the mid-2nd century, with the earliest clear references appearing in Irenaeus (ca. 180 CE). He questioned whether Justin Martyr (ca. 150 CE) knew the Synoptic Gospels, suggesting Justin’s “Memoirs of the Apostles” referred to other gospel-like literature, not Mark specifically
I tried previously to show how a moral-influence death of Jesus like the soldier in Luke recognizing Jesus as innocent is actually more fundamental to the New Testament message than substitutionary atonement theology. After all, how does a child in Africa being punished for a murderer in Chicago serve Justice? Price notes Luke addresses his Gospel and Acts to “most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3, Acts 1:1), suggesting a person of high status, or a symbolic name (“lover of God”) for a broader audience. Taken internally for Luke-Acts, a specific historical figure might be intended given the honorific “most excellent” (used for officials like Felix in Acts 23:26). If Luke-Acts has a late date this could be referring to Theophilus of Antioch who was born around 120 and died 183-190 CE. Luke’s gospel is first mentioned around 160-70 CE by Irenaeus. No one quoted it earlier than that. It’s common apologetic practice to identify the earliest point a gospel could be, e.g., 70 CE for Mark, and dating it as close to that date as possible since that is closest to the life of Jesus.
No gospel narrative is quoted by the apostolic fathers and some think they seem to have an apocryphal appearance and not authoritative. The genre is similar to ancient Hellenistic romances like “Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe.” Such novels were most prominent in the second century and had instances of character escaping and surviving the cross. I’ve also noted previously that the Gospels are probably not earlier than the turn of the second century because the theme of the dead Jesus converting the soldier at the cross imitates the death of Cleomenes at the end of Plutarch’s parallel lives of Cleomenes. The Gospels also seem to reflect some of the style innovations of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.
Talbert noted that elements of Luke-Acts seem to reflect the second century apologists like Irenaeus claiming they got their sources from eyewitnesses, unlike the Gnostics who might have been hallucinating with their special revelation. Luke’s gospel also reflects elements of the 2nd and 3rd century infancy gospels attesting to the “divine brat” Jesus.
As we noted previously following Ehrman, Luke-Acts doesn’t have a substitutionary atonement theology, and so seems to be modifying previous writings such as the Pauline letters, Mark, and Matthew to make this more explicit and bring it in line with deathless Q. For Luke Jesus’ death is exemplary moral influence theology, but doesn’t take on a life of its own and create a “sacrifice appeasing the wrath of god” theology so prevalent in the ancient world.
There is no evidence as Ehrman thinks that the material unique to Matthew was from a special source, anymore than the material unique to Luke. It looks like the evangelists just invented them. There are parables unique to Luke that are complete short stories – often with a central character wondering “what shall I do? I will do so and so …” Luke also has a tendency to interpret his parables before he tells them. Luke Acts seems to use 2nd Maccabees, Euripides’ Bacchae and Josephus.
All in all, as this series of posts have shown, the Gospels and letters may be entirely too late to function as reliable sources about the historical Jesus. Indeed, as I mentioned previously, Sarah Rollens shows the simplistic nature of Q may represent an early source contrasting to the sophistication of the gospels, but as she also shows we need to be skeptical because the form and content are so reflective of the job nature of the Q writers it seems particularly difficult to sort out the content from the author.
PREVIOUSLY In This Series:
(4) The Late Date of the Gospels: Supplement
(Conclusion) The Late Dates of the Gospels
(2/2) The Late Date of the Gospels
Easter Post: Dating the Gospels
Easter Post 2/2: Scribal Galilee by Sarah Rollens