Finding the Shards #14
At this juncture in the history of Q's discovery, two major obstacles kept the significance of its challenge from coming to fruition. One obstacle was that Q was still thought of mainly as part of the solution to the synoptic problem. Much had been learned about Q, but it was defined solely as a source document for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, not as a text with its own integrity. By now the standard description was that Q consisted largely of the sayings of Jesus and that its length was at least 225 verses. This judgment was based on the material that appeared in both Matthew and Luke, the so-called minimal text. But Q may have been longer, since Matthew and Luke each contained Q-like material not present in the other gospel. Of the material clearly in common, approximately one-half was all but identical. The language of composition was Greek. And when it was seen that Matthew was responsible for arranging much of the Q material into speeches on specific themes, but that Luke presented the same mate- rial in two large blocks, one could account for differences in the order of the sayings. In general, the order of Q material in Luke was found to be closer to the original. So although much had been learned, Q was still mainly considered a collection of isolated sayings. It was far from being recognized as a book of instructions with its own history, much less as a charter for a Jesus movement that did not have a narrative gospel.