Q: Sayings Source or Narrative Gospel?
This website is devoted to the research into Q by David B. Sloan, Ph.D. For the last 150 years, most Gospels scholars have been
convinced that when Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels they used Mark's Gospel as a source, but they did not use each other's gospel.
When Matthew and Luke share material that they did not derive from Mark, they are dependent upon a now-lost source, which scholars have
named Q. Since most of the non-Markan material Matthew and Luke share is sayings of Jesus, this source has been assumed to be a
collection of sayings or speeches of Jesus. Dr. Sloan argues that there are three problems with current ideas about Q:
- Q was much more extensive than the double tradition. The Statistics page shows that
Matthew and Luke have a tendency to abbreviate their sources. This means that the current tendency to limit Q to the double tradition
(Matthew's and Luke's shared material) is problematic. If we tried to reconstruct Mark by looking only at the portions of Mark that
both Matthew and Luke preserved, we would end up with only 53% of Mark's Gospel! The situation is no better when we consider
merely the sayings of Jesus in Mark. Matthew used material from Q to supplement Mark's Gospel but did not intend to preserve Q in his
gospel, which means that there is likely a whole lot of Q material that is found in Luke alone. For more on this, see
Dr. Sloan's SBL presentation on the Lukan travel narrative, his
EGLBS presentation on Luke 3-4, and his Q conference presentation,
Maximalist Q.
- Q was a narrative gospel. Because Matthew mostly uses Q material to fill out his five discourses of Jesus, Q has been
viewed as a collection of sayings of Jesus. But Q clearly contained narrative episodes (the temptation of Jesus, the healing of a
centurion's servant, an inquiry by John's disciples, interactions with potential followers of Jesus, an exorcism, etc.). Dr. Sloan argues
that about 80% of the words in Q were words of Jesus, but that Q itself was a narrative gospel. On the evidence for this, see Dr. Sloan's
EGLBS presentation, "Q as a Narrative Gospel." Be sure also to see Dr. Sloan's
SBL presentation on the passion narrative in Q.
- Q is referenced several times in the church fathers as "the Gospel according to the Hebrews." This gospel that was so
important that Matthew and Luke both used it as a source did not disappear in a day or even in a century. It is the gospel that was used
by Jewish Christians until the almost complete disappearance of Jewish Christianity in the seventh century. Dr. Sloan will present the
evidence for this for the first time at SBL 2017. Here is a preview of the paper. The Contents page on this site includes material from this gospel.
About this Site
There are a number of handy tools here that can be accessed through the menu at the top of any page:
- a defense of the existence of Q;
- a statistics page that analyzes Matthew's and Luke's use of Mark, showing their tendency toward abbreviation;
- a synopsis of the Gospels given in Mark's order;
- a synopsis of passages included in the Critical Edition of Q (later to be replaced with a synopsis
of every passage that Dr. Sloan includes in Q);
- a list of all of the passages Dr. Sloan includes in Q (later to be given in more detail, with grades for each
inclusion);
- a concordance that categorizes results into triple tradition, double tradition, and Sondergut results; and
- a bibliography with over 1,000 works on Q that can be searched by topic, author, Scripture passage, or date.
About the Author
David B. Sloan has a Ph.D. in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and currently teaches for John Carroll
University, Malone University, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has published a couple articles and a dictionary entry on Q
and is currently writing a monograph arguing that Q was a narrative gospel. He can be contacted at
and has a personal website at www.DavidBSloan.com.