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Q and Papias
I know I'll regret this but while I don't deny "conclusively" any literary
relationship, I would argue for much more of a dependence on a common
oral source. It makes sense to me that in the Jerusalem church there was
a common glob of teaching, repeated over and over, which all the apostles
contributed to and knew. Since I trace the contents of all the Gospels
to the apostles in one way or another (I KNOWWWWWWWWW that many will
disagree with that, so there's no point in telling me so), I have no
trouble seeing each of the Synoptic Gospels containing large amounts of that
common body of teaching. That makes more sense to me than a written Q that
sometimes was followed and sometimes heavily changed by the Gospel
writers. Why followit exactly one breath and depart radically the next? I
suppose my theory is for more of an "oral" Q, and I'm not claiming I can
show anything conclusive, but I think I can make a strong case against
literary dependence as all the departures from Q by one writer or the other
(and hwo could you ever figure out who) and large blocks missing from
one or other of the Gospels makes me doubt a single, written Quelle.
I'm not convinced of the arguments for Greisbach (spelling?) but I find the
arguments by its proponents against the Q hypothesis convincing, if not
conclusive. Is that fair? I think so.
Ken Litwak