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Re: Q

As usual, Litwak is writing from a position of ignorance.
He clearly has not been involved in Q studies for the last ten
years.  There is a great deal of consistency about the nature of
Q as it is understood by those who are actually working on it.
We do read Farmer's stuff; we just find it unconvincing and full
of special pleading (I don't think that he reads OUR stuff).
And the comments on the Gospel of Thomas MIGHT have worked
twenty years ago, but are clearly out of date today.  It's a
moving target, Ken.  You can't coast along on what you learned
in seminary or wherever, however many years ago.  Petrie's
"'Q' is only what you make it" was published in 1959, and if he
had been right, the International Q Project of the Society of
Biblical Literature wouldn't be in business today.  Petrie was
wrong, and so we are here.

The only realist alternative is, I think, to take William
Peterson's suggestion (on another list, if memory serves me
right) that the text of the NT was so fluid before the 4th century
that what we have before us is basically a 4th century NT, and
we can know next to nothing about Christian history before
that time.

Sterling
--
Sterling G. Bjorndahl, bjorndahl@Augustana.AB.CA 
Augustana University College, Camrose, Alberta, Canada (403) 679-1516
  When dealing with computers, a little paranoia is usually appropriate.
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