The Gospel of Q: the Gospel that doesn’t exist
The gospel of Q doesn’t exist. It was absorbed into the gospels of Matthew and Luke. But the gospel of Q does exist. It can be reconstructed as a separate document, casting Christianity in a new light. Q. stands for Quelle, the German word for source. Scholars figured out that large parts of Matthew and Luke told not just the same story, but used almost the same words. Both are working with an oral tradition, but while oral traditions repeat set scenes, they do not repeat large sections of material almost word for word. So, scholars removed these sections and put them together, and lo Q was born. This is sometimes called the two-source hypothesis, Mark + Q = Matthew or Luke.
Q contains roughly 235 verses found in Matthew and Luke, about an equal number from each. Without Q, Matthew and Luke would have lost much of their content, the Sermon on the Mount aQ nd the Beatitudes becoming no more than passing references. Q. provides the content.
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